CHAPTER VIII
DUTIES EVERY WOMAN OWES TO HER HAIR
IT is Monday, and I note that my hair does not respond readily to the brush; that it lies lifeless under my fingers; that instead of being a live, bushy, glowing mass, it has diminished to a wisp scarcely larger than my two fingers. It is as though some witch in a rage had plucked it, hair by hair, from my head as I slept.
But that has happened too often to give me alarm. Once I wept over it. I thought that I was to become as the shiny-headed men that sit in the first rows of the opera and stare and stare. But that was long ago. Now I know when my hair shows these symptoms that it is dead, but only temporarily, and that with care I can resurrect it, make it live again.
With this lifeless condition of the hair I have always found two corresponding conditions of the scalp. The scalp is hot and dry. Also, the brushing reveals dandruff—light, fine and profuse. It is a condition that must be corrected.
First remove the dandruff. Hair cannot thrive when that fine, light powder lies upon the scalp, obstructing its pores. To rid one’s self of it the hair must be washed, not once but often. I resolve upon washing it every day for a week. I choose the time when I have had my bath. In the water I have dissolved half a cake of the best soap I can get. If upon analysis it is proven to be made of spermaceti all the better. I always have a new soap analyzed, as I do a new cold cream.
I part my hair, and, dipping a small brush the size of an ordinary toothbrush into the water, rub the parting vigorously. I part it again, and rub that parting, and the next, and the next, scrubbing it, as you say in this country, strenuously with the brush dipped in soapy water.
When this has been done I empty the bowl, and in a second water, in which the other half of the cake of soap is dissolved, I wash the hair again, but this time rub the scalp, not with the brush, but with my fingers. Then again and again and again, until the water is as clean as when it runs from the faucet, I rinse the hair.
Now comes the problem of drying it. The hair that is dried in the hot funnel becomes brittle and cracks. If it is dried by draughts of cold air its owner contracts neuralgia. It should be dried first by a brisk toweling. The towel should be rubbed quickly through the hair and upon the scalp, taking the first dripping stage of moisture from each of them. The rest of the drying should be done by the heat of the hands. With the tips of the fingers every bit of space on the scalp should be rubbed until dry.
As the scalp dries the hair dries, too. Last, that the hair may not hang together in matted strands, but stand fluffily, each hair for itself, there should be the last stage of the drying. This is the rubbing of the hair, strand by strand, between the hands. Even this one shampoo will prove that the hair that seemed to be dead is, after all, very much alive.
After the drying the hair should, of course, be brushed—adequately brushed. But there are curious ideas among women in this country as to what is adequate brushing. American friends of mine give the hair one hundred, even two hundred, strokes. I think this is too many. Excessive brushing drags upon the hair and loosens its roots. Forty strokes of the brush I believe to be quite enough. Less brushing, more massaging, is what is needed by all heads, especially the heads on which the hair is thinning.
After the forty strokes of the brush there should be massage. Dry massage always. If you begin with dry fingers you will find that your fingers soon become oily. The sebaceous glands yield their contents quickly to the pressure of fingers, and the released oil softens the hair and sets the tide of growth pouring into it.
It is well at this time to give the hair a sun and air bath. The hair is precious, a splendid frame for the face, and you can afford to give much time to saving it. Sit or stand near an open window. Let the sunshine pour its tonic into your hair. Let the air sweep through and about it. It will respond to the treatment as an invalid to his first drive after a long illness.
Let the hair rest as much as possible. Decline invitations, or, if you have accepted them, cancel the engagements. You can dispense with a few perfunctory meetings and greetings, a cup or two of tea, rather than with so important a part of your beauty as shining, healthful hair. Remain in your boudoir, with your hair loosened and hanging. When it is necessary to be visible to the world wear it in a somewhat different way, and use fewer hairpins.
On Tuesday I would use a different and more stimulating shampoo:
Pure liquid soap, 100 grams; carbonate of potassium, 20 grams; distilled water, 2 liters. These should be boiled until the soap is dissolved, then let cool. When cool add from 200 to 500 grains of tincture of vanilla or other favorite perfume.
