What have these three pictures in common?



Well, besides being less than flattering portrayals of Marie Antoinette, Ringo Starr and the queue outside an opium den, they also depict three hairstyles which, at various stages in the catholic church's endless career in apoplexy over trivia, have been denounced by no less a figure than the pope as being satanic. Pius VI was moved to remark that while ladies' hair in pre-revolutionary France climbed higher and higher the souls of its owners was likewise being consigned to ever deeper damnation in the afterlife. He didn't like the men's hair much at the time either. Another Pius, this time number XII, likened the quiff, beloved of Teddy Boys, Elvis lookalikes and Butlins band drummers, to "the devil's tongue". And yet another pontiff - and would you believe it was also a Pius (number VII) - ordered catholic missionaries in China to arm themselves with a good sharp line of litany and an even sharper shears when confronting these strange male pagans with bald heads and satan's pigtails.

While not actually moving you to excommunicate anyone, for which hairstyles over the years do you reckon a stint of eternal damnation as punishment could have been a tad on the lenient side?

Instant response -
footballers'perms


and comb-overs.

And a toupee is even more silly than a comb-over, if that is possible!

Haven't time to look for pictures now, but large side whiskers are another trend that should be consigned to hell. The punk hairstyles of the 70/80s, beehives, large afros, tight perms and blue rinses on old ladies.

I'm already detecting some insidious sexism here


But it is something that I have often wondered about. Why for example are we now inclined (with justification) to recoil at this ...


... while having moved also on from this one we are invited to view it with fond nostalgia?


(and there was a myriad of the latter to choose from when it came to selecting a picture!)

Nostalgia? More disbelief that such hair styles were ever concoted, amazement that women would be seen outside the house with anything so silly and impratical, and also relief that we no longer need torture our hair and heads is such a way.

Sexist, perhaps but it's just so easy......
To be fair though, here's a mix of male, female and god only knows for your edification. http://www.buzzfeed.com/teamstupidest/the-top-12-most-hair-raising-album-covers-very-r-5atw

I really have a cheek to talk, when I think of the nights spent trying to sleep with a head full of jaggy rollers, the smell and pain of old perms and the hours back combing the resulting mop into a towering edifice, I'm as bad as any of them. Well, nearly.

Stupid hair styles are not a thing of the past, just have a gander at this.

http://www.hairstylesdesign.com/gallery/punk_hairstyles.php

The thing about punk and more recent concoctions is that they were designed to shock, so stating they are hideous is really just affirming that they "worked".

What I'm getting at are the ones which people the world over took to thinking they were the beehives' kneehives.

Roman women were not immune to the hairstyle hysteria either

Fashion is just fashion, and almost always people look back to the fashion of twenty years ago with distaste. There seems to be a need, not just to see the fashion of your time as attractive and/or sexy, but to consider the immediate past ones with horror.

I don't find some of the examples above at all unpleasant - the footballers' perms are fine (one of our rugby commentators and former players suffered a lot of mocking when he had a perm and it's still remembered now, but I found that a bit sexist since no one would have commented on a woman having her hair permed), and so was the male example in Nordmann's post. I like long hair on men (which probably dates to the gorgeous young Robert Redford's locks, and the gentle long-haired look generally in fashion when I was a young woman.

Those pictures showing the wigs, the Roman coils, the big curls are all styles used for formal occasions or by non-working people - generally women weren't so impractical as to wear them for normal wear. I notice when the school ball/formal season is on, the girls all take time off school to get their hair done, and the styles given are often high on the head or curled up and mostly they look considerably less attractive than their normal styles. But they are different from usual and fun. Last year, a fund-raising venture at the school, involving kids shaving their hair for a leukaemia charity had to be held after the school formal, since any girls taking part wanted to have their hair intact for that. They will look back at some of these hairdos with amusement (maybe already do) but they are part of the occasion.

