Long Victorian Hair

[RockyLvsAdrian]

Apologies if this has been shared before:

http://mashable.com/2015/08/25/victorian-long-hair/

[Radioduck]

Wow, those are some amazing heads of hair! Interesting facts, too.

[AdaClare]

Totally envious of all that hair! :agape:

[spidermom]

Oh my! I wouldn't want to be personally responsible for most of that hair. Sometimes my barely tailbone length hair is barely manageable. Hmmmm - why am I trying to grow it longer? Well, I know I can manage classic length hair since I did it before. Past that is a great big ?

[Naunnie]

Thanks for the share. Way back in the 60's, my Grandmother had a framed picture of the "Seven Sutherland Sisters" hanging in her beauty shop. I loved that picture!

[DollyDagger]

incredibly beautiful and bewitching!

[Komao]

Apologies if this has been shared before:

http://mashable.com/2015/08/25/victorian-long-hair/

Thanks for sharing this. Love to look at pictures in the Victorian era. I'm familiar with the Seven Sutherland Sisters & the rest is some spectacular hair! :)

[LauraAlaina]

Wow, what a huge comb, too! Haha

[Knifegill]

Also note the massive amount of sebum in most of those tresses! Perhaps other oils as well, but that satin sheen is pretty hard to miss.

[parkmikii]

Thank you for sharing, those pictures look amazing!

[Hypnotica]

I'm so happy that I'm not living during the Victorian era, hair wise or other.

[Lady Katherine]

Thanks for sharing! I love reading about hair history.

[LongCurlyTress]

I really enjoyed reading this article especially looking at the photos. I always enjoy reading about this era for women and their long hair. I love how their hair blossomed out so long over their bustles and hoop dresses. Just beautiful!! And so feminine! Thank you for posting!! ;) :blossom:

[Entangled]

You know, it was interesting for me to see the pictures, because all of the hair looked like...hair. Normal hair, with frizzies and braidwaves and taper and those weirdly straight ends from a braid tassel. I somehow had the impression that somehow, lots of those ladies had super thick hemlines, or beautiful, neat waves. Their hair looks like long hair, which I guess marks something for me. I generally know what long (mostly straightish or wavy, I'm no too knowledgeable about curly hair) hair looks like now, and am comfortable with it. I don't have too crazy ideas of perfection, and I don't think it's weird or gross to have stuff like taper. It looks familiar, and comforting, oddly enough!

[mindwiped]

I loved seeing that the woman with the huge comb, in all likelihood, did not need a bustle pad. From behind, she looked very similar to my grandmother and myself.

I love the hair too, it was just seeing somebody with an body that is average to my family that caught my eye. We have an old family photo, that if you know the secret is hilarious. All the blood family are seated, with all the spouses standing. The wives are all bigger (height and weight) than their spouses. My family is from one of the bloodline when if the oxen died, you hitched yourself in and kept going.

[dreamingstar]

You know, it was interesting for me to see the pictures, because all of the hair looked like...hair. Normal hair, with frizzies and braidwaves and taper and those weirdly straight ends from a braid tassel. I somehow had the impression that somehow, lots of those ladies had super thick hemlines, or beautiful, neat waves. Their hair looks like long hair, which I guess marks something for me. I generally know what long (mostly straightish or wavy, I'm no too knowledgeable about curly hair) hair looks like now, and am comfortable with it. I don't have too crazy ideas of perfection, and I don't think it's weird or gross to have stuff like taper. It looks familiar, and comforting, oddly enough!

:agree: Exactly! I think seeing photos like these are important, not only for assurance that those lengths are possible but also for our sanity. I see hair product advertisements now and it's comforting to know that that's not what real hair looks like - and to be ok with that.

[yahirwaO.o]

That was a lovely collection of photos. Victorian ladies did really made their best to have nice hair. Some updos looked pretty heavy and those combs were massive, but as an historical article was a little piece of joy!!! :eek:

[Sparklecake]

Those photos were beautiful and the article was really interesting, thank you so much for sharing!

[Jeno86]

I love the Victorian era! Such beautiful photos and it makes me even more excited to grow my hair back out.

