Post 1795 … The End of Hair Powder
In the late 1790s, fashion, especially in France, went completely bananas! By 1795, fashionable hairstyles began to shrink. The à la Titus, the à la Victime and other closely cropped hairstyles became extremely popular. [1] Hair this short doesn’t even need pomatum, let alone powder!
The popularity of powder as a fashion statement dwindled even further when a new tax was levied by English Parliament in May of 1795. The purchase of hair powder now required the additional purchase of an annual certificate at the cost of one guinea. [2] The Royal Family, most military personnel and a few others were exempt. One guinea doesn’t sound like much to us, but the new tax definitely made hair powder more cost-prohibitive for the working class. [3]
Hygiene practices were also changing. Washing the body and hair with water was being encouraged by doctors, which meant the use of powder as a hygienic practice was no longer popular. [4] That’s not to say hair powder was never to be heard from again! It was still around. In fact, in 1812 there were over 46,000 hair powder certificates issued in the United Kingdom, and pharmaceutical books were still including recipes up through the mid-nineteenth century. [5,6]
Funnily enough, variations of pomatum and powder still exist and are used today! Pomatum recipes have remained the same up until the past 50 years, and hair powder has been reincarnated as dry shampoo. [7] While both products share shelf space, they will never be used together again…. or will they?
How to Get All This Stuff Out of Your Hair
OK everyone, we have now come to the most important part of the book.
How in the dang heck do I get this stuff out of my hair?!
Don’t worry, it’s not as difficult as you might think! We have a way to help speed up the cleaning process. It’s a little trick Abby learned from her mother: Shampoo your hair when it is dry. That’s right, after combing your hair out until it is tangle-free, fill your hand up with a heck of a lot of shampoo and massage it into your hair and scalp just like you would with wet hair. Make sure all of your hair has been shampooed, and then hop into the shower and rinse your hair as normal. Shampoo your hair and condition in the shower like you always do, and then your hair should be 95 to 100 percent pomade-free.
Extra bonus—your hair is going to feel amazing after the deep conditioning treatment you got from the pomatum!
Parisian Ladies in Their Winter Dress. 1799. [England: Pubd. 24th Novr. , by S.W. Fores, No. 50 Piccadilly. Folio’s of Caracatures lent out for the Evening] Photograph. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2007677627/.