A handful of this shampoo in a bowl of warm water will cleanse the hair of any dust it may have accumulated since Monday. The hair is now thoroughly clean. The next step is to stimulate it. For this purpose use the camomile mixture, made as follows:
Two handfuls of camomile; two quarts of water. Boil until the mixture is as black as after-dinner coffee. Usually fifteen minutes are quite enough. Pour it into two more quarts of cold water and place in a gallon jar.
Massage the scalp with it after the shampoo. This is a favorite preparation in France. There no grease nor oil is used on the hair.
To encourage the hair to grow an application of a good quinine mixture is a great aid. During the afternoon of the second day that I go into seclusion for my hair’s sake I massage the scalp lightly with such a tonic. Or I apply it before going to bed. Many of the quinine mixtures sold in the drug stores I have used with good effect, after having had them analyzed by chemists.
Here is a preparation which a friend becoming bald used to secure a splendid new lot of hair. Were I in so serious a state I might also use it:
Precipitated sulphur, 10 grams; alcohol (95 per cent.), 10 grams; distilled water, 50 grams; rosewater, 50 grams.
And here is another which, were my case radical, I would use:
Alcohol (95 per cent.), 100 grams; acetone, 100 grams; oil of cade, 10 grams; precipitated sulphur, 20 grams; pyrogallic acid, 2 grams; chrysophanic acid, 20 centigrams; bichloride of mercury, 40 centigrams.
On Wednesday I would do that which ordinarily I should do but twice or three times a year—I would singe the ends of my hair. Then again I would shampoo it with the preparation for which I gave the first recipe, and would again give it the tonic of air and sun bath.
And again I would use the camomile, but if one prefers to have the aid of the druggist here is a preparation that is much used in London with great satisfaction. I shall give it in the English measure:
Resorcine, 1 dram; chloral hydrate, 3 drams; sweet almond oil, 1 dram; chloroform, 6 drams; eau de cologne, 6 ounces.
On Thursday, if my hair is not showing great improvement, I may vary my shampoo. Here is an excellent cleansing one:
Extract of witch hazel, 1 pint; eau de cologne, 8 ounces; chloroform, 3 drams.
On Friday and Saturday I would repeat this shampoo, the massage and the sun and air bath.
By Sunday, with every morning a shampoo, a massage of the scalp for fifteen minutes—not long enough to irritate the nerves—and the sun and air baths and the repose, one’s hair should be excellently vigorous. If the rigorous treatment should have caused it to be too straight I would encourage it to curl by the application of rosewater and gum arabic in these quantities:
Gum arabic, 100 grams; rosewater, 400 grams.
Always in brushing the hair the strokes should be backward, straight back, instead of to the sides, for in that way the hair is aided to grow low on the forehead, which is a most desirable mark of beauty.
Before retiring I always braid my hair in two loose braids. I never use curling irons when I can avoid it. Use them cautiously. Better not at all, especially if your hair have a natural wave.
If your hair persistently continues to fall out, it is probably because of a generally lowered tone of your health. I should then resort to iron or arsenic hypodermic injections under the direction of a physician. When I have suffered from nervous exhaustion I have always taken this treatment at a physician’s prescription. I have found the iron particularly upbuilding. I would receive an injection every day for ten days, then rest three or four days, then begin again for another ten days until seven weeks have gone. Always at the end of that time I have felt rejuvenated.
And after my complexion my hair was the first to improve. Never attempt this without medical direction, I repeat. The injections of iron I preferred to taking it internally, thereby saving the teeth from the bad effects of the iron. Also the administering of medicines in this way prevents an unpleasant disturbance of the stomach.
If there be an unconquerable objection to the injections a physician will prescribe cod liver oil, or tablets containing quinine and phosphorus that are a tonic to the system.
If the hair be prematurely gray I should first take a general treatment for the system, hoping that the gray hair would fall out and a crop of natural color appear. Or if I could gain my own consent to dye my hair, I should go to a druggist’s and ask for a safe solution of henna. This is the one hair dye which I can recommend. It is harmless, but its range of usefulness is limited for it only dyes the hair red. It is prepared like this:
Henna leaves, 1 ounce; boiling water, 2 pints; henna powder, 1 ounce. Place the henna leaves in a stone jar. Pour over them the water. Allow the liquid to stand undisturbed for twelve hours. Then strain and heat until it reaches the boiling point. To the liquid add the henna powder. Stir thoroughly and strain once more. The hair must be thoroughly clean when it is applied, so the best time to apply it is immediately after a shampoo.
