The History of Hair

This photo must have been taken between church meetings. Did you know that we used to attend Sunday School in the morning and then return in the evening for Sacrament Meeting? I always have Jasmine in mind when I share this type of trivia, because when I tell her something she doesn't know, she sounds outraged and says "why didn't anyone tell me?!?" We had Primary on a weekday afternoon, and YM/YW on a weekday evening, but not on Sunday.

Several observations:

1. My dresses were always as big as Cindy's were slim.

2. I am always giggling.

3. Tube socks with black patent leather doesn't work for me.

4. Again, the hair! Always perfectly coiffed. "How did we do it?" you might ask. Let me tell you the history of hair.

When we were young, Mama curled our hair with rags. She ripped strips from an old white sheet (of course, they didn't have anything except white sheets back then), about 18 inches long and an inch-and-a-half wide. She would take a lock of our hair and wrap the strip around and around the hair, tying a knot in the end. This would create beautiful, Shirley Temple-like curls. Cindy could sit on her hair before it was ever cut, so you can imagine how beautiful this looked.

As we got older, we used pink sponge rollers. They were easy to sleep on. But the gold standard for curling hair were the bristly rollers that had the innards of a bottle brush. They were a beast to sleep on--and our hair was so thick it took forever to dry. We didn't have blow driers or curling irons to facilitate the process. Thus, the home hair drier!

Cindy graciously agreed to model this version we spotted at an antique mall last Saturday. This one has an unusual cone-head shape. Ours was more like a button mum and it was pink. When plugged in, it inflated like a balloon. Oh, the hours we spent sitting on a kitchen chair under that drier waiting for our hair to dry. Those were the days. But when the final product was like Mama's hair below, you must admit it was time well-spent!