Hair Straighteners and Curlers

Fashion is something that exists in everyone’s life and we all use a number of different devices and products to make ourselves look good.  Something used more often by women than men are hair styling tools, specifically hair straighteners and curlers. Today we are going to look at hair straighteners in the Farm House Museum. In most households women generally have hair straighteners and curlers, as they are relatively cheap and accessible. To straighten hair today, heat is often applied between two clamps to make sure the hair becomes less curly and more stiff. That same idea was used in the past as well. Straighter hair wasn’t that important until the 1800s, except in Ancient Egypt, where straight hair was prized. During that time people would heat up flat iron plates over a fire. When they were hot enough they would run the plates over the hair shaft to create a smooth look. This method led to some problems, as woman would often get burned on their face and hands.

       This method did change for the better in the 1800s. In 1872 Parisian Marcel Grateau invented the first “straightener” device, which was a heated iron rod. These early straightener devices were heated on a stove or in a fire. However they were still dangerous as it could singe off hair or burn the user, but they were safer than the Ancient Egyptian way as they were smaller and were less likely to burn the skin. Once they were heated, people would test how hot they were by closing it on a piece of paper and seeing what color the paper turned. If the color was yellow, it meant that it was too hot. Before the invention of the 1872 straightener, straightened hair for woman wasn’t as popular, but after the trend towards women straightening their hair began to grow.

       In 1906 Simon Monroe became the first person to patent the flat iron for hair straightening. He was upstaged three years later though by Issac Shero who invented a hair straightener that used two flat irons, which could be heated and hard pressed together. Lady Jennifer Bell Schofield wanted to try something different. During the early 1900s she became obsessed with straightening hair and wanted to improve the current straighteners of the time. The tool she invented had two metal plates that rested between a hinge in the center that one could clamp and unclamp from their hair. It was basically the combination of the ideas of Grateau and Shero. This model bears a close resemblance to hair straighteners of today and in the Farm House.

       There are three hair straighteners in the Farm House, all in the strawberry room. They all are the same design as Lady Jennifer Schofield’s hair straightener. On some of them there is still the visible burn marks from when they were heated by fire, which wouldn’t have been very nice for the women that used it on their hair in the house. There is also a much smaller hair curler next to the hair straighteners. The reason it is so small is because it was used for curling men’s mustaches. During Victorian times men would often have handlebar mustaches, which they would wax and groom. Metal and wood mustache curlers were invented as well, similar to the hair straighteners for women, which would help men create their handlebar curls. This device would also be slightly dangerous as it would be heated and used much closer to men’s faces. One mustache curler was patented in 1894, but after 1910 they began to fall out of fashion as was noted in the 1909 book, A Dictionary of Men’s Wear. In it, the hair curler was mentioned as being better “left altogether to women, who have hair to burn.”

       Even after the Farm House hair straighteners rose to popularity, women would still try new methods in straightening hair. During the 1950s, when straight hair once again became popular, women would lay their hair across a flat surface and move a standard home clothes iron across their hair. This was once again damaging to the hair and did fall out of fashion eventually when the standard hair straighteners of today became popular, but it is still practiced in some cultures around the world. These devices in the Farm House Museum reveal what some women used to look good, but it also shows that making oneself look good wasn’t just something women did.