But do not place too much reliance upon the henna. Look to the state of your general health and be sure to keep the scalp cool, clean and moist. If this is done the next crop of hair—for we raise new hair every three years, you know—may come in the former natural color and the former unwelcome gray may disappear before the new crop. Use a good hair tonic to bring about that condition of the scalp. This is one that has been long and successfully used:
Glycerine, 2 ounces; alcohol, 1 pint; sulphate of quinine, 1 dram; oil of cloves, ½ dram; oil of lemon, 4 ounces; oil of bergamot, 1 ounce.
This, too, deserves recommendation:
Castor oil, 1 gill; alcohol, 3 pints; tincture of cantharides, ½ ounce; borax, 2 ounces; water, 2 ounces; oil of lavender, 1½ ounces. Shake well before using.
The wholesome woman has thick, lustrous, clean hair. I am sorry to say that it is necessary to use this last commonplace adjective. But some women there are who neglect the hair until it does not deserve to be so described.
“She has such clean hair,” a man said to me of an American girl who is much admired. When I saw the girl I knew his appraisement was just. Her hair was clean. It was thick, light brown and slightly curling hair, just the sort that a careless person might neglect, saying, as I have heard women say, “Mine is the kind of hair that takes care of itself.”
But this girl’s hair was as clean as her radiant young face. One received the impression that her hair, as all the rest of her person, had as close neighbor the bath.
And so it is. Her hair being light, she washes it at least once a week in borax water, made by dissolving an ounce of borax in a quart of warm water.
Borax is somewhat drying, and if she finds her scalp growing too dry she massages the scalp twelve hours before the shampoo with this:
Oil of sweet almonds, 45 grams; essence of rosemary, 45 grams; oil of mace, ½ gram.
If the wholesome woman find her hair growing prematurely gray, and this she is not at all liable to do, for gray hair is a sign of anæmia, and from this the healthy woman rarely suffers, she makes her life more than ever wholesome. She lives out of doors the more. She takes more regular sleep and more nourishing food. She is more than ever punctual and thorough as to her exercise. And having done all these she may assist nature with this remedy, which her less wholesome sister has used with success, to arrest the turning gray of her hair:
Good claret, 30 grams; sulphate of iron, ½ gram. To use the cook’s parlance, “Bring these to a boil.” Keep in a well corked jar in a cold place and wash the hair with it after each shampoo. If necessary it can be used two or three times a week. Permit the mixture to dry on the hair.
Here is another wash that has proved successful when the hair was turning gray:
Sulphur, 2 ounces; bay rum, 8 ounces.
Sulphur to a degree strengthens the pigment—that is, the natural coloring matter of the hair. Use the sulphur in lumps, for it will not adhere to the scalp as will sulphur in the powder state.
If the case be beyond such relief a French dressing, which those who use it disdain to call a dye, is used by brunettes whose hair has turned prematurely gray:
White wax, 2 ounces; olive oil, 5 ounces; burnt cork (powdered fine), 1 ounce. The white wax and oil should be melted together over a slow fire. Add the burnt cork and mix well. The mixture should be applied to the hair as a pomade, and thoroughly brushed in.
Here is a good corrective for falling hair:
Oil of sweet almonds, 2 ounces; alcohol, 2 gills; aqua ammonia, 2 ounces; good whiskey or rum, 4 ounces; gum camphor, ¼ ounce. Shake thoroughly each time before using and rub thoroughly into the scalp. Massage your scalp well, so that you can feel the skin of the scalp move.
For a scalp that is too oily use borax or bicarbonate of soda in the weekly shampoo. A blonde of my acquaintance believes that the juice of one lemon used in the last rinsing water after a shampoo adds to the brilliance of her hair while also drying it enough to make it “fluffy.”
Allow your hair to be straight, if Nature planned it so. Find some becoming method of wearing it straight. If the ends have become broken and the hair is thin and uneven set about raising a new and stronger crop. But first prepare the soil for the new crop by cleansing your scalp with frequent shampoos, one every other day if necessary, and by using on it a good oil. Olive oil is an admirable agent for loosening and feeding a heat-dried scalp. Have the ends singed or clipped. Massage the scalp every day, unless it is too tender to endure massage that often. Irritating the nerves, which protest against such treatment, does far more harm than good. A few applications of electricity by a physician familiar with your case should stimulate the anæmic scalp.
