Every source cited on this site, grouped by kind. Entries marked "details to check" will be checked against the item itself before publication.
Scholarship and further reading
Joann Fletcher and Filippo Salamone, “An Ancient Egyptian Wig: Construction and Reconstruction”, Internet Archaeology 42, 2016. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Study and reconstruction of British Museum wig EA2560 — an 18th-Dynasty "duplex" wig for a male official, once misidentified as a woman’s wig. Beeswax-and-resin setting; several hundred plaits; about 200 hours to reconstruct.
Caroline Cox, Good Hair Days: A History of British Hairstyling, Quartet Books, 1999. details to checkA general history of British hairdressing and styles.
Geraldine Biddle-Perry and Sarah Cheang (eds), Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion, Berg, 2008. details to checkCross-cultural essays on hair in fashion, film, art, history and consumer culture.
Emma Tarlo, Entanglement: The Secret Lives of Hair, Oneworld, 2016. details to checkAn anthropology of the global trade in human hair, wigs and extensions, and of hair loss.
Ayana D. Byrd and Lori L. Tharps, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America, St. Martin’s Press, 2001. details to check
Noliwe M. Rooks, Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture, and African American Women, Rutgers University Press, 1996. details to check
Tiffany M. Gill, Beauty Shop Politics: African American Women’s Activism in the Beauty Industry, University of Illinois Press, 2010. details to check
A’Lelia Bundles, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker, Scribner, 2001. details to checkBiography by Walker’s great-great-granddaughter.
Kathy Peiss, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture, Metropolitan Books, 1998. details to check
Rose Weitz, Rapunzel’s Daughters: What Women’s Hair Tells Us About Women’s Lives, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. details to check
Emma Dabiri, Don’t Touch My Hair, Allen Lane, 2019. details to checkAn Irish-Nigerian writer on Black hair, history and culture.
Hierakonpolis Expedition, The Workers’ cemetery – HK43, Hierakonpolis Online. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Predynastic cemetery at Hierakonpolis, Upper Egypt. Burial 16, an older woman, had hair extensions knotted into her own thinning hair and henna on greying hair.
Steve Ashby, “Bone and Antler Combs”, Datasheets of the Finds Research Group AD700–1700, Datasheet 40, 2007. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Typology of early medieval composite combs in the British Isles; states that bone and antler hair combs are among the period's most frequently recovered artefacts, from settlements and graves, and that ornate high-backed composite combs are well known in Ireland and Scotland.
Steven P. Ashby, “An Atlas of Medieval Combs from Northern Europe”, Internet Archaeology 30, 2011. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Open-access reference atlas of early medieval bone and antler hair combs across northern Europe and the British Isles, for dating and comparing finds.
Karen Bowman, “Nature’s Coin: Beauty and Alchemy in Margaret Baker’s Book”, The Recipes Project, 19 June 2018. Accessed 25 September 2026.
On a late-seventeenth-century English manuscript recipe book (Folger Shakespeare Library) with twenty-eight beauty recipes among medicines and cookery, including one to stop hair falling and one for a butter to curl the hair.
Justine De Young, “1600-1609”, Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), 10 January 2020; updated 30 November 2025. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Decade overview; quotes the Royal Collection Trust on a 1609 portrait whose sitter’s hair “is piled high over pads” with jewels and pearls, and describes a portrait of Princess Elizabeth aged about 15 with an elaborate high hairstyle.
Justine De Young, “1620-1629”, Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), 14 January 2020; updated 30 November 2025. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Decade overview; says that by 1625 fashionable married women had abandoned the cap and wore their hair styled and uncovered, and discusses the “love lock”.
Justine De Young, “1660-1669”, Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), 7 July 2020; updated 30 November 2025. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Decade overview; the “hurluberlu” clusters of curls, pearls woven into hair in court portraits, and Pepys’s 1666 diary entry on the Ladies of Honour wearing periwigs under their hats.