I personally have the opposite problem - hairdressers seem to assume I want to come out looking the same as I went in, so I remember once a hairdresser refusing to perm my hair since it was already wavy and didn't need it, another one refused to cut my hair because it looked fine as it was! and they always want to get any colour I get in it 'subtle'. Ha! I don't pay money for subtle difference.

Hairdressers seem to think they are in charge, not the customer, Caro - it's not exclusively a female thing.

I used to iron my hair (using brown paper) to get it straight.

So did one of my flat-mates, Temp. She was a very beautiful girl with long wavy hair. We used to have to iron it for her and try to get as close to the hairline as possibly without, of course, burning her scalp or face. It was a real performance and there was always a little kink left near the top.

Can't have been good for her hair. But now all the girls seem to own little straightening things.

Why couldn't straight hair have been popular when I was young? Do you remember the home perm kits with the multicoloured plastic rollers with elastic fasteners and little packets of paper like cigarette papers for wrapping the hair in first? Sitting for hours while it 'took' amid the foul smell and your scalp burning, then being neutralised and hoping that when the curlers were removed, your hair wouldn't all come out with them.

It is ever the way though, we all want what we haven't got. Women with curley or wavey hair want it straight and those with straight hair want it wavey. Those with dark hair want it fair and blondes want to be dark, and hairdressers (or hair stylists as they call themselves now) make a fortune charging ridiculous prices, playing on people's inadequacies.

Ferval, do you remember "Which twin has the Toni" and Amami Setting Lotion?

Amami was really good - far better that all the volume sprays and mousses and gels we get today.

I'm going to try to make a picture of a "Which twin..." work. I'm doing everything I've been told - I've got the picture in "My Pictures" quite easily, but I bet when I try to paste it here nothing will happen. Here goes.


http://www.adslogans.co.uk/site/media/.gallery/main8454.jpg
No - I just get an incomprehensible message about file names.

I'll go back and just get the url thing to paste.

Temp, it doesn't work if you post pictures direct from your PC. You will need to join Photobucket or something similar, upload pictures to there from your PC and then from Photobucket to here. Sounds complicated, I know, but it is really not difficult. Lord knows if I can do it then you will have absolutely no problem.

Thank you, ID. Why wasn't I told that before? Trouble is these computer whizz kids always assume you know what you don't know.

I expect this computer has been sent by God to teach me humility. Huh.

I know exactly what you mean! If you join photobucket just remember that it is a fairly public site, so don't use your real name or add any personal details. I use it for here only and it has proven easy enough to work out. If you have any problems just ask, there are many here who use it and can help.

Temp, if you are taking a pic from google images or something like that, right click on the pic, and select 'copy image URL' then open the picture icon (image) above, paste the URL into the top space and OK. That usually works.

God continues (most unfairly, in my opinion) to punish me.

I right clicked on the pic, hopefully scanned the menu thingy for "copy image URL" - nowhere to be seen. Tried double click and yet another extensive menu dropped down, but was the relevant command anywhere to be seen? Of course not.

Oh whazzy-poos and stinky biz, as Hugh Laurie would say.

Thank you for trying to help, ferval and ID, but a friend is coming for Easter who knows all about these mysteries. When someone *shows* you (slowly, and with great patience, tact and understanding), and you're then made to do it yourself several times over, you realise how easy these things really are. Meanwhile it's a matter of , and .

I shall amaze you all yet.

I do like those three smileys together - it's like synchronised swimming.

PS Back to hair. Hair extensions baffle me. How on earth do they stay put? Everyone has them these days - even Kate Middleton, whose hair is so lovely, has apparently got a few woven into her glossy mane. (Daily Mail - always to be relied on for bitchiness - published a picture where KM's extension piece - or whatever it is they fix the things with - could be clearly seen. Cheered me up no end.

You use Internet Explorer, don't you Temp?

If so, it's equally easy but just a slightly different method.

1. Find a picture you want to "borrow" on a stable website (wikipedia, for example)

2. Right click on it and choose "Properties".

3. You get a display up which looks like this:



The bit you're interested in is the address after after the heading Address:(URL)

4. Select the entire address by dragging the pointer over it (see below) and then either right click and choose copy or use the edit option on your Internet Explorer taskbar to choose copy.



