Old-time salons and treatments

[tog]

Hving just read a blog by Littlegrohl about a 'grand dame' who had been having nail enhancements for the past 25 odd years, and who she called a walking museum of nail technology, it got me thinking.
I would love to know more about beauty treatments that were around in the last century, eg the 1930s, 40s and 50s - in other words the forerunners of our treatments today. Also what were the salons like then?
Does anyone have any books or websites they could recommend where I could find out this information?
Or better still - does anyone have any grandmothers or great aunts who used to visit beauty salons back then who might have tales to tell?

 

[Jolicatellas]

What a groovy idea. I don't know where to find this info from.
One thing I know about is "Cold Cream". Actresses from the Elizabeth Taylor genre used to apply a nice thick creamy moisturiser at the end of their day, you might recall imagines of ladies covered in a thick white face mask. The moisturiser was left on for about 10mins then they wiped it off along with their makeup. It was used to clean their faces as well as moisturise their skin & apparently kept women looking radiant and young.

 

[Jolicatellas]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/28/Electric_face_mask.jpg

I found this: it's a treatment in 1939, an electric face mask treatment ... different ...

 

[littlegrohl]

Great Thread!! and you got the gist of my blog in one.. It was so much about the HISTORY this woman represented.. I cannot put into words, or describe how much she had to teach me.. and yes she even uses cold cream and swears by it!! (must be something in it Grand Ol Dames skin was stunning!

True to form she did not divulge her age.. (and im sure she would have slapped me had i asked..) but going by her Husbands appearance and the fact they had been married nearly 60 years.. well she is certainly no spring chook! (and yet still had a smoother forehead then me!)

I too have decided to look further into the older more classic treatments.. something very romantic about them.. and if hairstyles and fashion can meake comebacks then surely there is a place for Nails in there too!

This article interested me when i first read it.. http://www.salongeek.com/general-articles/59176-origins-nail-art-polish.html goes waay back.. Im going to focus on the 40's 50's 60's 70's and 80's.. and see what our Glamorous trail blazers had to offer, I also think the flapper 20's are tre chic.. highly polished red natural nails.

The promoting of era's could be dead funky too! Imagine.. fabulous 40's..golden era 50's.. phycadelic 60's.. Downtown 70's and Electric 80's!!

. possibilities are endless!!

 

[littlegrohl]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/28/Electric_face_mask.jpg

I found this: it's a treatment in 1939, an electric face mask treatment ... different ...

... and with just a pump of this here button.. Ta daaaa.. we can make you look like Winnie the Pooo!! hahahaha.. (very different)

 

[littlegrohl]

I just LOVE this Picture.. It used to be my desktop. thought i would share..

http://www.erasofelegance.com/fashion/makeup.html

 

[littlegrohl]

as you can see i have way too much time on my hands.. but I guess i can call it Research!

pt I Make-up History Cosmetics before 1950

pt II Make up History After 1950 - Part 2

Im off to explore!!

 

[tog]

I just love that shiny satin outfit the beautician is wearing, standing next to the lady with the mask on! I wish I had one of those!
That article about make-up is interesting.
I'm going to have another look on the internet myself, will keep you posted if I find anything. I just wish my granny and great aunts were still alive, they would all be well into their nineties by now but they were the types to have had beauty treatments in their time, I'm sure. It would have been interesting to hear their stories!

 

[Jolicatellas]

During the Renaissance, women strived for pale skin, and used a whitening agent composed of carbonate, hydroxide, and lead oxide to create a porcelain-like face. These agents, cumulatively stored in the body with each use, were responsible for numerous physical problems and resulted in some cases in muscle paralysis. During the time of Louis XIV and Queen Elizabeth I (known for her pale face), the problem became catastrophic and resulted in many early deaths. In Italy, one scheming Signora Toffana created a face powder made from arsenic for wealthy women. Signora instructed her clients to apply the powder to their cheeks when their husbands were around. Six hundred dead husbands (and many wealthy widows) later, Toffana was executed.

And here we are worried about using talc! Think it is much more safe than arsenic!!!!

 

[Joanna W]

What a great thread, very very interesting.

(I use the cold cream recipe - based on the original by Galen, I have sensitive skin and this is the only cleanser that works on me without making my face go red and itch (famous last words, prob won't work for me now lol)

 

[Ruth Mills]

And here we are worried about using talc! Think it is much more safe than arsenic!!!!

Thank goodness we have titanium dioxide as a white pigment these days instead of lead!!!
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[geeg]

Most ladies of my mother's era used good old Ponds Cold Cream ,, you could buy it everywhere. She also used a lipstick and powder by Coty. The lipstick was called Cherries a la Mode!! The things one remembers.

Check out Elizabeth Arden too as they had salons in the early days.

Revlon produced the first polish and the Revlon manicure was IT.

And the first perms?? OMG they were electric rods that dropped from the ceiling. Can you imagine what it would have been like getting them out if there was a fire?

I would also like it known that I personally do not remember any of this. My mother never went to a beauty salon in her life.

