- Oh, no. (inquisitive music) Historical cosmetics have a
reputation for including, well, not exactly the most pleasant
sounding of ingredients. Thankfully by the late 19th century, we're largely doing away with the lead and alum of previous centuries, and most of the ingredients for the recipes printed in home guides, such as this selection of hair treatments I've collected from an 1889 source which I'll be consulting in this video, are still available today. (Bernadette coughs) That burns. I'm curious to know, first and foremost, if these products work, but I'm also interested to investigate what these routine treatments can tell us about the lives of the
people who used them, how much time it takes
to make up these recipes, for example, and how much time it takes
to apply the products, what effects they might have on the hair, if they lessen or add to maintenance time. All things that can give us a clue as to who might have been using them in their day-to-day lives and why. But before we can test to see if these products actually work, we first need the products themselves. So ready your drachms and pipkins because we have some
Victorian potions to brew. (music for practicing Science) So we're going to start
with the first recipe, which is a recipe for a
solution to curl the hair because this one specifically
requires sitting for one week. "Many of the mixtures for
curling the hair are injurious, but the recipe given below
will be found to be harmless." We shall see about that considering we are about to put such questionable chemicals
as carbonate of potage, which is potassium carbonate, liquor of ammonia, and rectified spirit, which has a 95% alcohol
solution in my hair. First and foremost, for the purpose of this entire experiment, I've had to go ahead and get a couple of Victorian measuring objects. Firstly, because a lot of these recipes give quantities in drachms, which is not a quantity of measuring that we commonly use today. But the other thing is
a lot of measurements are given in ounces, which
yes are imperial measures, and yes, I, as an American am well-versed in the
imperial measurement system. However, the current US
measurement system for ounces is actually a little bit different from the Victorian fluid ounce. So this little cylinder here has a measure of both for fluid drachms as well as fluid ounces from
approximately the 1890s. So this will give me the correct
quantity of fluid ounces. For this recipe, you will need (warm music) dry salt of tartar, cochineal, powdered. Yes, that is in fact the
highly potent natural dye. Liquor of ammonia, essence of rose, glycerine, rectified spirit, and distilled water. So first on our list, we
are told to measure out one drachm of dry salt of tartar, which is carbonate of
potage in parentheses, which in our modern day
terms is potassium carbonate. There is a chemical warning
on the front of this. Safety glasses and adequate ventilation. ♪ La dah dah dah dah ♪ ♪ It's the mother ♪ These are not in fact safety glasses. One half a drachm of cochineal powder. If you don't know what
cochineal is, it is an insect. They produce, when crushed, very potent red-scarlet-purple dye. Ok, now we get into the liquid stuff, which is good that they had
us do the powdery stuff first so it doesn't all stick to
the inside of the thing. Clever. They know what they're doing. One drachm of liquor of ammonia. (poisoned hacking) That burns. Oh. And it's foaming. That's got
to be a good sign, right? Next, essence of rose. Next is glycerin, of which we
need one quarter of an ounce. Okay, the rose oil has
actually calmed down the ammonia burn, which is good news. Rectified spirit, of which we
need one and one half ounces. Just in time to burn our sinuses again! And finally, we need 18
ounces of distilled water. 16. "Mix the ingredients and
let them stand for one week, stirring frequently, then filter." This smells not the worst. In a weird way it smells kind of sweet, but also very potently chemically. You can definitely smell the rose oil, and I think that's what's
giving it that nice sweet smell along with 95% alcohol as well as ammonia. So it is this weird like,
Delicate Victorian Chemicals(tm). It is very purple. It will be an actual miracle if this does not dye my hair purple. This needs to now be set
and rested for a week. While that sets over the next week, I'll take a moment in the interim to tell you about our
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off your first order to try out Blueland for yourself. And now with clean surfaces and hands, let's check in on our curling fluid. (whimsical music) Good morning. Some time has passed. Our little potion here
is looking kind of gross, but this is going to get strained and all finished up in just a minute. Before we get started with that though, I'm going to head over to the hob because one of our next
recipes involves rosewater. So that's gonna take a couple
of minutes to boil and simmer. So let's get that started and
then we'll come back to here and then we'll make the other two recipes. (inquisitive music) Right, that is simmering
now for 20 minutes. And in the meanwhile, we are going to go ahead
and finish up this recipe. All that really needs to happen with this is that this just needs to be strained through a cheesecloth or a muslin cloth just to get rid of these particles, so that you have a nice clean liquid. (inquisitive music continues) And here we have our final liquid. Give this little cover and set this aside, go check on our rosewater, and then we will move on. This recipe states that the intention is, "to keep the hair in curl for
a definite period of time, especially in damp weather." So basically this one is for hairspray. However, this does go on to warn that, "These preparations, owing