5. In the reply box on Res Historica select the "Image" button.

6. Paste the address you've copied into the field presented and click OK.

7. I swear - it works.

I bet it won't for me .

Thank you Nordmann - got to go out now, but will have a little go as you direct later this evening.

You'll all be sorry when I master this - there'll be pictures of Henry VIII and Richard III all over the place, not to mention images of distraught and suffering wives of poets.

There are some good ones of Richard to choose from. Like this one:

Just to experiment with Nordmann's tip and keeping with the hair theme



Yay! It really does work Temp.

Thanks Nordmann, much easier if copying images straight from the web.

1. I found a particularly nice image of Richard Armitage looking impossibly handsome as Richard III.

2. I right clicked on the picture.

3. I selected "Properties".

4. Hurrah - the box comes up, as in Nordmann's instructions. Oh joy, I think.

5. I put the pointer on the address and it won't highlight. Here we go again . I left clicked the little pad (which always works with URLs at the top of the page) - nothing happened. I tried to drag and highlight - nothing happened.

I feel such an idiot, especially when your instructions are so clear and easy to follow, Nordmann. Why on earth can't I highlight the address?

Got it to highlight, but right click doesn't allow me to copy. Computer just makes pinging noises. Don't worry - I'll phone a friend tonight who'll talk me through it. Thanks for trying to help, folks.

Here's Richard anyway.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Cz7KMKqziYk/TPm252p3nRI/AAAAAAAAHJY/3uLaPHU4u6k/s640/RH30500062.png

Ok - when you get to the highlight bit instead of right clicking try pressing the ctrl key and the C key at the same time. That's also "copy".

Your Richard looks like that girl from Ireland who used to present Big Brother. Or was it the girl from Ireland who won Big Brother? Something like that anyway.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dnYLv91mbTQ/T2FcS1oYmbI/AAAAAAAABtA/3CrijZj2OII/s1600/5_009+(RANet).jpg

It's copied, and I then selected the "Image" button, as directed. Pasted and pressed "OK".

No picture, just the URL.

Stay calm and use buttresses.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/7/21/1248187750627/Laurence-Olivier-Richard--001.jpg[img][/img]



Just tried again with a Larry Oliver image. Copied - image icon - pasted - OK, but hasn't worked. In preview there's a red cross in a box after the address. Did that with the Armitage address too.

Temp, are you sure you are clicking the image box first, then pasting the URL after where it says [ img ] and then clicking image again to get [ /img] at the end? In your post above you'll see that the bits that should be at the start and at the end are actually together at the end.

It should be [ img ] PASTED URL [ /img ] (I'm not shouting)

Will try again.

Alleluia!
Oh thank you, ferval and Nordmann. God has clearly chosen you both as His instruments to lead me out of the dark into this wondrous light!

Over to the bar at once to order champagne for all.

I feel like we've delivered a baby together - well done everyone. Now we all need to rest a few days ...

OK, going back to where I was before I went into labour - does anyone remember "Which twin has the Toni?"

Never seen it Temp, but surely any woman wouldn't have poured jugs full of stuff over their hair whilst wearing fancy, frilly, sheer negligees and full makeup?

It's a great picture, isn't it? This is how women were, ID, before the men said we could go out to work. Must have been fun staying at home all day, pouring water over your head and giggling.

But what I want to know is why the twin sans the Toni looks as if she's about to eat her sister's hair. Very odd.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I think she is jealous... she wants to get her horrible negligee all wet too.

Edit. Sorry Temp you are looking for serious answers and I'm being silly. Will shut up now.

Edit Edit. He is a rather hunky Richard. Not disimilar in the face to the real one either.

Me looking for serious answers about perms? Don't be daft!

This Richard doesn't have quite the same effect on me somehow...

Oh don't be too hard on him Temp.... he's just got the hump 'cos he can't buy any Toni.... just look at those loose, lack-lustre, limp locks!