Michele Majer, “1760-1769”, Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), 29 July 2021. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Rising height of women’s hair from the early 1760s; press complaints about false hair, horsehair, hemp and wool; Legros de Rumigny’s L’Art de la coëffure des dames françoises (1768–70), his school and his pomade.
Michele Majer, “1770-1779”, Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), 29 July 2021. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Towering coiffures built with a pad, false hair, pomatum and powder; the “pouf”; night caps and sleeping propped up; young men regarding wigs as out of date; quotes Burney’s Evelina (1778).
Michele Majer, “1780-1789”, Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), 3 August 2021. Accessed 25 September 2026.
The 1780s replacement of vertical coiffures by a rounder, aureole-like shape still using false hair, powder and pomatum; Mercier on boys’ uncurled, unpowdered hair.
Michele Majer, “1790-1799”, Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), 1 August 2017; updated 31 January 2022. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Unpowdered curls, short hair “à la Titus” and short-haired and blond wigs in France in the later 1790s, quoting Josephine du Pont’s letters (via Low); Emma Hamilton’s turbans made from Indian shawls.
Harper Franklin, “1800-1809”, Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), 25 June 2020; updated 25 November 2025. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Classical names for hairstyles, the cropped “à la Titus”, ringlets with bandeaux, ribbons and jewelled combs, evening turbans linked to Napoleon’s occupation of Egypt, and Indian cashmere shawls.
Harper Franklin, “1810-1819”, Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), 1 June 2020; updated 25 November 2025. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Centre-parted hair with front ringlets and curls at the back; crops still sometimes seen early in the decade; day caps for married or older women; evening turbans.
Harper Franklin, “1820-1829”, Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), 27 May 2020; updated 25 November 2025. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Tall evening hairstyles by the mid-1820s, the Apollo knot and “à la Chinoise” plaits and knots with long pins; day caps for married or older women.
Michael Kwass, “Big Hair: A Wig History of Consumption in Eighteenth-Century France”, American Historical Review, 2006. Accessed 25 September 2026. details to checkArticle on wigs and consumption in eighteenth-century France (mainly men’s wigs); for further reading.
Harper Franklin; Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), Fashion History Timeline, “1840-1849”, Fashion History Timeline. Accessed 25 September 2026.
University-published decade survey (European and American dress). Centre-parted hair looped smoothly over the ears into a chignon or bun; ringlets for younger women on dressier occasions; girls’ hair pulled back into adult styles between fourteen and sixteen.
Harper Franklin; Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), Fashion History Timeline, “1860-1869”, Fashion History Timeline. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Early-1860s centre parts and smooth chignons in chenille or silk nets; late-decade larger arrangements with loose curls; false hair sold as puffs, curls and braids; girls’ hair “in curls”.
Harper Franklin; Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), Fashion History Timeline, “1870-1879”, Fashion History Timeline. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Piled knots and braids with cascading curls; “false hair was generally worn”; by the end of the decade high, tight chignons and sometimes a short curly fringe, associated with Alexandra, Princess of Wales; girls’ long curled hair, sometimes with a fringe.
Harper Franklin; Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), Fashion History Timeline, “1880-1889”, Fashion History Timeline. Accessed 25 September 2026.
The cascading curls of the 1870s tucked up into tight chignons; tall, narrow hats.
Harper Franklin; Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), Fashion History Timeline, “1890-1899”, Fashion History Timeline. Accessed 25 September 2026.
High, neat chignons with soft curls at the front; long curls on boys dressed in “Fauntleroy” suits.
Paulette M. Caldwell, “A Hair Piece: Perspectives on the Intersection of Race and Gender”, Duke Law Journal, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 365–396, 1991. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Critiques Rogers v. American Airlines (1981), in which the court pointed to the airline’s assertion that the plaintiff adopted braids after they were “popularized” by Bo Derek in the film “10”; Caldwell notes Cicely Tyson wore braids on national television nearly a decade earlier.
Goldsmiths, University of London, New book untangles global hair trade, 11 October 2016. Accessed 25 September 2026.