to their gummy character, should not be used very frequently as they tend to harden and dry the hair and cause it to crack
and break in combing." So not a recipe to be
used with great frequency. However, this recipe will supposedly hold your curls in place. The three ingredients that we
need for this are rosewater, we need gum tragacanth,
which is basically a glue, oil of sweet almond. So the first step it says is to break up the gum
tragacanth into small pieces. They are quite small already, but I'm going to go ahead and just crush them up a little bit more. I don't think they want them to be powder. And we need three quarters
of an ounce of these. This is a fluid ounce, so this
won't really help us at all, but I actually don't have scales so we're gonna roll with this. This gum tragacanth then
gets added to the rosewater. "Allow to stand in a warm
place and shake occasionally until the gum is softened throughout." Well, luckily for us, our rosewater is still a little bit warm because it's just come off the stove. It doesn't give us a time as to how much time we are
supposed to be allowing our gum tragacanth to stand, but it does say long enough
until it is softened throughout making a jelly-like mass. I wonder how long allow to stand is, because it's been 15 minutes and we are not achieving a
jelly-like like mass quite yet. Well, I suppose this means allow to stand while one goes and has lunch. Then we will check back in
and see what the situation is. Right. Oh, this is what they meant
by one big gelatinous mass. This is about an hour and a half later. The gum tragacanth gets filtered out, leaving just the fluid. (experimentation music) So the final ingredient is we need a half a drachm
of this sweet almond oil. The final step is to mix thoroughly. I don't know precisely what
they mean by thoroughly. Granted, this is oil and it is behaving very oily, which means it will forever be separated slightly from the water. We will give this as thorough a mix as we can possibly manage. There is something. It does have a nice color and it does smell relatively
nice, like rosewater, but I'm a bit confused about the oil, what this is supposed to be doing. I wonder if the oil is meant to give it like shine and finish, because this does feel very greasy. But I suppose the answer to that question will be determined in the
experimentation phase. (inquisitive music) "Many persons dissatisfied with the color nature has
bestowed upon their locks resort to dyes to produce whatever hue may happen to please their fancy. And though the writer has no sympathy whatsoever with this course and sincerely believes
that nature's arrangement of the coloring of hair,
eyes, and complexion is rarely improved by
the interference of art, in deference to the wishes of those who desire to use such recipes, the following are given." (tense impish music) The /shade/. Let us have a look at
our ingredients list. The first is green sulfate of iron, which nowadays is often
used for soil conditioning, common salt, Bordeaux wine. We will also in a later
stage of this process need nut galls which come from oak trees, which have actually frequently been used in black dyes and ink and have
been used for many centuries. Finally, we will need some French Brandy. Two drachms of green sulfate of iron. This smells exactly as you
would expect a sulfate to smell. So here's what I'm thinking is happening is that this iron sulfide
is oxidizing on my hands and is turning my hands a
suspicious grayish color. As mildly disconcerting
this is for my hands, I do think this bodes well for
the function of a hair dye. Okay, so the final ingredient
we have for this first round is Bordeaux wine. And we need 12 fluid ounces of this. This is not the way this
is supposed to be done. (struggle music) Oh, no. Oh! No. I need another plan. Disaster has stricken. Not that we couldn't have
all seen this coming, but. 12 fluid ounces of wine. (concerned stirring) So these ingredients now
need to simmer together in this glazed pipkin for five minutes. To the hob once again. (inquisitive music) So my hob does this
thing where it won't heat unless the thing covers
the thing entirely, which makes sense from
a safety point of view, but not from a Victorian
pipkin point of view. Aha, success. So while that gets up to heat,
which will take a minute, I'm gonna get started crushing
up some of these oak galls, which we need two drachms of. This will then get added to the
simmering mixture over there and then continue to simmer for a bit. It looks so stupid. Look at it. So I think the reason why
they specify glazed pipkin in heavy italics in this recipe is because that glaze will help to keep the sides of it from completely staining. (inquisitive music continues) Okay, we have taken a minute to let this cool down a little bit. It's still slightly warm. So the final step in this recipe process is to add this to a bottle. Noooooooo! It's not going very well at all. And to this, we're going to add one tablespoon of French Brandy. This now gets corked, shaken, and this now gets let
to stand for two days wherein hypothetically, this will separate into some clear and
some not clear mixture. We'll see what happens. Before we get started with
washing and dying experiments,] we're first going to need some hair. And fortunately, I am in
need of a little trim. This is the sample on
which I will test the dye, since I'm ~rather suspicious~
of Victorian dyes. - Anne Shirley Cuthbert, what
have you done to your hair? Why, it's green! (inquisitive music) - This book gives a very similar recipe for cleansing the hair as the one demonstrated in my Edwardian haircare video of yore, but roughly involves one egg yolk mixed into one pint of warm water with one ounce of rosemary spirit. Rosemary spirit seems