And well done on doing the pics... I know only too well how frustrating it is when it doesn't work right, but also how satisfying when you finally get it to work.

Lol.

He's gone a bit mad with the mousse, hasn't he? Overload the hair with "product" and that's the result. Awful.

Right, must be sensible now and post something intelligent about the problem of usury in Elizabethan England. No end to the excitement tonight.

Edit: I feel such an idiot though, MM: the average nine-year-old can do this stuff with ease.

Actually Temp, he does look like he's been dragged through a hawthorn bush backwards, and t'was obviously a damp day at Bosworth 'cos his perm has dropped.

But on the plus side his mascara hasn't run....

EDIT: And yes a 9 year old might be able to do it (when shown how)..... but can they write off the cuff about anti-semitism in Elizabethan/jacobean England as evidenced in the plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare etc...?

Just compare the bedraggled Richard III with the effortlessly stylish Earl of Richmond, MM.

Henry Tudor's hair stayed immaculate all day at Bosworth, and quite simply people *noticed*. You can't have a King of England whose hair always looks a mess, and saying "My helmet flattened it" just isn't good enough.

Richard III lost the Battle of Bosworth because he clearly was not the King with the Toni - *or* the can of Elnett Hair Spray.

PS I just love that hat.

Quote :

Now we all need to rest a few days ...

Yeeeessss. Except that I feel I should be able to do this too, and it's so far taken me about half an hour to actually just copy Nordmann's instructions onto Word. First of all it happily pasted the pictures of the properties stuff, but not the words he'd put. So then I had to copy just the words and it wasn't too happy about that, but eventually care and persistence was rewarded with the first bit of typing. But the second bits were more determinedly obstructive and I thought I was going to have to just type it our myself. Finally...but I haven't got the properties pictures. I suppose the best thing to do would be to remind myself that it is under the unlikely thread of Hair.

Anyway I prefer words to pictures, so might not need to do this at all. Should bother putting an avatar up sometime, I suppose. Not quite certain how to do that either, though I have done it elsewhere (once).

Cheers, Caro.

In defence of 50s women I don't think most of them spent half as much time on their appearance and hair as we are told young women of the present do. I was rather surprised to hear that NZ women on average spend an hour and a half getting ready in the morning, and men about an hour. This does count having a shower. I'm going to check the figures, but I want to send this now in case it all disappears. (Still can't seem to copy and paste it elsewhere to keep.)

I can't find the article on NZ people (I did find depressing ones though on the lengths people go to look good on the beach not wishing to be less fake tanned, less shaven, less thin than anyone else there), but found this one from the Telegraph late last year:


"On average men spend 81 minutes a day on personal grooming, including cleansing, toning and moisturising, shaving, styling hair and choosing clothes, the study found. Women have their beauty regime down to a fine art and get hair, clothes and make-up done in just 75 minutes. The research, carried out for Travelodge, found that on an average morning men spend 23 minutes in the shower, compared to 22 minutes for women. Men then take 18 minutes on their shaving regime, compared to 14 minutes for women despite them having to trim legs, armpits and bikini line. Men take a minute longer - 10 minutes - on cleansing, toning and moisturising."

I know I don't go out to work much, but even when I do I expect to be out the house an hour after getting up, including having a shower, having breakfast and getting some lunch ready for both of us. I might cheat slightly by usually choosing the clothes the night before. And of course I don't look slim or tanned.

Likewise Caro, I never spent more than an hour between dragging myself out of bed and dashing out the door, at least once the kids were off my hands.
14 minutes every morning trimming their various fluffy bits and pieces! Good god, are these women or chimps?

Heavens, what a self obssessed society we are becoming. These people must get up at 4am to allow for travel time to work plus all that grooming. Sounds like they are going to a royal ball everyday instead of work.

PS Caro, if you want to keep a record of Nordmann's instructions, wouldn't it be easier to highlight the section you want, right click on the highlighted part and press print?

My vote goes to Richard Armitage, much better looking than Henry VII. what was the name of the Movie where RA played R111?

Gran