Catalog Sunday: Chicago Mail Order 1940

 

Hair Post 2014: Hair foolery pt 2

I got some hot sticks about two years ago from a beauty swap that I never used. I had some old products in my cabinet that I haven't used in a long time so I decided to play with my hair, something I really don't do.

I wanted to see how my hair would react to the heat and which product would be best. I've hot pressed my hair before, I just don't like using too much heat on it as I'm pretty content with how it acts naturally.

Hair Post 2014: Hair foolery pt 1

Hello lovely people.

I get messages from time to time - Which reminds me, should I do a Q&A?

If so, send me messages via email or Facebook. :)

More awesome Playclothes repairs!

Hello everyone!

It has been a crazy few weeks for me. I have a cough (congested throat that may be a sinus infection) that I've had flair up for over a week. I hope it will go away in a bit.

Catalog Sunday

More great 1940s Sears sale fashions.

Vintage Homemaking: How to be well-dressed on a smaller clothing budget

I'm feeling homemakie. 

One reason I'm feeling this way is because of Viva. Some of the weekender is still haunting me. Mainly, the dressing up. I really like dressing in my clothes but being home and freelancing a lot tends to keep me in my PJs.

Catalog Sunday

This Sunday I have accessories and some sundries from Sears 1942-43.

Catalog Sunday

This Sunday I have the last installment of my
black women's wig book from the early 1910s.

Catalog Sunday

This Sunday I have part two of the 18th century black woman's wig catalog. Enjoy!!

When it rains, it pours...So dance in the puddles!

Happy Saturday, everyone!

Sorry I have not been posting much this week, but now that I'm working full time (I love saying that), I've been having a crazy time.

First off this month, I'm taking 3 dance classes! Two of them are on the same night, so I sometimes don't get home before 10 pm. I like to get to bed by 11, so I can get up at 6:30 and have some decompression time before I leave for work at 8.

I love the ritual of getting up and ready for the day.

Work is fine. I'm having a good time and constantly mentally thinking, "am I being productive enough." I know way too many people out of work, so I want to make sure I am doing a good job.

Catalog Sunday

This Sunday I have a historical treat. While I was scouring eBay a few weeks ago, I came across this wig book. It's a book for black wigs, a very rare item to find indeed! Beauty and fashion products were advertised to black people but because of the small circulation, they are very hard to find. This one is most likely from the 1900s to the late teens, and I was the only bidder, yay!

The wigs are fascinating to read through. I love the descriptions of the hair. A lot of them use 'creole' hair, which is just bi-racial hair, but the buns, wigs, and extensions have fascinating descriptions to read. I'll post the entire book over a few Catalog Sundays from now 'till the end of the year :)

Enjoy!

Making the Bra Pt 4

My hair after 3 hours of dancing last night! What!! It was a sponge last night, soaking up everything and not releasing any moisture. Went into class looking cute, came out a big cotton ball :)

I never realize how many freckles I have until someone points them out.

Oh, the bra, right!

Breeches are done!

Lots of stuff happened this weekend!

My hair.

My hair today.

Freshly washed, not combed.

The trials of covering 'in transition' hair.

When I go out and about on errand running, I tend to just have a colorful scarf wrapped around my head to keep my hair under control. My head gets cold easily, at least that's how it feels, so I like to keep it covered. Which is strange considering how much hair I have.

This day my hair was, as I call it, 'in transition'. I had washed and pin curled it because I was going out later that night, and I needed to go out and do stuff during the day. I put on my jeans, a t-shirt and my cardie. Great, what do I put on my head?

Despite my love of hats, when I'm not doing a vintage type event or social outing, I often get quite intimidated prancing around town in a 40's beret. I spent a good half hour choosing a head covering for a simple grocery run! I have to laugh at that.

I got a new soap!

I'm not one to yammer about beauty products, but with some of my past posts on my struggle with my hair, I have to squeal about my newest discovery.

I had always wanted to try black soap in bar form.