[vendethiel]

You know, it was interesting for me to see the pictures, because all of the hair looked like...hair. Normal hair, with frizzies and braidwaves and taper and those weirdly straight ends from a braid tassel. I somehow had the impression that somehow, lots of those ladies had super thick hemlines, or beautiful, neat waves. Their hair looks like long hair, which I guess marks something for me. I generally know what long (mostly straightish or wavy, I'm no too knowledgeable about curly hair) hair looks like now, and am comfortable with it. I don't have too crazy ideas of perfection, and I don't think it's weird or gross to have stuff like taper. It looks familiar, and comforting, oddly enough!

I agree, it was lovely to see hair just being itself. It felt very comforting to me. When I take my hair down, it's not perfect and what I see in the media is perfection, which sometimes makes me discouraged, but then I see pictures like this. Their hair is beautiful and maybe more beautiful because it is imperfect, because we know it is real and we understand somewhat struggles they had and the work they put into it. We can admire it and recognize the imperfections and enjoy its beauty. Photos like these encourage me that hair isn't perfect and that doesn't make it any less beautiful or any less worthy.

[GoddessLocks]

So interesting to see things like this.

[chen bao jun]

Yes, Victorian hair was long hair, its lovely to see.
And yes--so natural.
Which is why it grew so long.
Hypnotica, why would you not to be Victorian hairwise?

[allierat]

The hair in those pictures is so lovely! I can't imagine having to comb that much hair every day.

[MINAKO]

While i find the length and amount of their hair very impressive i always think that half of the manes in these kind of pictures look like a hot mess. Maybe my personal diskiking for beaidwaves goes along with that, but it doesnt really look like all of them really cared well for their hair. Not trying to be negative but i wonder why they did not cut a bit in some cases where it looked very dry and crunchy in the last quater. :shrug:

[cat11]

Wow, what a huge comb, too! Haha

I know, that blew my mind lol! And I thought that Madora and Hairsense combs were big!

I realy like the first lady's hair and a couple of others but some of these heads of hair look so damaged and tangled. I know Victorian people didnt always take the best care of their hair with weird tonics and curlers and singing and such so maybe that has something to do with it..

[lapushka]

While i find the length and amount of their hair very impressive i always think that half of the manes in these kind of pictures look like a hot mess. Maybe my personal diskiking for beaidwaves goes along with that, but it doesnt really look like all of them really cared well for their hair. Not trying to be negative but i wonder why they did not cut a bit in some cases where it looked very dry and crunchy in the last quater. :shrug:

It doesn't look unkempt to me, but I like wavy hair textures. :shrug:

[MINAKO]

It doesn't look unkempt to me, but I like wavy hair textures. :shrug:

I like wavy textures too. I just don't like braidwaves in particular.
Taking away the nostalgic bonus, by LHC standards some of that hair would be in urgent need for a deep treatment tho.
Have you seen the lady godiva movie where she was ripping the comb through her hair? Thats what a few if these pics remid me of

[Mimha]

It's always fascinating to look at old pictures, showing people like they really were in the past. It makes us realize how far from this "genuine" state we have gone... It's just as if nobody today knew that hair can grow so long, so uneven and so thick. We are so formatted by the almost daily shampooing, blunt cuts / styled layers, pin straightened hair / permed curls, conditioner artificial shine and gel gloss !...

I am indeed always amazed by the thickness and length of all those heads of hair, and I frequently wonder if our "modern societies" are not loosing the ability of growing such amazing genuine manes (because of our way of life : poor fast food, stress, pollution, chemical hair care, degenerating genes, etc.). Indeed, if you want to see such hair today, you have to travel to places like India. Even on LHC, there are very very few super long hair that can compete with those in term of thickness until the floor.

Yes, natural hair does look like this : long, unequal, thick, wild looking. But do we all find it appealing ? That's the question^^

It looks heavy also, due to sebum and soap build up, giving this particular "waxy look" to the upper part of it. I have experienced it personally with my grandmother (and her sisters) who was a mountain peasant : she never trimmed her hair and (rarely) washed it with Marseille soap (!!!). Her hair had exactly the same "sebumy" (= shiny-waxy) texture. In the same time, the unequal ends tend to look more and more unequal with length if never trimmed. And what looks like a nice V-shaped fairytailed ends at hip can look like a total anarchy at ankle length. This is just normal. But is it beautiful ?...