A few years ago there were almost no good hair tonics. Now there are many. Almost any tonic containing a liberal amount of quinine is a good hairgrower. Here is one much used in Paris:
Oil of almonds, 6 ounces; oil of rosemary, 2 drams; oil of mace, 60 drops.
An excellent tonic for the scalp is:
Alcohol, ½ pint; oil of mace, ¼ ounce.
One that has many advocates is this:
Fluid extract of jaborandi, ½ ounce; glycerine, 1 ounce; sulphate of quinine, 10 grains; cologne, 2 ounces; rosewater, 10 ounces; bay rum, 2 ounces.
The wash that has tonic properties in addition to being an excellent cleanser is made as follows:
Precipitated sulphur, 10 grams; alcohol (95 per cent.), 10 grams; distilled water, 50 grams; rosewater, 50 grams. Apply it to the scalp as all other tonics are applied with the tips of the fingers or a soft brush, for instance, an old tooth brush.
This tonic will keep the scalp cool, clean and moist and help prevent the hair falling out:
Tincture of cantharides (alcoholic), 1 ounce; spirits of rosemary, 1½ ounces; rose water, 3 ounces; aromatic vinegar, 1½ ounces.
Parisiennes have recently been washing their hair in gasoline. Not because they believe that it will cause the hair to grow, but for the same purpose that it is used upon a spotted garment—to cleanse the garment and remove the spots. Also gasoline makes the hair soft and silken of texture, I am told.
I have myself used gasoline a few times on my hair, but always try to keep it away from the scalp as much as possible. I cannot believe that gasoline is good for the scalp.
I take the gasoline shampoo somewhat as I do the water bath for the hair. I wash it in a bowl of the gasoline, pour out the first bowlful and wash it through another, then another, until the last bowlful is entirely clean. Let as little gasoline as possible get to the scalp. But the shampoo is always taken on the morning of a clear day. Never do I have it done while there is a light or fire in the room. If I did, there would be no more Lina Cavalieri. Gasoline is most inflammable and one cannot be too careful when using it.
Never use vaseline on the hair, never, never. It is not harmful. It is merely useless. It no more makes the hair grow than would sprinkling flour over the face make it grow. It is derived from a mineral, and nothing of mineral origin causes the hair to grow. I never use grease on the hair. After the shampoo, once a week, I use the camomile lotion I have already described, rubbing it in carefully with the points of the fingers, and on no account permitting it to touch the face, because it will make the face yellow. This cleanses the hair and tones the scalp, promoting circulation.
Hair to be really beautiful should not lie in heavy, sticky bands, but should stand out hair by hair, as separate as the down of a little chicken. To acquire this use ten drops of ammonia sprinkled in the camomile. It must be added after the mixture has boiled and cooled, otherwise the ammonia will evaporate.
This is the favorite preparation now used in France. No beauty nor fashionable woman ever uses oil upon her hair. By keeping it frequently massaged and thoroughly brushed she permits it to develop its own oil.
The Egyptian women have the most beautiful hair in the world. This they owe to henna. Sprinkle enough henna in the water to make it the color of coffee. Part the hair in little strands and, with a small handbrush dipped into it, rub the scalp.
The hair, so beautiful at its best, so disappointing and even disfiguring at its worst, has many foes. The greatest of these is the extreme heat of midsummer. Under the midsummer sun’s rays the hair’s rich hue is liable to fade. The country roads powder their dust finely upon it. The heat parches the scalp or causes it to perspire excessively, and each of these evils, separately considered, seems worse than the other. Their results are the same, and the hair rapidly grows thinner.
If you are spending your vacation at the seashore beware of the action of the salt water upon your hair. If your hair has been splashed in the surf rinse it thoroughly with fresh water as soon as you leave the beach. Be sure that no particles of sea salt adhere to it, for salt, so healing and tonic for most of the body, is the contrary for the hair.