 

[sarahpoppy24]

Ponds cold cream!! I remember my mum using this when I was a kid!!! Also hair geeks read the book "good hair days" bye caroline cox, you can probly get it of amazon etc, has everything about the history of hairdressing. Love stuff like this, history etc its soo interesting xxxxx

 

[Jeni Giles]

We donated one of those perm machines to our local history museum when we relocated. I have an archive of actual styling books, "tech" sheets and how to step by steps from the early 1940's when the school I work in was started.

I can't imagine wearing a nursing uniform, which was required at that time. Glad to have trousers!!

 

[waxed]

What a groovy idea. I don't know where to find this info from.
One thing I know about is "Cold Cream". Actresses from the Elizabeth Taylor genre used to apply a nice thick creamy moisturiser at the end of their day, you might recall imagines of ladies covered in a thick white face mask. The moisturiser was left on for about 10mins then they wiped it off along with their makeup. It was used to clean their faces as well as moisturise their skin & apparently kept women looking radiant and young.

I still use cold cream as it was something my mum used to use and she still has amazing skin and shes 61 xxx

 

[Susie H]

Ponds cold cream, my mum used to swear by it.
The avon lady used to wear a smart gray uniform, a bit like an air hostess and she had a big suitcase with everything in it.
She used to come to our house once a month and she and my mum would go though everything new, the latest technics etc.
That was in the 60's my mum went to finishing school and then to Elizebeth Arden beauty parlor to learn how to 'apply discrete make up as befits a lady in the moden world'.
Hair care was so different then, the ones that stick in my mind were the sunsilk shampoo adverts. We used beer to make it shine, eggs for conditioner and olive oil.
And there was hair spray for women and brilcream for men.
We're so lucky with the choices we have.

 

[Velveteen]

There were no beauty salons in my grandmother's area during "the day". All the action happened in the hairdressing salons which were called parlours and every Friday down she went for a "set" which was having her hair washed, curled with rollers and then styled.

If you look at the old style barber shops you still see today, well that was what the parlours were supposed to have looked like too.

My grandmother was a big believer in beauty starting from within. Every morning, way before it was fashionable, she drank a glass of warm water with lemon juice "for her constitution" as she put it. I've no idea where she got the idea but I never knew her not to do it.

In the 40s, after the war was over, my nanna dyed her hair blonde which made the neighbours gasp as it was considered a bit daring. Before the war, she'd used cream by Helena Rubenstein which she bought with her ration cards and dressed her nails with animal fat and blackberry stain. Americans had made a monumentally huge impact on society by then and with that came creams, powders, red lippy and silk stockings. By that time, my nanna was in the workforce and she wore them all. She was a fine figure of a woman. I learned the power of keeping yourself looking good from her.

I always remember pink bottles of Oil of Ulan (as it was called then) and Max Factor lipstick. I've only recently identified Estee Lauder's White Linen as being one of the smells I remember. Orange water was another.

I dunno about the many choices we have today are necessarily good. My nanna's time seemed so simple. Today, we are bombarded with a lot of things we don't need or aren't good for us.

Mind you, there's a lot of things that are good for us that weren't around back then....

 

[Bev Rose]

My Mum was a hairdresser and started off in the late 1940's.

She used to do the typical hollywood movie star hair styles using her finger to push waves into peoples hair and clip it into place with a massive 'crocodile' clip (I used to call them that as they had loads of teeth! Maybe that was also their name?)
This is the sort of thing she did, amongst other things obviously.

Google Image Result for http://www.revampvintage.com/images/hair-30s-fingerwaves1.jpg

I was a 60's baby and during my growing up, she had a salon in Doncaster called Paulines on Beckett Road. We lived above it. I remember it was always very busy and all the ladies had beehaives & french pleats.
The smell of perming makes me feel homesick!

As for beauty, my Mum used to use & swear by Nivea Cream, it came in a metal blue tin ......

Beiersdorf AG - Our Brands - Local Brands - NIVEA - Brand History

She also used to use lipstick by Estee Lauder in a gold fluted tube later on, but when I was a small it was a pale pink lipstick with a lovely smell, no idea who's brand though. Mascara was in a block and she used a flat type brush wetted and rubbed onto the block then applied to the lashes.

 

[alpina]

She also used to use lipstick by Estee Lauder in a gold fluted tube later on, but when I was a small it was a pale pink lipstick with a lovely smell, no idea who's brand though. Mascara was in a block and she used a flat type brush wetted and rubbed onto the block then applied to the lashes.

I have one of these lipstick tubes, it was given to me by my Grandmother as play makeup when I was young. It also has a blue velvet sleeve that fits over the gold tube. I'm not sure if this came with the lipstick originally, or if this was something she bought somewhere else. I also had a pair of her real silk stockings with a backseam, but unfortunately these disintegrated many years ago.

 

[Bev Rose]

I have one of these lipstick tubes, it was given to me by my Grandmother as play makeup when I was young. It also has a blue velvet sleeve that fits over the gold tube. I'm not sure if this came with the lipstick originally, or if this was something she bought somewhere else. I also had a pair of her real silk stockings with a backseam, but unfortunately these disintegrated many years ago.

Yes, I vaguely remember the velvet sleeve, I think it must of come with the lipstick