Beauty is so much linked to personal appreciation and historical context ! I'm afraid I share some of Minako's doubtful feelings about it. Yes I am a true admirer of amazing length, and I can recognize the potential and appreciate the quality, genuineness, natural, etc. and I take into consideration the historical time and context too. But I personally need some neatness in terms of shape (nice U to V shape), homogeneity of texture along the length (meaning no waxy roots vs crispy ends), and fluidity of the hair mass (meaning well combed hair) to fully find it "beautiful". And like Minako, I'm not found of braid waves (especially with flat hair, that ends up straight again at tassel level), but this is all a matter of personal preferences. (By the way, there are a lot of stunning natural wavies among these ladies. Not all of them have braid waves). In the same time I admire the fact that some people can go for a totally natural routine, in search of this original potential : going no-trim, no-poo, etc. sounds like the only acceptable way to me if I really wanted to stick to my ideal of genuineness. Lol !... I realize that I'm still sooo far from that, and full of my own century prejudices about hair beauty. :shrug: :lol:

So to sum it up, on one hand I am in amazement when I see these pictures, and I wonder what "we have lost" for our present hair to be so poor in comparison to these ancient manes, lol. And on the other hand, I kind of feel grossed out by the "too much" side of it (or "not enough", if it comes to wash and trim matter^^).

[LauraAlaina]

^ great post!

[MINAKO]

Yes absolutely right Mimha. We are conditioned to certain standards of today and what we would condier natural ourselves would probably have been beyond high maintanance back in the days. Needless to say that product availabilty comes in handy when it comes to haircare, but also gets in the way of growing long and luscious cause we all would like to rely on these products to fix hair that might have been chemically treated or even abused.
I think in modernsociety there are many many women still capable of growingthis type of hair. Evolution is not quick enough to make a significant change to genetics in such a short time, of course nutrition can make a difference too.
I noticed the same thing about asian obsession with sleek and straight hair as if it was traditionally a good thing to have.
There weren't alot of women back in the days who had that silky flat ironed look while the hair was extremely long.
https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/okinawa-soba/sets/72157605633613347/
I like to look at these when i feel my own hair isn't 1A enough, lol, same story.

[StellaKatherine]

I don't think, that all women even then could grow their hair that long or had naturally that thick hair. They took photos only of those who did. It is like today's super models, that are mostly super tall and thin (not all lulickily ). My wild guess, that this super long hair was very much admiered especially because not all could grow that long eather because of genes or because of family status.

We, who do not have super thick hair or who's hair doesn't grow super long, do not really need to feel bad because of this photos.

I personally liked to see braid waves, as actually that is how much own hair look each time I unbraid my hair :)

[Dessi]

I don't think, that all women even then could grow their hair that long or had naturally that thick hair. They took photos only of those who did. It is like today's super models, that are mostly super tall and thin (not all lulickily ). My wild guess, that this super long hair was very much admiered especially because not all could grow that long eather because of genes or because of family status.

We, who do not have super thick hair or who's hair doesn't grow super long, do not really need to feel bad because of this photos.

I personally liked to see braid waves, as actually that is how much own hair look each time I unbraid my hair :)

I absolutely agree with this.
And the photos were nice to see. Their hair is beautiful for me, because it is not perfect.

[Sarahlabyrinth]

I agree. It looks like human, imperfect hair. Because hair is never perfect. These ladies were probably the hair models of their day.

[Night_Kitten]

Beautiful pictures, thanks for sharing :D

I think StellaKatherine has a very good point - we need to remember that back then taking a photo was not as easy and readily available as today, it was a long and probably costly process, therefore I think women with less outstanding hair simply didn't take any pictures of it.... Nowdays we can take as many pictures as our phone's / camera's memory card can hold and easily share them via various social medias, so we get to see all types and ranges of hair - thick, thin, straight, curly, very short, extremely long, and anything in between, however back then if one's hair wasn't outstanding (extremely thick or long) one just didn't invest in taking a picture of it, so we get to see only the most beautiful and valued heads of hair from that period...

[lines-wine]

I'm thinking their hair is great lengths, but not necessarily in good condition; that is to say the Victorians weren't exactly afraid of putting the strangest products anywhere.