“I was a model for Lapinal hair coloring in 1958 and 59 in Chicago!”
When I got this email, it was titled with one simple word “Lapinal”… but I opened it right away, because I knew that it only meant one thing and my curiosity was sparked instantly.
You see, Lapinal hair color (today known as Redken) was one of only a handful of hair color companies in the 1950s that advertised its pastel color line during this little known alternative hair color craze.
I shared about Lapinal’s pastel colors in both my YouTube video Whispers of Pastel: A 1950s Hidden Hairstyle Gem and in this blog post Pastel Hair Craze of the 1950s and How to do it Today.
And in a fortunate stroke of serendipity, a former model named Marsha found the post online and emailed me to tell her story.
Marsha’s Modeling Story
Marsha initially wrote to me, “Was remembering my college days with my daughter and the conversation came around to my pink hair! I was a model for Lapinal hair coloring in 1958 and 59 in Chicago! What fun to find your web site with all of the info!! I had green hair too with outfit to match.”
Yes… I immediately replied to her! “Oh my gosh! Please tell me you have some pictures of this modeling? Or when you had the pink hair? My audience would love seeing these.”
If you watched my video, then you know that finding the evidence of these unusual hues is hard, because so much of print media back then was in black and white. Marsha sent me the photos she had and the same was true… black and white photos.
So I went back to using the power of AI to colorize the images she sent like I did in my YouTube video using black and white hair magazine photos of pastel hair.
Bringing the B&W Past into Color
With the photos she sent, she explained, “My hair was green in all of these except the head shot where it was pink.” Her email included swatched of what the color of her hair had been toned and the green was a mint color.
“The flapper dress from the 20’s was green and so were the other 2 dresses.”
“The dress with cummerbund was a lovely polished cotton in a soft green -the cummerbund was soft pink and dark green.”
And her Final Thoughts on her Days Back Then…
She shared a little more about her college years in Chicago in her email.
“Thanks for bringing back fond memories. Chicago in the late 50’s was great fun..The dorm I lived in while going to school looked over Oak St. Beach on Lake Shore Drive-one nice Spring day my girlfriend and I looked out and saw a couple of cute guys walking on the beach-We said, “Let’s go check them out.” and took a movie camera as a “prop” and I married one of them a few months later and that was 65 years ago and we are still together.”
Thank you Marsha for this fantastic inside look into more of the story of pastel hair in the 1950s!
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