A Free Beauty Tip from 1955 on Hair Brushing….

I have this little book, it’s ratty and tatty and falling to bits but Oh how I love the smell of it, the yellow pages as they are falling out and of course the stella advice given in it.  The Book is called “The Handbook of Beauty” by Constance Hart and was written in 1955.. 

I was brought up by Mum on the importance of brushing your hair.  I didn’t know this, nor could I remember being hounded, nagged or made to do it but it must have been such a normal part of life that the occasions did not stand out but recently I was bent over, head to the floor and brushing my hair from the back to the front over and over as I was having a conversation with Mum and she said… you know, your sisters and most younger girls would not know how good that feels…  I asked her what she meant and she said that I was always made to/taught to brush my hair every night but the other two who are younger than me for whatever reason either growing up in a different time or having short hair or Mum not having the time to be ON it as much or whatever but they just don’t brush their hair like they use to…  More like they will tussle their hair, air dry then bang some fudge in it to make it messy or it goes up into a messy bun and that’s the extent of it…  Only when a trip to the hairdressers for a cut, colour and blowwave does the hair get a good brushing.. This is what she meant and then I thought, wow… to me its just normal but since then, everytime I do brush I allow myself to really enjoy the feeling…

I thought about this again last night when I was reading this particular part of one of my favorite little books and I thought I would share:

An Excerpt: – “There is no set rule about the amount of brushing needed.  You may have heard that 100 strokes a day is the sure way of hair beauty.  That’s just a convenient number picked out of a hat.  You can brush your hair 50 times, 100 times, 208 times or 333 times a day.  The big point is daily regularity.  Better 100 times a day than 700 times once a week.

One of the silliest notions ever to hit the female sex, by the way, is that brushing disturbs a hair setting.  quite the contrary.  A hair setting that is un-brushed will begin to look like a wig after a while.  If your hair has just been set, and is completely dry, brushing will loosen the set just enough to make it look more natural. Good hairdressers themselves thoroughly brush hair they’ve just set before they add the final combing touches…(I will interject here briefly to agree that is you are especially using THE LINDY CHARM SCHOOL FOR GIRLS ESSENTIAL SETTING LOTION –  there is no need to be scared about brushing out a set)…  

Now… about those cast off nylons, I listed among your essential aids to hair beauty… No matter how clean your hair, there is bound to be dust, dirt or soot in it, especially if you  live in the city.  This grime clings to the brush bristles.  Obviously, with the same brush used all over the head, the dirt it picks up from one part of the hair will be brushed right back into another part.

So.. try this experiment.  Slip an old nylon over your hairbrush.  brush your air a few times.  Now look at the nylon.  Shocked at the dirt on it?  I’ll bet you are.. But you should feel relieved – because the dirt in o the stocking and not on the brush bristles or back in your hair.  Whenever you brush, slip a nylon over the bristles.  After every ten to twenty strokes, move the stocking so that a new section of it covers the bristles.

This neat trick also helps to keep your brush cleaner longer.  But regardless, you must wash your brush often – at least once a week – (Thats why having a second brush as a pinch-hitter is a good idea).  Dip the brush into luke warm soapy water adding a couple of drops of aromatic ammonia if particularly dirty then swish around, rinse and shake off before allowing to dry in the sun with the bristles up…”

Next week – How to massage your scalp and other home remedies..

 Til then,  xx Chrissy