Victorian to the Max!

[Peggy E.]

This poor woman's hair has become so horribly damaged it is actually "felted" at the ends. And no wonder, if she's doing this sort of extravagant style very often. More than likely it's for this picture, has "pieced" sections added, but it is still a good guess she doesn't take great care of her hair.

I was wondering if the overly damaged hair of the period wasn't as much the impetus behind the the flapper girl's renegade 'bob" as the idea of tossing tradition to the wind? It would certainly have been a solution to the "felted" hair epidemic!

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj35/DCElliott/cabinetcardWEB1.jpg

[Eboshi]

:eek: Her hair is damaged which is strange as by Victorian standards, her hair is very short as well. Curling tongs, heated on a stove, were used to curl the hair into ringlets at that time. I wonder if the appearance of her hair was due to this?

Nice comb that she is wearing though.

[Peggy E.]

:eek: Her hair is damaged which is strange as by Victorian standards, her hair is very short as well. Curling tongs, heated on a stove, were used to curl the hair into ringlets at that time. I wonder if the appearance of her hair was due to this?

Nice comb that she is wearing though.

Yes, you don't usually see the hair down straight, as is this. There is probably a lot of her hair involved in the updo and she draped the ends over her shoulders? Sort of what I thought, when I first saw it.

They used rag curlers a lot, too, which did far less damage to the hair than did all that awful heat.

The comb is amazing, isn't it?!

[spidermom]

My hair almost felted when I added baking soda to my shampoo once.

[VintageBrooklyn]

Forgive my silly question, but what does it mean when ones hair 'felt's'? I hadn't heard this term before! Thank you for the lovely photo, even if her hair leaves much to be desired!

[Fractalsofhair]

Victorian hair styles were pretty damaging. One of my male ancestors had very long hair before his wife started curling it. When she started curling it, it broke off to his shoulders. Also, they didn't have true conditioner then, only oils and greases. Those help, but when you're putting a hot iron on your hair regularly, you do need a conditioner! Many people had poor diets. The ends hanging down wouldn't have been too short by Victorian standards, since a lot of women with shorter hair simply didn't photograph it down. I have to say I love her hair comb though, and the general style. Also, many people didn't detangle their hair that well, more so prior to the Victorian era, but it may have varied place to place. I would guess her hair(if it's mainly her real hair in the top) is very long. If she's curling 10 year old ends regularly, that could cause damage!

[irishlady]

I think her hair is much longer than it looks, most of it seems to be in the big braid thing on top of her head.

The ends do look awful though, poor lady.

[wendyg]

Unless she has very fine hair and has had the loose portion in tight braids?

wg

[xoxophelia]

Add me to the list of people curious what felted hair is :D

[slz]

Dreadlocks are made of felted hair, if you wish.

[Caldonia Sun]

Not looking too happy, is she?

[ravenreed]

Not looking too happy, is she?


They had to sit still for very long periods of time to get enough light exposure for the film. That is why no one looked happy in photos back then.

Didn't they use false hair in that time period? So some of her braid on her head might very well be augmented. ETA: NVM, need more coffee. This is addressed in the very first post!

[jasper]

That big braid looks more like a hat than hair. it looks like her hair is just combed up over a big hat.

If you think about felt in terms of the fuzzy craft supply, that is a non-woven fabric typically made with wool fibers matted and pressed and shrunk together, and imagine that happening to your hair. . . You get the idea.

[rusika1]

Yeah, the braided coronet is almost certainly false hair.

Her ends aren't in very good shape though, are they? It certainly looks as if she's treated it harshly, maybe that was as long as it could grow before breaking.

As to length in general--if you've read any books written in the 19th century, you may have come across references to cutting someone's hair after a serious illness. And poor women would cut and sell their hair if there was an urgent need for extra money; I think Jo March did this in "Little Women". (And of course, there's "Gift of the Magi")

[littlenvy]

Yeah, the braided coronet is almost certainly false hair.

Her ends aren't in very good shape though, are they? It certainly looks as if she's treated it harshly, maybe that was as long as it could grow before breaking.

As to length in general--if you've read any books written in the 19th century, you may have come across references to cutting someone's hair after a serious illness. And poor women would cut and sell their hair if there was an urgent need for extra money; I think Jo March did this in "Little Women". (And of course, there's "Gift of the Magi")
ITA. It looks to me like the top "felt" braid is different from the rest.
She does have damage but its totally different damage then the "felt".
My guess would be that its wool braided to look like hair. That's why it felted and is looks the way it looks.
It would be very easy in this kind of style to pin the wool braid on top of the head and the wrap real hair around it to try to make it look like its all one.

And for those who want to know, felt is what happens to wool or hair when its not woven but matted and then heated. The heat bonds the fibers together to make a pretty solid piece.
Felt or felted hair has no shine because the hair scales do not lay flat but are either damaged or fused with other hair.