It looked so cool and natural and moisturizing. Everything Ive ever wanted. But a bit out of my price range. That, and I did want a liquid form.

When I went to Vitacost for my normal order of castile soap and oils, I ran across this.

WHA?

Shea butter infused black soap in liquid form!? I moderately liked my castile soap, but the one I bought had tea tree oil in it and was a bit too drying for my skin and hair type.

This black soap is like pouring a bucket of moisture on my hair. It smells great, washes off great and hydrates my skin and hair ten fold. When I used it for the first time my hair was s soft I almost didn't need conditioner. I was stunned.

I'm buying this stuff for the rest of my life now!

Here's a list of the products I use.

The Jason vitamin E oil (5,000 IU) blend I mix in with my leave in conditioner for my hair. It smells amazing and is light.

Cococare is one of my favorite brands. Its inexpensive, has pretty high cocoa content, and smells light. This is my main moisturizer and I use it after I shower. Their pure cocoa butter stick I've been using for years and is AMAZING. It's like a push-up pop of cocoa butter!

Burdock Root Oil is great for the scalp. You can get it in capsule form, but I don't because it generally has gelatin in it. This oil from Floraleads is about the purest version I've ever found. I invested in the 4 oz bottle and I'm s glad I did. The smell is not very pleasing so you might want to cut it with an essential oil or something.

Dessert Essence cocoanut conditioner I decided to get with the new soap. Its nowhere near as strong as the other scent of theirs I bought. So far it seems okay.

The Dessert Essence Jojoba oil is what I add sometimes to my body wash. Its also great for my stretched ears.

Palmer's os one of my favorite brands. I use to get their cocoa butter lotion back when you could only find it in the granny section of Walgreens. Now that the company has had a resurgence, I've been priced out, but I do enjoy a few of their speciality items. This facial moisturizer is nice and has sunscreen. Also, I have some of their lip butter and it smells so gewd.

Thayer's Witch Hazel is awesome. Enough said!

Good old fashioned Dove deodorant. It's smell is understated and it doe s the job.

The last bottle of Jason's vitamin E oil (14,000 IU) I use mainly for my cuticles and for the top of my puppy's nose. She's prone to dryness. It smells obscenely good.

Thats pretty much all I use. Sure, I have a couple of bins of trial and error (I am a girl after all) but I tend to stick with clean, natural stuff that I have the option of mixing and matching.

That and a lot of water.

Black Hair pt 2

"Black women are so broken by their hair." The lady at the bus stop said.

I completely agree. I had been thinking about the hair history of black people for months, but it was that moment a few weeks ago that really made me look deeper into why my hair was so significant to me. What American cultural stigmas was I suppressing by wearing my African descended hair in its normal state?

Now, when I say normal, I dont mean without styling. All cultures style their hair, but few changed the actual texture of it to fit to the extreme opposite of what you hair is suppose to be as black hair has done.

I guess that is why I was so disappointed by the social commentary film (I cant call it a documentary) 'Good Hair' by Chris Rock. I cant be nice about this movie when I speak about the impact it could have had. No where is the history of black hair prior to the 1950s actually discussed. Nowhere are black women actually confronted with *why* they wear fake straight hair, or dye it blonde.

Nowhere were there historians that talked about the psychological wave that resulted from the origins of black hair, and being denied in keeping those traditions, to the reason why 'this' hair is good or not, to the eventual acceptance of this as the norm.

Nowhere.

That made me angry. It had good contemporary social conditions as to what was going on, and Im all for embracing a wrongdoing and making it your own, but the film seemed nearly afraid to say to black women, 'Here is a major reason why you spend billions on the black hair care industry'. That avoidance made me realize, I dont think those women wanted to know. They wanted to be 'cute', without paying attention to some of the social reasons why this is considered cute. Its just all they know.

My Granny is in the upper left corner.

Origin, reason, acceptance.

