Getting straight hair to curl is easier now than it has ever been thanks to modern electric curling irons, although the occasional disaster is still possible. Women also had curling irons in the 1800s, which were were not safe at all. Those curling irons were simple metal tongs that had been heated in a fire.
Nevertheless, ladies continued to use hot tongs and crimping irons throughout the nineteenth century. According to Sylvia’s Book of the Toilet (1881), the safest method for using curling tongs was to wrap slightly dampened hair around a pair of hot tongs that had been wrapped in “thin brown paper.” Alternatively, paper could be wrapped directly around the hair before application of the tongs—as Jo wrapped Meg’s hair.
A paper barrier was meant to help protect the hair from being scorched. However, it was no protection against a pair of hot tongs that had been applied too long, or to hair that was fine and brittle.
Enterprising hair stylists came up with alternative methods, involving setting lotions and curlers to sleep in, which was an improvement in safety, but certainly not in convenience. Read about 19th-century curlers at Mimi Matthews' blog. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Wellcome Images)