Keep your scalp in such condition that two words, “Cool” and “Clean,” will always describe it. If the scalp be cool and clean the hair will be beautiful. If the scalp be not cool and clean the hair will speedily reveal that fact. How to keep it so during the summer is a problem that every woman must be careful to solve according to her surroundings and facilities. But somehow she must attain that end if she would preserve the beauty of her hair.
Keep it free from dust. To do so it must be frequently shampooed—twice as often, I should say, as in the winter. If, for instance, it is your habit to wash your hair every two weeks in winter, try washing it every week in summer. If it has required a weekly shampoo in winter you will undoubtedly find it necessary to wash it twice a week in midsummer. But you must judge that yourself, keeping before you the two words “Cool” and “Clean,” which should always be your guides. When the dust from the hair soils the fingers and brush it is time for a shampoo even though for a time the hair must be washed every day. The observant one will notice that so soon as the hair is unclean it falls out.
Also, she will observe that an itching scalp precedes almost immediately the falling out of the hair. With these object lessons in cleanliness she should resolve to be vigilant. Spare the shampoo and spoil the hair.
A good shampoo, especially for an itching scalp, contains beside the usual borax for softening the water, and the castile soap for cleansing the scalp these:
White of 2 eggs; juice of 2 lemons. Apply by rubbing the whites of the eggs thoroughly into the scalp with the tips of the fingers. After this application moisten the scalp thoroughly with the lemon juice diluted in one quart of cool water.
For the usual shampoo under ordinary circumstances the essentials are:
Warm water, 2 quarts; castile soap (shaven), ½ cake; borax, 1 teaspoonful.
I have heard women say: “I washed my hair yesterday and to-day it is as bad as ever.” If that is true it is your own fault. You did not give it a thorough shampoo. For a thorough shampoo care and nicety are necessary.
First prepare the water for a head bath by pouring into the stationary wash stand, or the portable washbowl or basin, the soap shavings. Over these pour a quart of hot water. With hands or a long handled spoon stir until the soap has dissolved and the substance has become mere lather. Part the hair, which I assume has previously been well combed, from the top of the middle of the forehead to the back of the neck. Make similar partings at the sides, and transverse partings here and there, as many as possible. With the finger tips, or with a soft, old nail brush, scrub the scalp with this lather. In this way go over the scalp several times, until it tingles under your very touch, and the skin is loosened from the scalp beneath. When a fine glow convinces you that this part of the task is well done attack your hair.
Dip your hands into the lather and taking the hair between them, wash it thoroughly but carefully with light touch as you would a fine handkerchief. When this has been thoroughly done empty the bowl and wash the hair through a second water. If, to use the hair dresser’s expression, the “water runs clear” you will know that the hair is thoroughly washed. If the water is dark, showing that the lather has not thoroughly removed the dust apply more lather. Then again wash it in cool water. The rinsing is best done with a spray. It should be continued until the water pouring off the hair is as clean as when it flows from the hydrant. The clearness of the rinsing water is the only criterion of whether the hair is clean. The rinsing water should be gradually cooled, but it should never be cold. It is my opinion that cold water is too severe a shock to the scalp.
Dry the hair as carefully as you have washed it. Never dry with a hot air funnel, nor at a radiator nor fireplace nor stove. The intense heat makes the hair brittle. A good brisk toweling is a method always available. If you haven’t time to dry the hair by toweling wait for the shampoo until you have time.
If you can sun dry it so much the better. Seated at an open window shake the moisture out of the hair and as it slowly dries massage the scalp with the fingers. The process of drying will be aided and neuralgia prevented by vigorous massage of the scalp.
This is an excellent time for the hair’s daily airing. The hair needs ventilation as well as your room, your lingerie, or your bed linen. Every day it should be shaken out and allowed to blow about in the wind. A balcony of a summer cottage is admirable for this purpose.
I know an English beauty who always gives her hair its airing as she sits under an old apple tree in the back yard of her father’s home. A friend of mine shakes her hair down and, sitting on the deck of her husband’s yacht, lets the wind play hide and seek in it every afternoon. Another friend returning by steamship from her vacation trip to Maine sat up aloft and tumbling her hair about her shoulders let the wind whip it at will.