Origin:
In seeking some historical enlightenment on why natural black hair was as it was, I found a fantastic book that essentially took the journey of black culture, extracted the references to hair and condensed them into this book. 'Hair Story: Untangling the roots of black hair in America' by Ayana D. Byrd and Lori L. Tharps.

The book starts in Africa just before the slave trade and states the many different hair styles and varied hair textures of African hair. It talks about the ritual of having elaborate hair for men and women, the social interaction of having your hair groomed by the right person, what that meant and so on.

It talked about when a new slave had their hair cut, it was like robbing them of their identity. Each tribe had different intentional styles, and now all these different people were to be lopped together and taken to a foreign place.

At first, African slaves were worked until they dropped. Seven days straight sometimes 16 hours a day. There was no time for rest let alone grooming. The book pointed out the origin of a rather interesting iconic look associated with that time.

A few centuries later, after the import of African slaves was stopped, a sabbath of Sunday was slowly incremented into the slave way of life. The book says for Christian reasoning, but I also believe because by then a lot of the slaves were actual children of the masters as well. Sunday not only became a day of worship, but a day of grooming. Also a divide in slaves was growing. House slaves, as we all know the lighter and often offspring of the master, worked in the house. Those jobs were said to be easier than the one in the field. They had hair that was more curly than wooly compared to a field slave. Their skin was lighter, their noses were not as wide. They were more easily integrated into the white lexicon, so therefore more sought after, and its that divide we still have in the much of the black community today.

Reason For:
So we have this desire, based on non allowance of upkeep like in the African times, and the social stigma of more prosperity if your hair was not as 'African' in later times. The book demonstrates it was this combination that lead to the great black beauty products industry so soon after emancipation. As more black people went into higher education and business, they still had to compete with the white accretion of acceptance.

Acceptance:
So straight hair is good hair. Straight hair makes you more relatable to the norm, and favorable among men, and more likely to succeed. That is the mentality that my grandmother had when she said to me what she did.

I guess that is what ticked me off about the film 'Good Hair'. It started its history of black hair with CJ Walker. I have always refused to accept that black hair started with her.

It was that time before her, granted, history making business, (first millionaire woman in America) that I have always wanted to know about. Now I have some foundation. And now you do too.

As for me personally, I still continue the natural route.

Here is my hair ready for washing.

Generally I do a rinse of warmed Apple Cider Vinegar on my hair and scalp twice a week. Then, I wash with castile soap, and condition with oils and a vegan conditioner (Im still looking for one Im happy with).

I comb my hair out with a wide tooth brush because I was always braking combs because they were never meant for my hair type! Revelation, right!

I then twist two large locks together and in essence 'pin curl' them to my head. I let them air dry then brake the locks into fourths. Thats it.

Thats the total of my styling. Ill then arrange my hair in which ever coiffure I wish, and Im on my way.

Im really proud of the personal strides Ive taken in my hair. It might seem small to others, even silly, but as a personal venture, its one that Im extremely proud of.

Part 1 can be found here.

Black Hair pt 1

I was having a phone conversation with my nearly 90 year old Grandmother the other week and other than her consistently telling me I need to move back to Kentucky, she had a sound reason why I was in the job slump Im in.

"Do you still wear your hair like that," she asked.

"Like what," I said.

"You know, that way."

"The way it grows out of my head?"

"Well, yes. You need to go to a black hair dress and get a perm. Then Im sure when you go for a job interview, you will look more presentable. You would be surprised how something like that would keep you back." I said thank you as I normally do when she says something insufferable and we ended the call.

Later that day, at the bus stop, I was approached by an older black woman, about late 40s, intrigued by my hair.

"Why do you have it covered up?" she asked. "You wear it natural, right?"

"I do," I replied. I had a bandanna on, mainly because my hair was pretty wild that day, but also I was just out running errands, and the wind was strong.

"What, are you ashamed of it?"

"Not at all, my head is cold."

"Oh," she said slightly embarrassed.

"I love my hair," I resounded. She was happy to hear me say that and we went on and had a good ten minute conversation about black hair.

