Fifties Hairstyles (2)
New things were happening all the time, and before you could say Jack Robinson, everyone was putting peanuts in their Coke bottles and enjoying their drink with a sweet and salty flavor. Who in the world was this nut who started this craze? We may all go to the grave without ever knowing. Then, drag races were the latest craze and crowds of young people were going to see stock car racing on weekends. Schoolmates were getting caught smoking in the bathroom at school and receiving demerits, while the other half would skip school entirely, just for fun and to be able to say they did it. However, when they did skip, most of them didn't know what to do with themselves.
Then, there was that small, proud, and very popular group who bleached their own hair and, lo and behold, had discovered Ivory Snow Flakes and peroxide. What genius brainsicko started this idea is another one we'll probably never know. That is correct, they mixed up the laundry detergent with 20-volume peroxide and lightened their hair that way. As far as I know, none of it fell out.
If you had a pixie cut, there wasn't any problem with it being orange, because you would end up cutting it all off again anyway. Because our brains usually do not mature into the "aha" stage until we are in our late forties or fifties, the youth usually ends up doing it all over again. The way they see it is as a heavenly shade of blush-carrot berry that can get any boy's attention, and it really did!
Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Jane Russell, Susan Hayward, Elizabeth Taylor, Esther Williams, and Ginger Rogers were all busy making movies, and the girls of that time were all busy, along with their friends, trying to look just like them. If they wanted to look like Liz or Susan, they would tint each other's hair black or red at a pajama party.
Beauty marks were very much in vogue. Everyone penciled in a fake mole. Of course, if you went to the drive-in movie and made out with your boyfriend, the mole would sort of disappear. No matter how hard you looked for it, you wouldn't be able to find it. Now we know why the boy looked so puzzled when the lights came on and everyone headed to the refreshment stand to get some popcorn. Not only was your lipstick smeared and part of your eyebrow missing, but your mole had gone as well. Blame it all on your boyfriend's sideburns that went all the way down to his chin.
Not only was it fashionable to have either a Cocker Spaniel or a Poodle pooch, but the Poodle haircut became stylish as ladies would have all their hair cut off to about one to two inches all over their head and get a perm, to once again convince the world they had naturally curly hair. The working women in the 1950s who had naturally curly hair usually kept their hair clipped up into a shingle in the back with closely clipped sides. If the hair was naturally quite wavy, sometimes it would be brushed back with a C-curl on both sides of the forehead. Straight hair was given permanents as straight hair was considered taboo at the time, unless, of course, you were a teeny-bopper and had a ponytail.
Older women used rinses instead of tinting their gray hair and would go to the beauty salon on a weekly basis to have their hair set. Hairdressers were called beauticians and wore white uniforms with a girdle, stockings, and nurse's shoes. What we call clients today were called patrons back then. The permanents were harsh with ammonia, unlike the alkaline and acid waves we know of today. When a head of hair was bleached, they wouldn't think of putting the head under the dryer but rather accepted the time allowed to bring the lift up to the desired level needed. Afterward, a toner was always applied to neutralize the hair and achieve the desired color.
The 1950s are gone, and with them went many memories for some, of a simpler nature of picket fences, playing marbles on the sidewalk, housewives who were truly housewives, double bubble gum, and George Burns and Gracie Allen on television. This was a time without smartphones, computers, iPads, or DVDs. How could we exist in such an era today? There was less clutter and perhaps more appreciation for the things they had. The older people who came out of the war years had a respectful gratitude for where they were in their new life, and their attitude was always to repair a radio and take their shoes to the cobbler before they would ever consider buying something new.
With all this, we say farewell to the hula hoops, the music of The Platters, former presidents Harry and Ike, bobby socks, and Bogie and Bacall, but the ponytail lives on.
See also: Vintage hairstyles