Form the habit of always letting your hair down when you sit alone in your room. This half hour or hour’s airing gives the hair exercise as well. When a hair hangs by its roots it is gaining the strength it loses while the hair is being supported upon the head by pins.
If the treatment of the hair has passed the stage of prevention and reached that of cure, dry, falling hair can be helped by this variant of the shampoo I have described:
Castile soap, ½ cake; borax (powdered), 4 teaspoonfuls; bay rum, 1 ounce; Italian pink, 20 drops; warm water, 1 quart.
A dry shampoo available for blondes, but which would leave unbecoming traces in dark hair, is:
Cornmeal, 2 ounces; orris root (powdered), 1 ounce. This shaken well into the hair and brushed out carries much of the dust with it, as does French chalk when brushed upon and off a soiled frock. This I commend in an emergency, but only then, for it does not clean the scalp as does the liquid shampoo.
Another shampoo that has been successfully used to check the falling of hair contains:
Borax, 2 tablespoonfuls; salts of tartar, 2 drams; almond oil, 2 ounces; Italian pink, 12 drops.
For dry hair this tonic is one of the best:
Sweet almond oil, 3 ounces; oil of rosemary, 1 ounce; oil of bergamot, 10 drops.
If dandruff afflict you in midsummer look first to your brushes. If you have neglected to keep them scrupulously clean begin to do so. Dip them whenever the least soiled into:
Hot water, 1 quart; violet ammonia, 1 ounce.
Place the brushes on the window sill to dry. Turn the brushes upon their sides so that they will dry quickly, and the bristles will remain firm.
Brush the hair thoroughly night and morning. Use a blunt edged, large toothed comb. Do not scrape the scalp. Make your diet during this time chiefly of fruit and vegetables. Apply also this lotion:
Borax, 3 tablespoonfuls; rosemary (best), 3 ounces; steep in one quart of boiling water. When cold add ½ ounce of glycerine and 30 drops of cologne.
If the hair be moist use one tablespoonful of borax in a shampoo two or three times a week.
While in your room give the hair plenty of rest and exercise. Both are provided by brushing the hair and letting it hang loose as long as possible in the sun and air baths. Usually the hair needs in summer at least one shampoo a week, unless the hair be extraordinarily dry. One of the best shampoos is made very simply:
Shaved castile soap, 1 ounce; hot water, 1 quart.
For a dry shampoo this is good for moist scalps:
Alcohol (95 per cent.), 1 quart; table salt, 1 ounce; quinine, 1-6 ounce.
If you pass your holiday at the seashore you will welcome a formula that will keep the hair in curl. Here is one of the best I know:
Gum arabic, ½ ounce; carbonate of potash, ½ ounce; glycerine, ½ ounce; rosewater, 1 pint; Portugal extract, 2 ounces.
Fortunate are you, indeed, if you come back from your summer outing with hair thick and lustrous, and scalp cool and loose skinned as when you left. But even if you have achieved this, your hair is certain to be faded, for the sun’s rays while stimulating to the scalp, diminish the richness of the hue of the hair.
The probability is that the scalp has been dried by the heat and dust. Massage with cocoanut oil or the following tonic:
Sweet almond oil, 3 ounces; oil of cinnamon, 30 drops; oil of rosemary, 1 ounce.
Let me tell you of an experience which taught me much about the hair. I was invited to an informal house party. Arriving at an early hour in the morning I was met in the hall by my charming hostess. She was as lovely as ever, but there was something odd about her, something unusual.
She laughed at the puzzled look in my face. “You are bewildered,” she said. “I look different, but you do not know how. It is this. I am resting my hair.”
“Wonderful woman!” I cried. “It is the great American common sense.”
Then I saw that her lovely blond hair, short, as is all curling hair, rested about her shoulders in a golden shower. It was parted in the middle. She had always worn it in a pompadour or some modification of the pompadour. Now it was parted in the middle, and combed as smoothly as its rebellious luxuriance would permit away from that part, and flat upon the top of the head. Glistening from its recent brushing it hung about her shoulders, fresh combed, fresh brushed, and with the faintest odor of a cleansing tonic hanging about it. It had no ribbon about it. No hairpin confined it. It was free. It was resting after the nine months’ toil of a fashionable season.
