3 Weird Vintage Hair Tools I Only Just Discovered Thanks to the SFO Hair Exhibit

There are so many weird and wonderful vintage hair tools that have been invented for the sake of beautification.

Here are 3 items that I’ve only recently discovered thanks to the exhibit Hair Style that is on view right now, at the SFO Museum at the San Francisco International Airport.

Beer Shampoo

Of course someone made this… I have seen vintage home beauty recipes that include beer as a setting lotion. So it does not surprise me that someone made a beer based shampoo.

Eva Gabor Synthetic Wig Spray

I do not know a lot about wigs. I have always wanted to do an internship with a theater wig maker. There are wig stylists I follow on Instagram that work on period movies and streaming series that are just magicians in my mind.

Thanks to this exhibit, I now know that there are special hairsprays for wigs, because regular hairspray can dry out the synthetic materials and even deteriorate them! Yikes!

And Eva Gabor’s wigs are still available to buy today. They now go by the name Gabor Wigs.

C-Bak Viewer hairstyle mirror

I tried to search the C-Bak Viewer online. The search brought up nothing. There is something both genius and silly about this vintage hair tool. I love that the woman in the advertisement has a beehive/French twist combo.

But many of us do want so badly to be able to see the back of our heads when we are styling our hair. I am lucky that my bathroom is set up that I can use one of those arm hotel mirrors.

I wonder what is on the beauty shelf today that will be in a museum exhibit in 50 years? The Bumpit? The Invisibobble? Heck, maybe even the Roll & Go! Haha!

The exhibit of great vintage hair tools is located at the San Francisco International Airport in Terminal 1 Departures – Level 2 on view through August 22, 2021. You can see some of the other great items that are part of the exhibit on their website.

Much of the exhibit items came from Jeff Hafler’s Beauty Bubble Salon and Museum located at 61855 29 Palms Hwy in Joshua Tree, CA. Can’t make it to Palm Springs to see his collection. He has a bunch of photos of all the great vintage beauty tools in the collection. Some of the exhibit also came from Mickey McGowan, Unknown Museum Archives, and A’Lelia Bundles. 

SFO Museum, a division of San Francisco International Airport, is a cultural organization accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. The Museum is a multifaceted program with rotating exhibitions on a wide variety of subjects and interactive play areas featured throughout the terminals. SFO Museum’s mission is to delight, engage, and inspire a global audience with programming on a broad range of subjects; to collect, preserve, interpret, and share the history of commercial aviation; and to enrich the public experience at San Francisco International Airport.