Sepia Saturday: What Price Beauty?

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is very familiar to many women:  the beauty parlor.  Several years ago when my hairdresser announced she was giving up hair to pursue a college degree in psychology, I had only 2 things to say:  first, hairdressers ARE psychologists already, and second, it’s easier to find a new ob-gyn than a good hairdresser.  Am I right?

The vanity that drives me to keep a regular hair appointment every 6-7 weeks is surely inherited from my mother.  When I was a child, many women made weekly appointments for a shampoo and set.  My grandmother did, as did my mother for a time. 

But Momma was a do-it-yourselfer when it came to children’s hair.

She cut my bangs. ALL of them!   

May 1955 on my grandmother's sofa

Rods 1950s

And perms!  My hair was so straight that Momma made me sleep in those torture rods to get the Tonette Home Permanent to curl.  (I’ll have to ask my hairdresser to explain the psychology behind saving the very thing that caused me such pain.)

From Google Images
I was never this cute though.

When bleached blond hair was in vogue in the 1960s, I wasn’t allowed to follow that trend.  It was a moral issue.  But in the 70s, Momma was an early adopter of “frosting,” now better known as “highlighting” and “lowlighting.”  When she became fully blond, she decided it would be good for me to color my hair too so that people would think her color was natural.  (Momma wasn't really delusional -- she was funny.)

Another do-it-yourself project. 

DIY Hair 1971

The home kit included a little plastic cap with blue dots marking where to pull the hair through using a crochet hook.  The intended look required punching a hole in every other dot and hooking a few strands of hair for a light, natural highlight.  I’m pretty sure Momma went through EVERY dot with more than just a few strands. 

I still remember the look of horror on Momma’s face when she realized she didn’t have the right bottle of something. Toner, maybe?  There were no 24-hour pharmacies and Wal-Marts then, so I had to sleep in that plastic cap and hope like heck my hair didn’t slide back through the holes. 

Thank-goodness the next day was NOT Sunday, so Momma was able to buy whatever it was she needed and then finish her experiment on my head.

Blond hair looked pretty good for awhile. 

October 1971 Selfie

But the growing out – not so much. 

Typing with my eyes closed April 1972

Why we didn’t go to the beauty parlor to fix that mess, I can only guess.  Probably chemical processes then were too expensive by my family’s standards.   However, later in life, money was no object when it came to my mother’s hair.  She instructed her hairdresser to make her hair “baby chick yellow.”  Momma often quoted Dolly Parton:  “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”

Why don’t you just “curl up and dye” with my friends at Sepia Saturday.

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.