"Black women are so broken when it comes to their hair," she said, and I couldn't have agreed more.

Let me reiterate.

I love my hair.

Not as in, 'I love the way my hair is styled today', or 'I love the cut I have this week', but, I love my hair. I love its texture, its color, its sheen, its body, its behavior, everything about it. And this love did not come easy, especially growing up as most black women do, with an instilled belief that your natural hair is wrong.

I got my first perm at about 8 years old. For people who dont know, a perm for black hair does the opposite of what a perm for white hair does. It makes it straight. The term 'relaxer' seems to be the new thing to say, but I grew up with all the hair dressers saying 'perm' so that is what Im going to say.

My mother did it for me with home kits, and I had so much hair that it often took two or even three (and those were the adult sizes). So I got a perm roughly every two months, and my hair was washed every two weeks.

The early years were the hot comb, and lets just say that a stove heated oily metal comb nearly singeing your scalp for three hours bi-weekly isn't too much of an improvement to having your scalp chemically burned by a white mayonnaise solution. But, thats what little black girls were subjected to. That is what we were told would make us pretty.

When I was about 12, and my mother got lazy, I didn't get my hair washed for nearly a month. The sides, in front of my ears started to thin, and then fall out. I lost a lot of hair on that washing, and I could tell my mother was a bit saddened by it. It was then that I thought, why do I have to go through this, why cant I wash my own hair?

When I was about 14, I was allowed to make some of my own hair decisions. By then I had a 'wave' or I guess if you are using 80s lingo, a jerry curl. It kept my hair and scalp constantly wet, musty, and ruined many a pillow case. Not to mention my face often broke out.

By 15, I started using less and less of that 'curl' solution, and i noticed my hair felt better. Soon I stopped using it at all, and just washed it and oiled my scalp (another black hair myth Ill get to later).

When I got to high school, I realized the way I had grown up with my hair didn't have to be the only way to wear my hair. I stopped putting stuff on it, and I started washing it and twisting it, and it grew. My sides even began to fill out.

But then, out of pressure from my Grandmother, I was sent to the beauty parlor and got a perm. My hair was straight, shiny and down to my shoulders. Even my brother said it looked good. I felt not dirty, but violated in a way. This wasn't me, and I was so not a conformer. At 16, that was the last perm I got.

Some years, tattoos and a few piercings later, I realized I needed to revisit my hair. I bleached and dyed it for the very first time, ever! This was when I began to experiment with vintage hairstyles.

I was living in San Francisco, still wearing my hair naturally, but noticing it wasn't doing too well. I was trying all sorts of 'natural' black hair care products, as it was popular now to have your hair 'chemical free', but I realized something. It was these products that were making my hair brake, fray and frizz in the first place. A lot of them had mild 'relaxers' in them to make the hair more 'manageable'. Thats a bunch of shit, I thought to myself.

So I threw them all out, and started as natural as I could. Castile soap, jojoba oil, vitamin e oil, burdock root oil. It was a revelation, and I haven't looked back. Its amazing how your hair can tell you what it needs if you just pay attention.

I brought this aspect up to the woman at the bus stop during our hair pow wow, and she concurred.

"They are pretty harsh on your hair." I also told her I didn't oil my scalp. She was pretty surprised by that one.

"I wash my hair every 3 days. I rub a bit of vitamin e oil in it, and Im fine," I said. "I don't do any of the ritual I was raised with, and my hair is better off for it." I could tell she admired me. One for being able to take a stand about my hair at my age, and her never having that opportunity, but also that I was perfectly at peace with my hair. I embraced it. I didn't want it to be super straight, or a comical giant afro. It was my natural hair tied back with a scarf because it was cold that day, no more no less. But it made me realize, I AM taking a stand with my hair and I didn't even know it.

Here is my hair as of this morning, freshly washed, non styled or combed.

Im bucking over a century of common law wisdom associated with black women's hair by wearing it the way it grows from my head. Amazing isn't it?