to be the one ingredient during the course of
this entire experiment that does not seem to be available today. So I've mixed half an
ounce of rosemary oil with half an ounce of the
plain rectified spirit, which may or may not have been A, how this was actually
done historically, and B, a wise decision for
using so close to the face! We'll get to that later. "Before using any of the liquids named, thoroughly cleanse the
hair from dust and grease by washing it with hot water containing a pinch of soda or borax. Dry perfectly before applying the dye." There's also a note in
this text that says, "for hair washing should not be done oftener than once a week." This entire bathroom smells like it is intoxicating me with rosemary. Yeah, I'm afraid that's
not just rosemary oil. (Bernadette sighs) I never thought I would
be doing this again, but here we are. (briefly dying from consumption) (a sigh of ennui) I'm clean now. Now we just wait for this to dry. I'll see you back in a couple of hours. (buttons clicking) (whimsical music) (messages popping) (messages resonating) (buttons clicking) (messages pops) I cannot recommend washing your hair with a 95% alcohol solution
with your head tipped forward, as you are straight-up inhaling
said 95% alcohol solution. (messages resonating) My hair isn't yet dry, but
our sample hair is dry. So we can go ahead and experiment with the hair dye on this. (gentle music) I mean, it's looking pretty potent. However, the instructions do
say that there should have been a separation with a clear liquid,
but that has not happened. So I'm not sure what this is all about, but I suppose let's go
ahead and see if it works. My hypothesis is that it will still work considering that it was dying my hands and it has got that iron sulfate in it, so it should do something. This smells so strongly of wine and I have no tolerance
for this right now. I'm just gonna let this sit in
here for a couple of minutes. I'm not expecting it to immediately look distinctly different, but given the oxidization
properties of the iron, I'm expecting that it will probably take a couple of minutes to develop once it's been taken out of this mixture. I'm also not going to rinse this, since a lot of Victorian
hair dyes are not water fast, or at least they don't last
more than a couple of washes or even one wash at all. The main reason being, of course, that people weren't washing
their hair quite as frequently. I would guess that this
would have just been used and then dried and then
just brushed through, but not actually washed. This would have been reapplied
when you rewash your hair and it starts to fade. It does look like it's
starting to do something. I can't tell whether this
is just being the hair being dark because it's wet, or if it actually is
starting to do something. I guess I will just have to be patient and wait for this to
actually properly dry. But I'm hopeful. So we are all dry. As you can see, the
dye did have an effect. It didn't dye the hair black, which I'm not sure was the initial intent, but it did, as the instructions
say, darken the hair. I do rather like my
original hair color better, so I will not be using this
on my real actual hair. It is very powdery and filmy,
like you can still feel it. It feels like there's
definitely a residue on it. My next question is, is this wash safe? Does this just wash
straight out in the water or does it stay in permanently? Post-wash and one dry, here
we have our hair sample. As you can see, it has lightened slightly, but it hasn't quite lightened completely. So I imagine that this dye would come off eventually after probably
two or three washes, but it lasts, you know, not the worst. (buttons clicking) (message pops) (message resonates) (gentle music) So I'm not 1000% confident in how this curling
lotion, as they call it, in how this worked. I guess we'll find out, hence is the point of the experiment. But it does say in the instructions to wet the hair while dressing, and then as the lotion dries,
the curl will take effect. I don't know if that means
that this liquid alone is going to be responsible for making the hair
just spring into a curl. My hair still reeks of rosemary
and alcohol, by the way. Not only my hair, but the entire workroom. My hair also feels weirdly sticky. Like it's been drying for
about seven hours now, and it's still feels a little bit damp, which leads me to believe
that this is not water, but it is some combination
of oil and alcohol and egg, which makes sense,
because that is precisely what I have adulterated my hair with. I'm first just separating
that front section of hair, which will be put into rag
curls and set overnight. This first side here will be
dampened with the curling fluid just before setting, while the other side will be dampened just with water before setting. This way, I can maybe get a sense of whether or not the curling
fluid makes any difference in the curls that have been set. My goal is to try and make
these rag curls quite tight because the 1880s up to about 1889, the hairstyle is very
floofy and frizzy up front. The hair is probably a
lot shorter than mine is, but I'm trying to go with
as tight curl as possible so that I can hopefully
frizz it up a little bit, hide some of the length
of it under some pins, and get away with
something relatively 1889. I do really wish the Victorians would stop putting so much strong scent into all of these products, because my sensory system
is quite overwhelmed with all of the rose oil and the almond oil and the rosemary. And they're not subtle.
