hairdressing

Hairdressing. As a matter of convenience, as well as of taste and fashion, the dressing of the hair has received much attention in all civilized nations, ancient and modern. Among savages the most extraordinary diversity as to the dressing of hair obtains; some frizzing it to the utmost extent; some fixing it in all sort of perverse arrangements by means of frames, and some partially shaving the head. The Chinese pigtail, the American Indian scalp-lock, and the Moslem shaven head, with a small tuft left by which to be ultimately lifted into Paradise, are well known. According to J. G. Paton, missionary, some of the New Hebrides people have hair crisp and woolly, stuck full of feathers and shells; others have hair long and wavy, twisted into as many as 700 separate whip-cords on a single head, requiring the labor of five years to complete. Among modern civilized Europeans the courtiers and cavaliers of the 17th century adopted the practice of wearing those "love-locks" which excited the ire of the Puritans.