“Every morning,” she said, “it has had a thorough combing and slight brushing. Every night a slight combing and thorough brushing. The first week I gave it a shampoo every day. I continued until the last trace of dandruff was gone. A sun-dried shampoo, of course. Every other sort, except the toweling, I consider barbarous and destructive to the hair. Every afternoon when the sun shone in my bedroom window I have let down my hair and sat where the breeze and sunshine came through the open window. Sitting there I have taken my hair between my palms and, strand by strand, have rubbed it lightly until every hair has had its burnishing. When this was done I shook it out loosely between my thumb and forefingers so that the wind and sun could reach every part of the hair and scalp.”
My friend’s hair had made almost instant response to the treatment. From being dead hair it had become live as a galvanic battery. From being dull and faded it had become rich and glistening. All over her scalp was the fine first fuzz of a new crop of hair. And the old galvanized hair had grown an inch longer in one month.
She had experimented with various lotions or dry shampoos. This she found the greatest cleanser and tonic for her hair:
Peruvian bark (powdered), 3 ounces; rum, 1 pint.
Another aid to this summer rest of the hair was a new brush. She showed it to me. It was a plain wooden backed hair brush, with the bristles set well into the back in groups. The bristles in these groups were irregular, in order that they might reach all parts of the head, the long ones penetrating the hair where it was thickest, the short ones sufficing for the parts where it was thinnest.
She adjured vaseline, as I have advised my readers to do. It is a mineral oil and cannot cause the hair to grow. Instead, she rubs olive oil or beef marrow well into the roots of the hair at night, softening the scalp and fertilizing a dry area.
Also she varied these treatments with this which, being a woman of wide reading, she had copied from The Lancet:
Alcohol (95 per cent.), 4 ounces; quinine, 15 grains; castor oil, ⅛ ounce.
Careful to massage the head gently every night after its brushing, she kept the scalp loose. When it was hot she cooled it by applications of cracked ice in an ice cap. She shunned the tempting fine tooth comb, that removes dandruff, it is true, but perpetrates atrocities upon the scalp as painful and disfiguring as scratches upon the face. Once a month she had her hair singed, before a shampoo.
Her greatest concession to the conventions was the slipping over her shining, well curried mane a net of exactly the same shade, which she wore at dinner, “a token of respect for the soup and butter, merely,” she explained.
One hundred strokes every evening before retiring are necessary if the hair be of vigorous constitution. If delicate there is danger of its being torn from the roots by too strong strokes of the brush and too many of these and the number of strokes can be considerably lessened.
Brushing removes the dust, but is not sufficient stimulant for the scalp, which needs, beside brushing, massage. The most beautiful hair I know is that of a young woman who gives her scalp a thorough massage three times a week with a good hair tonic. This, her favorite tonic, I publish here for the use of such of my readers as are blondes. It contains one ingredient, bicarbonate of soda, whose tendency is to make the hair a lighter shade. Therefore, I do not use it myself nor would I recommend it for any other brunette:
Borax, 1 ounce; bicarbonate of soda, ½ ounce; camphor, 1 dram; glycerine, ½ ounce; rosewater, 1 quart; alcohol, 2 ounces. The camphor should be dissolved in the alcohol. The soda, glycerine, rosewater and alcohol should be mixed and well shaken in another bottle. Then pour this mixture into the solution of camphor. Apply with the finger tips, or a soft brush, parting the hair and rubbing the tonic thoroughly into the scalp, until it makes response by a healthful tingling.
A former method of scalp massage was to rub it haphazard with the tips of the fingers. From Europe has come a later and more scientific method. It consists in treating the scalp as though it were composed of circular terraces, treating each terrace at a time separately by pressing the cushions of the fingers firmly upon the scalp all the way round the terrace, beginning with that which is the first or the outer and working toward the center. This pressure achieves that for which massage of the scalp was invented. It loosens the skin from the scalp, permitting free circulation about the roots of the hair.
For a brunette my preference is for this:
Sulphate of quinine, 20 grains; fluid extract of jaborandi, 1 ounce; glycerine, 2 ounces; cologne, 4 ounces; bay rum, 4 ounces; rosewater, 20 ounces.
The above is excellent also for hair that is too dry. For moist hair I advise a dry shampoo or tonic treatment of this:
Eau de cologne, 4 ounces; borax, ½ ounce; tincture of cochineal, ½ ounce.
