(gentle music) - Why did people have long
hair in the Victorian period? This is not worth it. For science, right? Good day, ladies and gentlefolk. I have, on this most auspicious day, stumbled upon a beauty
handbook from the year 1911. So naturally, I now have
no choice but to get up and do some experimenting. However, before we start
to get all 19th century, I would first like to take a moment to thank our sponsor for this
video, Function of Beauty, the haircare beauty product
brand that is so vegan, paraben, sulfate, GMO,
toxin, cruelty-free, it's basically Historically Accurate(tm). But in all seriousness, all
you have to do is go online and fill out the quick,
two-minute hair quiz to outline your hair types, hair goals, and personal preferences. They'll work out the perfect
brew of hair products tailored specifically to you. They'll even put your name on the bottle, which personally makes me really happy, but that doesn't mean my little man can't
enjoy the products, too. I hope his little lordship wants some long and luscious locks. (splashing) So since I am obviously not
the biggest fan of haircuts, I was really looking for
some haircare products to help me keep my hair
healthy and strong, and these products have
most certainly done that whilst smelling a whole lot better than the Edwardian options
that we are about to discover. I also got this hair mask thing, which was a concept afore unknown to me, until I started reading some
of the 19th-century articles and found out that they were
basically doing the same thing, but with, like, olive oil
and quinine and stuff. So I thought it might be nice to add the 21-century equivalent
to my own haircare routine and have been really enjoying it so far. Anyway, if you are interested in giving Function of Beauty
a try for yourself, I have a link in the description box below to get you 20% off your first purchase. Needless to say, my hair is not presently in need of a wash right now, but I will see you again in
a few days or a few seconds when we inevitably cut this video, for some Edwardian haircare shenanigans. As the first order of business, we'll need something with
which to wash our hair, and fortunately, our friend gives us some very useful shampoo recipes. The good news is, I
just so happened to have all of the ingredients
for this one in-house, making this a very
quarantine-friendly experiment. The not-so-good news is
that this involves raw eggs, but such are the sacrifices
we make for science, or something. This egg shampoo involves beating one egg in a half pint of warm, soft water. It also requires spirit of rosemary, which is probably not the same thing as rosemary essential oil, since the recipe calls
for half an ounce of it, so I only added a few drops of the oil, and even still, this proved very strong. This smells astonishingly bad. It smells like rosemary, but like... Eggs. Slightly anachronistic
setup we've got here. This is a large dye pot, but this is the closest thing I have to Victorian bathing facilities in ye old merry 21st century Manhattan. They did not in the manual specify how one is to wash one's hair, so I have my egg shampoo. I think this is how it's
supposed to be done. It's very watery, and
there's kind of a lot of it, so we shall see how
this is supposed to go, and then we've also got, they do specify in the text that when rinsing the shampoo, it's done with three to four
washes or waters or something, so that made me sort of
assume that it's done with three to four, I
don't know what size. I'm assuming large teapot size, so this is what I'm going
to be endeavoring to do, but alas, I do not have
more than one large pot, so we shall see how this goes. Okay, let's... This is gonna be such a mess. (water trickling) (gentle music) (water trickling) God, I could totally understand now why they did this only once a month. This is- it takes some serious skill. It's such a pain. (water trickling) Okay. Hair is wet and I am
0/10 not looking forward to getting this out of my hair. For science, right? New, full teapot at the ready. Let's do this. (exasperated sigh) I can't imagine those Victorian ladies with ankle-length long hair, and it's super thick and curly. How did they do this? No wonder they only did it once a month, because this is a pain. (soft music) I think if I wasn't aware
that it's like a raw egg, things would be much better, but right now, I just can't
get over the mental image of pouring scrambled eggs on my head, and this is really weird. (egg mixture trickling) (egg mixture trickling) (scrub scrub) (egg mixture trickling) Oh, it's running down my face. I smell like cake batter, but
like rosemary cake batter. This is really weird. Okay, so I have baked a small
cake on top of my head now. The next order of business
is to rinse this out, and I'm trying to now figure out how it is possible to do this thoroughly without leaving little
remnants of egg in my head, because that doesn't
sound like a good time. Why did people have long
hair in the Victorian period? This is not worth it. Okay, now the thing
about rinsing the hair, and he does specify this in the text but doesn't explain why, but I think, logic, I think I know why. They say to use cool water,
as cool as is comfortable for the person whose hair is being washed. The reason you don't
want to use warm water is because then you end up with
scrambled eggs in your hair, and we don't want that. So I have some cool water here. It's sort of like lukewarm, so hopefully enough not to actually cook the eggs in my hair. See, this is tricky because, unlike modern shampoos and conditioners, it doesn't feel slimy. It just sort of feels moist, feels the same as water, so I can't actually tell if
I'm getting it out or not. Oh no. It's so cold. How am I still ending up
with white chunks of egg? (water trickling) (soft music) Okay, so I promise this water
was lukewarm, like tepid. It was not pleasantly warm. It was slightly cold, but that was still enough
to slightly cook an egg, so should you be trying
this at home, be warned, you will have to use quite
cool water in order to avoid literal scrambled eggs
forming in your hair. I can now fully and completely understand why Victorian and Edwardian women did not want to wash their hair very frequently in the winter, because I cannot. I think it's about 18 degrees
outside today, Celsius. I mean, obviously it's warm enough in here to be wearing a short-sleeved shift. If it were properly winter,
this would not be a good time. So trusting I have the
majority of the egg paste out of my hair, I'm now going to use a
towel to dry this off. This is obviously not a
historically accurate towel, but it is a towel nevertheless. (gentle music) Our trusty guide instructs that the hair should be well dried