[Gvnagitlvgei]

I still don't get what "felted" hair means, even with the example of dreds. Dreds aren't damaged hair, they are just very curly hair allowed to intertwine. I'd assume she was actually combing her hair since it's loose? So, does it mean split ends to an extreme?

[GlassEyes]

I still don't get what "felted" hair means, even with the example of dreds. Dreds aren't damaged hair, they are just very curly hair allowed to intertwine. I'd assume she was actually combing her hair since it's loose? So, does it mean split ends to an extreme?
Not always. A lot of dreadlocks are also made with hair backcombed together, curly or otherwise. I'd guess that's what they mean--since felt itself can look, if you look at it closely, a bunch of threads mashed together. :shrug: I did think that they were talking moer about her ends, though.

It's not really a specific 'hair' term--more just what it 'looks' like, is what Peggy E. was getting at....I think.

Also, as far as the hair, I would guess that the front might be fake, but that her hair is bunned at the back and the loose ends actually reach far lower when her hair is down. There are many pictures of victorian ladies with long hair, but the ends can often be pretty damaged. :shrug: It still looks cool to me.

[merseaone]

Women back then used all kinds of hair pieces, "bumps," tools to make their hair tall, and they wore wigs. In my research all those beautiful curls were actually attachments because of the fact that the ends of their hair were tore up or "faerietale ends."

Do watch "Elizabeth" and "The Duchess" etc and you will see that a lot of women wore their hair cut super short, had a cap over it, then wore wigs.

The Gibson girls also had all kinds of 'fillers' to make their hair poof.

[ScarlettAdelle]

I still don't get what "felted" hair means, even with the example of dreds. Dreds aren't damaged hair, they are just very curly hair allowed to intertwine. I'd assume she was actually combing her hair since it's loose? So, does it mean split ends to an extreme?

Felting is a term that means that the hair is so tangled/matted that it actually interlocks and no longer follows its individual curl pattern. For instance, if you were to take curly curly damaged hair and make a dreadlock out of it, then take an iron (the kind you iron clothes with) and go over it a few times on each side, then wash it, dry it and do the same thing a few times without combing out the dread, it would felt and would most likely get so ultra tangled that you probably wouldn't be able to find the ends to even begin to comb it out. Felting in this situation is a less extreme form of that, meaning that it has been teased and then heated so many times and then left for so long that it stops 'bouncing back' after washing and just gets fuzzy, like cotton. There may or may not be split ends involved.

Hope that clears things up :)

[rusika1]

Wool and hair have little scales, all of which should be laying smoothly, all in the same direction. (Like the scales on a fish).

If those little scales are bent or loosened--through deliberate or accidental damage--they 'catch' onto other damaged areas. This causes the fibers to interlock. If you have enough fibers lock themselves together, you end up with a mat.

Wool can be felted by piling loose fleece in an even layer on a hard surface, adding HOT water, and then agitating or scrubbing at it until the fibers start to interlock. Continue as needed until you have a thick, heavy sheet of nonwoven fabric. You know all those cartoons about washing a sweater and having it come out one quarter the size it was when it went in? That's felted.

Sometimes human hair does this as the result of a condition called plica polonica, also called polish plaits or elf-locks. Other times it is felted deliberately, as in traditional style dreads. Sometimes homeless people have felted hair because they are (for whatever reasons) unable to care for their hair.

In the case of the woman in this picture, her braid appears to be felted. Since it is a hairpiece, it may have been felted deliberately so that it would hold its shape better. Hairpieces at the time could be made from a variety of materials--anything from your own combings (rats and so on), to dyed wool, to horsehair, to purchased human hair.
Switches and so on made from your own shed hairs or from wool would almost certainly need to be felted to hold their shape.

[VintageBrooklyn]

I was one of the people who wondered what 'felting' was in terms of hair. I just want to thank everyone who wrote and described it and I now understand how hair can get that way. Thanks again! :)

[Peggy E.]

Funny, guess I sort of thought that the "felted" hair would be one of those "oh, yeah, it does need some help!" descriptive comments. Sorry for any confusion.

I meant that her hair is in very sad condition, I'd wager the "coronet" braids are enhanced - if not completely done by add-ins. Women kept their "fall out" hair to use for various purposes, including making pieces to add to their hair styles, even to making jewelry of woven hair and in all sorts of designs (popular way to memorialize deceased loved ones was to create tokens of remembrance from their hair, for instance).

The comb is fabulous. On a smaller head of hair it might have appeared way too large. With that big style, though, it fits right in!

(People didn't smile for pictures during this period. They had to sit still for some time, yes, but it was also considered "frivelous" and a photo was an undertaking that was taken quite seriously - it's what you'd leave for future generations to remember you by, after all. You wanted to be sure you were at your absolute best.)