Some blondes whom I know use the following methods to keep their hair light:
Washing soda, 2 tablespoonfuls; water, 1 quart. Dissolve the soda in the water and give the hair a thorough shampoo with the mixture once a week if needed, less often if necessary. The susceptibility of the hair to treatment determines the number of the treatments.
A half dozen drops of ammonia in shampoo should keep the hair light. Also one teaspoonful of peroxide of hydrogen in one quart of water will lighten without injuring the hair.
Bear in mind that whatever makes the hair dry makes it brittle, and use any preparation discreetly, studying the effect of one or two applications on the hair.
Remember that headache is one of the greatest foes of the hair. When my scalp is feverish I sometimes apply a rubber cap filled with cracked ice for a half an hour or longer, until the congestion is removed.
Never retire without brushing your hair. The hair is a dust trap, and no dainty woman would retire without removing the day’s accumulation of dust. The brush tells its own story of the day’s catch of dust, if you take the trouble to examine it. After brushing the hair, loosen the skin from the scalp by slow, firm massage, pressing the skin toward the crown.
This is the best time to apply a hair tonic. A good hair tonic is made of:
Oil of mace, 2 grams; essence of rosemary, 60 grams; oil of sweet almonds, 30 grams.
I have found that, while I may protect my skin, my eyes, my hands somewhat from the winds of winter, my hair always suffers from it. The wind I found dried the oil in it, making it harsh and brittle. Ordinary massage and brushing I did not find as useful as in the summer. I tried many remedies for the dry condition of the scalp, which, of course, produced dry hair. At last I hit upon this, which I rubbed well into the roots of the hair before retiring on the night before my shampooing day:
Lanolin, 1 ounce; sulphur, ¼ ounce.
Let me explain, I did not rub this haphazard upon the scalp. I have seen women dab a hair scalp emollient so carelessly upon the scalp, here and there, that they might quite as well have left it undone and employed their time for better purposes. I did this as thoroughly as, I think, everything we undertake should be done.
First, I combed the hair thoroughly, doing it slowly, beginning about an inch from the ends, holding the long hair near the roots so that rough combing might not pull it out. Then I brushed it slowly, beginning at the roots and brushing downward with long, slow strokes to the very end. I parted the hair into fifty strands, combing it smoothly away from each little parting.
Then, with fingers dipped into the mixture of lanolin and sulphur, I began at the hair line and, with firm, long strokes, the effect of which was to loosen the skin from the scalp, I rubbed the mixture well into the roots. From the hair line I followed the partings to the crown, from which it radiated. This done, and thoroughly done, I unbraided my hair and combed and brushed it once more, and allowed it to hang loose for an hour or more, exercising and ventilating it, until I retired, when it was braided and tied into two large, loose braids and tied at the end with narrow ribbons. I never use either elastic or thread to fasten the ends of the hair, for I think it breaks the hairs, making the ends uneven.
The next morning I have a shampoo. Ordinarily I use a lather of white castile soap and warm water. But in winter, noting the drying effects of the cold winds upon my hair, I try to use a shampoo which will aid in making the hair soft and lustrous, doing for the time the work of the natural oils, which seem to have suspended operations:
Yolks of 2 eggs; warm water, 1 quart.
I part the hair into fifty strands, as I have described, the night before, and into each of the partings and particularly around the hair line, which a woman cannot afford to neglect, I rub the tips of the fingers with the yolks of the eggs, using the tips of the first two fingers. When this has been thoroughly done I rinse the hair and scalp in warm water. After the hair has “been through the first water,” I turn upon the scalp a spray from a small hose, one of the small-size sprays now made for shampooing. This distributes the water better, and the force is not so great as when it is poured from a pitcher in the old-fashioned “home” way.
The full force of city water must never be used upon the tender scalp. The little sprays are cheap and a good investment. The shower from the spray can be gradually cooled, but I do not believe in extremes of temperature for the hair any more than I do for the complexion. I never use either cold or hot water for a shampoo, nor cold water for rinsing. Warm to cool water is a sufficient gradation that soothes the nerves of the scalp, while dashes of hot and cold water overstimulate and shock them.