Weird Old Ways Women Used to Dry Their Hair in History
Techniques women used to dry their hair, that were common to see more than 100 years ago, could seem weird to us now. They were just using what they had available to them at the time.
Today, the average U.S. household has at least 1 handheld hairdryer. But handheld hair dryers at home weren’t common before and also not completely practical for drying the pin curls and roller sets of yore.
So, historically, how would a woman dry her hair? Disclaimer: Please do not attempt to do anything in this blog post for the sake of your own safety.
- Pre-Electricity Hair Drying Techniques
- The Dawn of Electric Hair Dryers
- The Rise of the 1950s Hood Dryer at Home
- A Word of Caution (Hint: It’s Asbestos)
Before Electricity… Other Creative Sources of Heat for Drying
Before electricity, the heat for home application was created through fire. Whether for cooking or just heating the household, we got heat by burning some type of fuel.
Early At Home Heat Sources for Hair Drying
Since heat is a faster way to also dry things out, women creatively used the same heat for hair drying. Picture a woman with her back to the fireplace, running a comb through her hair, trying to evaporate the excess water out.
One ad from 1895 shows “The Princess Hair Dryer and Burnisher,” a metal container filled with boiling water that supposedly evaporated the moisture as you brushed it through your hair.
A similar item called the Holland Metal Hair Dryer, made more like a hairbrush, was advertised in newspapers for many years in the early 1900s. Again, designed to be filled with boiling water and brushed through the hair to help evaporate the water.
A Summer Drying Debacle
In the Summer, a woman could sit outside in the sun in the middle of the day trying to get her curls dry. This hair drying method remained popular well into the 1960s.
You might also like: It is Okay to Wear Your Curlers in Public.
For one unfortunate beachgoer, who normally would have used the sun, an unfortunate lesson was learned in an incident with a clothes wringer.
From a 1903 St. Paul newspaper, we learn the story of a young woman and her sister from Missouri who would normally dry their hair after swimming in the sun. But on the women’s side of the beach (yes men and women segregated from each other on the beach back then), a clothes wringer was made available that women could use to wring out their very long Edwardian hair.
At the inopportune time that the women’s beach attendant had been at another part of the beach taking care of something else, these young ladies, who had never dried their hair this way before, chose to try it out. And so they didn’t have a vital piece of information needed to wring their hair safely.
They missed this vital technique of wrapping your hair in a towel before the wringing and the sister in the wringing machine got her hair tangled and caught in the machine with no solution but to cut it off.
The beach decided after this incident that it was time to install an electric powered hair dryer. By 1903, inventions for electric hair drying were becoming available. Here is such a system designed for use at the beach.
Early Salon Solutions
Some inventions that pop up in the late 1880s and 1890s include the first hood hairdryers at hairstyling establishments. Early designs started with some type of fuel burned at the base of the unit near the floor. The heat rose up to the patrons hair through a flew.
What Hood Dryer is Right for You?
This fascinating hair dryer info was compiled while I was researching for my latest YouTube video. I bought and tested new hood hairdryers for use at home and gave you all of my insights on what made them good and not so good. Or read about my favorites and find them online in my blog post review.
Electricity Changed Hair Drying Forever
In the late 1800s, Thomas Edison installed the first private electric system in his house. This is the beginning of electricity being available for use in everyday life. And the availability of this modern technology surged the development of appliances that ran on electricity.
It wasn’t long before someone figured out how to combine an electric fan with an electric heat source to dry hair. Over the first few decades of the 20th century, the hair dryer slowly evolved, with electricity being the key to making it a viable, non-toxic, and safer option.
Larger salon drying units were available, along with smaller handheld dryers for home use.
People at home also came up with their own creative ways to use their other electric appliances as alternative hair drying appliances. 1920s Popular Mechanics magazines gave readers these ideas.
A funnel attached to a fan for air flow to dry the hair
Or the magazine suggested attaching a hose to the out air vent of a vacuum and attach the other end to a box lined with asbestos containing your toaster. Then attach another hose to the box for the out airflow for a home made hairdryer. (Please reread my disclaimer at the beginning of this post that you should not try any of this.)
The style of the salon hood dryer would shange over those decades, but it still followed the basic principles of electric heat and airfow.
Home Hood Dryers for the 1950s Housewife
It wasn’t until the 1950s that the home use hood hair dryer started to take off. Before this, hood dryers were big and made of metal, so they were not very practical fro home use.
With post WWII advancements in technology, including the development of plastics that could withstand the heat generated by the dryer heating element, lightweight home use options became available.
These units included both the soft bonnet hood attached to its own heating unit and the hard plastic hood hair dryer that could be placed on a table top at home. You can still buy these types of home use hair dryers and I reviewed my favorite models in this blog post. Hood Hair Dryers: Which One is Right for You? Tested and Reviewed.
Think it Through Before You Turn on a Vintage Hair Dryer
I need to add a word of caution to anyone who might find one of these classic hood dryers at an antique store or online.
By all means, you can buy one of these and enjoy it for its vintage design and display it for its beauty.
But these hairdryers were often lined inside with asbestos, which is very dangerous if it is released into the air you breathe. I would avoid turning these dryers on and using them to dry your hair. There’s just no guarantee that they are safe.
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