They're very potent. When you're putting this
many products in your hair, it is not the most ideal
sensory experience. And now finally, I'm just going to dampen
the ends of my other hair with this stuff, let this dry, just to see if, like the
instructions seem to imply, if when this dries in the hair, it curls the hair without
doing all this nonsense. So we shall see the results tomorrow. (curious but vaguely concerned music) So here is the verdict
on the curl situation. As you can see, this
is the end of the hair that I just dipped into
the solution last night and then just let to dry. I'm genuinely surprised that
it did actually do something. It did actually put a
bit of wave into my hair. Admittedly, I only dipped a
little portion of it last night and I was actually really shocked that it like sprang up into an actual curl so I got excited and I
did the whole end of it. But I guess because it's heavier and it clumped together a little bit more, it didn't have as much of an effect here. As you can see, it's just more of a wave. So I think the way that
you're supposed to do this is kind of combining the
application of this lotion with a sort of like curly girl
method handling of the hair, where you have to kind of
make sure that it's drying in a position that you want it to. And then it will kind of stay. In regards to these set curls, I don't think was meant as
the application for this, but I will say it made a
little bit of a difference. This side of hair definitely
came out a little bit crispier. As I was removing the rags, this side was very difficult to remove because the hair was very much
like clinging onto its shape. This side, however, was
very easy to remove, but the hair was not
as clinging to the rag. These curls are a little bit softer, they're a little bit frizzier, they're a little bit less
like in a nice, crisp shape. These are a lot less frizzy
and a lot more just compact. So let's see what we can do
in terms of 1889 hairstyling. (still curiously concerned but
cautiously optimistic music) So here's what we have so far. I realize this experiment is
at a distinct disadvantage because I'm not accustomed
to doing 1889 hairstyles, and therefore I don't have
that skill of repetition that would make this a
little bit more realistic. I do have a little bit too
much fluff here at the front, but there's not really
anything I can do about that. The curl on this side
is a little bit tighter and a little bit more sculptable than the curls that
were just held by water. It's not noticeable really
at all, I don't think, so I don't think a potion like
this is necessarily necessary to achieve the quintessential
perfect 19th century curl, but I do think it helped definitely. So those who were ambitious enough to put in the time and
the labor to making that, apply it, set it, et cetera, would have got slightly
crispier results perhaps. Now, the final question we have
in this hairstyling endeavor is whether or not our hairspray works. Calling this hairspray
is kind of a misnomer. It is not sprayed into the hair. It would have just been
applied to the fingers gently like this and then just patted into the hair. The hair "spray", in
quotes, is kind of okay given that I've got the recipe right, which is not guaranteed. I didn't actually find
it to be very strong despite the warnings of
breakage in the recipe. So if it's not strong and damaging, then I'm not really sure
what the point of it is. If I've merely done the recipe wrong, which I suspect may have been
around the almond oil stage since the liquid did feel
more oily than sticky. I'm not sure if our sweet
almond oil is the same as what's called for in the
recipe of the 19th century. But in that case, it's possible that this
is supposed to be strong and would only have been
used for special occasions. The other two recipes I was
actually quite impressed with. While the curling fluid didn't
have drachmatic effects, it still did do interesting
textural and wavy things that I will most definitely be unironically continuing to experiment with in my 21st century existence. The dye, whilst not exactly
relevant to my personal needs, did still work and survived a wash, even, which is pretty impressive
for a 19th century hair dye. As I was working out the recipes, the one thing that I really noticed is A, the amount of time that each of these items took to prepare, and B, how many ingredients
went into some of these items. This video itself took
me weeks to prepare for simply because I had to
source all of the ingredients, find all the items, buy all the items. And I have access to the internet. I can just go online and search for things like potassium carbonate
and rectified spirit. I do have a sense that
a lot of these items could be found more easily
by going to an apothecary or the local grocer or the general store. There is definitely the element of the time it takes to acquire
all of these ingredients, as well as the cost it takes to obtain all of these ingredients, as well as, of course, the time it takes to prepare the recipes themselves. So I started to ask the question, would these things be worth doing? These household guides in general tends to be written more towards
a middle-class readership, towards women who don't
have a full repertoire of domestic staff or any
domestic staff at all, but who also might have a
little bit of spare time and a little bit of spare cash. They provide a way for people to keep up with fashionable trends and regular practices of the household without having to hire staff to do that, or to have been brought
up in an environment where they would have
been taught this stuff. So I hope you enjoyed today's shenanigans. I will be back anon with
some more dress history, experimental archeology,
all sorts of excitement.
very poor Cesario ratio in the one.