with warm, soft towels, the hair being rubbed or rolled in strands between the folds of the towel. The hair, loose and flowing, should then be exposed
to the sun, if possible, or to warm air to dry it. Approximately four hours later, my hair is dry enough to begin
some styling experiments. So once again, in this
handy old guide here, the author also goes into
several different methods of styling the hair, so that's what I'm going to be attempting in this part of the video. So there are a few
relatively complex styles that involve elaborate
hairpieces and another person, and perhaps a bit of experience. I should disclaim, by the way, I have never tried this particular style, so what you are about to see is going to be purely my experiment and is not rehearsed in any way. There are several other
styles outlined in this book that are specifically, well,
described as "for home", so the one that I'm going to be attempting is the "simple pompadour", "Another coiffure for home wear "that is of much simpler style." So this is theoretically
something that the average lady would be able to do herself in her home. First things first is to brush the hair. He says that before styling, the hair must be combed out thoroughly. So this is my very
21st-century modern hairbrush because I don't own a Victorian hairbrush. Just never mind the literal clumps of egg that I'm now going to be
pulling out of my hair. Zero out of 10, do not try this at home. (hair brush cronching) Now because this is a pompadour style, it means that I will require some Floof. The way that this was solved historically was to use hair rolls or what was called in
the period "hair rats", which were all kinds of materials, such as moss, vegetable
fiber, horse hair, wire, crepe, fiber, and lastly, of natural hair. I do however have no
shortage of natural hair. This is a pile of hair
that I have been saving for about a year. I've just been saving it, putting
it in a little tissue box, for the express purpose to one day make an Edwardian hair rat, because who doesn't do these things? So unfortunately, this guide here does not give us an image
of a hair roll or hair rat, and in fact, the author is
quite vehemently against the practice of hair rats, claiming that they are injurious
to the hair of the head, uncleanly, and should be
avoided whenever possible. However, I have just spent the morning making scrambled eggs in my hair, so I'm not sure that I
really care about that, and quite honestly, I'm quite hyped to put all of this hair to use and have a little experiment with this. Now, a lot of mentions of
hair rolls and hair rats that I've seen have sort of implied these hair rolls are to be made from wire
or mesh or something. Now, unfortunately, that is not something that I have here in-house
in ye olde quarantine. However, I do have an
old pair of stockings. Our friend with this guide does
give us a vague description of what these hair rats are
supposed to sort of be like, in that he says they are to
be six to 24 inches in length. That, of course, depends
on if you want, you know, a little six-inch bit on the front, or 24 inches to go all
the way around the head. I think I might actually try one of the full, round-the-head ones, because I feel like I can cut it down if it ends up being too much, but it will be very difficult
to lengthen it in the future. Don't we know this from sewing, friends! I have just tied the end quite loosely, and I've left I think a bit more length than I actually need. I do also happen to be in possession of a small length of my own hair. Another common practice
of Edwardian hair styling, little additional bits of
hair switches, additional hair can be augmented into the hairstyle to give it a little bit of pizzazz. I'm just going to plait this, and I'm going to make a
little switch out of it so that I can put a little
plait somewhere in this. Okay, so somehow, this
is going to get pinned into the finished style. So one of the things that he refers to and then continues to come back to throughout all of these hairstyles is this one very specific
way of parting the hair. I'm not sure if this is specific
to this particular text, and this is like his method, or this was a common practice throughout Edwardian hairstyling, but we're gonna give this a go, because it sounds quite logical. So you have to sort of part your hair so that there is the front bit, and then two side bits, and
then the rest of the back. So in theory, now, we
should just be able to fold the rest of the hair around the Floof. (soft music) I don't know if you can see, but I'm just sort of pinning it down, right at the base of the floof, and then all of this, all of this is just going
to get coiled up on top, and just chill there. So instances like this are where
the switches come in handy. I seem to have a deficit
of hair on this side, or maybe it's just the
way that I distributed it, but it just doesn't want to
cover this bit of the floof. Thankfully, I have our
handy little switch here, which I can just tuck under the floof. Probably wouldn't be plaited. This would probably, I would assume, just be a regular straight bit of hair, and then this can just
live however it wishes. Here's the final results, friends. I feel fully Edwardian, and I quite actually
really like this style. I think I have every intention of using this little switch in the future, because I really enjoy it. Now I get to get on a
professional Zoom call in about an hour, looking like this. I am quite thrilled about this prospect. Anyway, I hope you learned
something from this. I hope you go have a look
at this guide yourself and maybe try out some of
the styles on your own. Obviously a big part of Edwardian and later 19-teens hair styling is curls, and Marcel waves, which obviously, I don't
have the capacity to do, because I don't have
that curling implement. That's something to be
experimented for another time. If that's something that you
would like to experiment, great, go forth and do that. There's loads more information down in the description box below, if you would like to give these
things a shot for yourself, and let's go forth and be
our merry Edwardian selves, I guess, right? So in conclusion, yes, the egg
treatment was not pleasant, but I do admit that it resulted in my hair being sort of extremely
fluffy and really sculptible, which made styling the hair in this quintessential Edwardian
floof style much easier. The hairstyle itself was
actually remarkably simple, and I imagine with a bit of daily routine, would only take a couple of minutes to do. Perfect for a not particularly
bothered Edwardian lady to do herself at home. (hair dryer whirring)
