Let Your Hair Down
Meaning: To relax or be at ease
History: Parisian nobles risked condemnation from their peers if
they appeared in public without an elaborate hairdo. Some of the more intricate
styles required hours of work, so of course it was a relaxing ritual for these
aristocrats to come home at the end of a long day and let their hair down.
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LICE,
HUNGER, AND HAIR
During the second half of
the eighteenth century much of European and American fashion followed the
styles of Paris, France. In France the nobles of the court gathered at
Versailles, the palace of the French king. There, they had little to do except
gossip and design more and more excessive fashions. Men began to wear tall
wigs, made of human hair, horsehair, or goat's hair, that were dressed into
complex masses of curls. Women placed a horsehair cushion or
a wire frame on their heads, then wrapped their own hair over it and piled it
high in enormous decorative hairdos, which sometimes rose several feet above
the head. Proud hairdressers gave
their creations dramatic names, like coiffeurà
l'espoir (hairstyle of
hope) or coiffeur de la Liberté (hairstyle of liberty) and often topped them
off with huge ornaments, like sailing ships, windmills, and whole gardens of
flowers. Both men and women held their styles in place with large amounts of
hair pomade made
from beef fat and covered the whole thing with powder, usually made from wheat
or rice flour,
sometimes scented and dyed blue,
pink, or violet.
Because most Western
cultures of the time considered bathing to be dangerous, thorough cleaning of
the body was usually only attempted twice a year, in the spring and in the
fall. Therefore, perfumes and pouches of fragrant flower petals were used daily
to improve the smell of unwashed bodies. These did not, however, prevent
parasites like lice from taking up residence in the scalps of both rich and
poor. Lice are small insects that live in the hair of humans and other animals.
While the poor most often simply cut off lice-infested hair, the wealthy had to
consider their image. Wealthy men could at least remove their wigs and clean
them, often by baking them in the oven. They could also shave the head the wig
would conceal, and get rid of lice that way. Women however, often preserved
their elaborately designed hairdos for months, and lice and other pests were
frequently attracted to the fat and flour used to style the hair. Long-handled
silver claws were designed to reach in and scratch the itches caused by the
lice living inside the coiffure, or hairstyle, and it was not uncommon to see
these scratchers laid out with the silverware for guests to use at fancy dinner
parties.
One of the most important
effects of the lavishly styled hair of the French court was caused by the
powder itself. At a time when French peasants could barely afford the cost of a loaf of
bread, French noblemen
and noble-women stood in powder rooms covered with protective cloths, while
servants dusted their hair with great quantities of flour. Poor people who were
already angry about the extravagant lifestyle of the wealthy grew even more
resentful over this waste of perfectly good food on simple vanity. In 1789 this
anger exploded in the French Revolution (1789–99). The poor turned furiously on
the rich, determined to get revenge for all the wrongs that had been done.
Elaborate hairstyles were replaced by shorter, more natural styles, no doubt
much easier to keep lice-free, and flour was once again only used to make bread..
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