Historical haircare - Ancient Roman hairstyling at the Museum of London

During my last Summer London trip I visited The Museum of London, and there was a whole section devoted to Ancient Roman female hairstyling, make-up and dressing, so finally getting some content back on this blog with some historical hairstyling and haircare (I also talked from a feminist lens about modesty mindsets in Ancient Roman female fashion, in this case regarding veiling with the palla, in the latest post of my other blog, where I talk about feminism, history and fandoms).

 "Hair was seen as much as an indication of wealth and social status as it was of taste and fashion. But unlike modern-day hairstyles, comfort and naturalism for the Romans took a back-seat to hairstyles that displayed the wearer's wealth to a maximum. In other words, having a complex and unnatural hairstyle would be preferred to a simple one, because it would illustrate the wealth of the wearer in being able to afford to take the time to style their hair. For women to have a fashionable hairstyle showed they were part of the elegant Roman culture." (Source)

 "Hairnets and pins were in common usage (...). Poorer women would have used wooden pins, while the aristocracy used gold, ivory, crystal, silver or painted bone. The pins were decorated with carvings of the gods, or beads and pendants" (Source)

“For keeping the hair in place pins were used, of ivory, silver, and gold, often mounted with jewels. Some wealthy Roman women favored long hairpins encrusted with jewels. (...) Nets (reticulae) and ribbons (vittae, taeniae, fasciolae) were also worn, but combs were not made a part of the headdress. (...) Mention should also be made of the garlands (coronae) of flowers, or of flowers and foliage, and of the coronets of pearls and other precious stones that were used to supplement the natural or artificial beauty of the hair. The woman's hairdresser was a female slave. This ornatrix was an adept in all the tricks of the toilet (...), and, besides, used all sorts of unguents, oils, and tonics to make the hair soft and lustrous and to cause it to grow abundantly. Common toilet articles including hairpins, hand mirrors made of highly polished metal, combs, and boxes for unguent or powder." (Source)

"Roman women originally dressed their hair with great simplicity. One of the simplest styles of wearing the hair was allowing it to fall down in tresses behind, and only confining it by a band encircling the head. Another favourite but simple hairstyle was braiding the hair, and then fastening it behind with a large pin. Young girls wore their long hair in simple buns tied at the base of the neck or wore their hair in a top knot. Simple hairstyles for married women changed during the reign of the Emperor Augustus when a variety of different and elaborate hairstyles came into fashion. The clothing fashions of Roman women remained relatively simple and unchanging and as women had no special dress that distinguished their status the wealthy women wore luxurious materials, highly elaborate hairstyles, make-up and expensive jewelry. During the rule of the Flavian emperors (69-138 BC) hairstyles were raised to a great height by rows of false curls. This fashion was described by the writer Juvenal as the hairstyles made women appear tall from the front but quite the opposite from the back.  The hair of Roman women become elaborately curled. Hairstyles were elaborately arranged in layers. Hairstyles involved hair being twisted, waved and curled. Ringlets were created to create hairstyles which fell to the sides and the backs of the head. Wigs and hair pieces were used to create an illusion of abundant locks." (Source)

I like Roman hairstyles a lot, so thanks to Janet Stephens' tutorials, hopefully I'll find some spare time sometime to try out some of them and post more about historical hair in this blog :D!

Historical haircare: Viking combs

Last Summer we were visiting the British Museum during a week-long tip in London, and seeing as I'm a hair fanatic xD, I always go looking for ancient hair stuff in museums. So here's a Viking comb with its case from the 9th-10th Century AD:

"Combs such as this are commonly found throughout the Viking world. (...) Both comb and case are made of several pieces of antler fitted together with iron rivets. Decoration on the comb is the same on both sides. It has very little ornament, other than simple cross-hatching in rectangular areas, which are confined to the ends. The case is decorated with irregular crosses of double lines. Below this is a similar pattern to that on the comb, but with vertical lines instead of cross-hatching. Comb decoration can be more elaborate: some were inlaid with bronze. This suggests that all ranks of society owned and used them. The simple decoration on this comb set implies that it probably belonged to someone of middle rank.

Both men and women wore their hair long in the Viking period. Combs probably acted as implements for removing lice as much as for making the hair look beautiful.

Like many smaller combs, this comb and case have holes in them for hanging from a belt or brooch. Comb cases were made to protect the delicate teeth from being accidentally broken. This seems to have worked here as this comb still has all its teeth. This is very rare." (Source)

I ended up reading a bit more on the use of combs and general haircare among the Vikings :)

More Viking/Scandinavian combs from the Scotland National Museum at Edinburgh:

Could those pins be hairsticks?

SwordWomanRiona / rionashairblog.blogspot.com.es

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