University news release on Emma Tarlo's research; hair is harvested most from poor women in South and Southeast Asia and through Hindu temples in India and Buddhist initiatives in Myanmar, and China is the largest supplier of wigs and extensions.
Carolyn Allen (on Emma Tarlo’s research), The secret lives of human hair, The Leverhulme Trust, 30 July 2021. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Tarlo's own summary of her research; temple hair from southern India is valued for naturalness, length and texture, but most traded hair is salvaged combings, untangled in Myanmar and manufactured largely in China.
Michael McMillan, My Hair: Black hair culture, style and politics, michaelmcmillan.uk, exhibition July–September 2013. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Curator's account of his installations (home "Cottage Salon", barbershop, hairdressing salon) at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, alongside Origins of the Afro Comb; describes girls sitting between a mother's or elder relative's legs while "a hot iron comb is passed through their hair", and the salon as a women's social institution; uses images from Lambeth Archives and Black Cultural Archives.
Shirley Anne Tate, Black Beauty: Aesthetics, Stylization, Politics, Ashgate, 2009. details to checkSociological study of Black women's beauty and hair practices, drawing on British research. For further reading; not opened for this page.
João Carlos de Souza et al., “Comprehensive Review of Hair Dyes: Physicochemical Aspects, Classification, Toxicity, Detection, and Treatment Methods”, ACS Omega, 2025. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Open-access review; dates the observation of PPD's properties to Hofmann in 1863, Monnet's first oxidative hair-dye patent to 1883, and the first commercial synthetic hair-dye brand, Aureole, to 1909 (Eugène Schueller); explains that precursors, couplers and hydrogen peroxide diffuse into the fibre and form colour in the cortex. Its brand name and date for Schueller’s dye (“Aureole”, 1909) differ from L’Oréal’s own history (see loreal-history), so we cite the company for those details.
Maria Fernanda Reis Gavazzoni Dias, “Hair Cosmetics: An Overview”, International Journal of Trichology, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 2–15, 2015. Accessed 12 November 2026.
Open-access review. Explains that hydroxide (lye and no-lye) relaxers straighten hair by lanthionization, converting cystine bonds into stable lanthionine crosslinks, whereas thioglycolate is a reducing agent that weakens cystine bonds and must then be oxidised (neutralised) — the chemistry of the cold-wave perm.
Claus Priesner, “Nessler, Karl Ludwig (nach 1900 Charles Nestlé)”, Neue Deutsche Biographie 19, 1999. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Standard German national biography, pp. 76 f. Born 2 May 1872 Todtnau, died 22 January 1951 Harrington Park, NJ; learned Marcel waving in Paris; own London business around 1900; public introduction of his permanent wave 1906; invention patented 1908; interned at the start of the First World War, reached the USA in 1915; New York business with branches; sold businesses and patents 1928; losses in the 1929 crash; 1934 "Cha-Ness" apparatus.
Steven Zdatny (ed.), Hairstyles and Fashion: A Hairdresser's History of Paris, 1910–1920, Berg, 1999. details to checkScholarly edition of a Paris hairdresser's account with an introduction on the trade; not opened.
Museum interpretation and collections
British Museum, “Wig (EA2560)”. Accessed 12 November 2026.
Collection record for an 18th Dynasty (New Kingdom) wig of human hair from a tomb at Thebes, “impregnated with beeswax and resin”, with curls above narrow plaits; the record says it was “worn by a man of high status”. Also notes that false braids are known from the Predynastic Period and that wigs and wig boxes have been found in Twelfth Dynasty tombs at Lisht.
Julie Lê, “From Waves to Wigs”, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 18 October 2023. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Guide to the library’s hair-history holdings, including digitised eighteenth-century French coiffure books.
Smithsonian National Museum of American History, “Hair Care”, Smithsonian Institution. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Object group of tools, products and packaging. States that home permanent-wave kits were introduced in the late 1940s.
Smithsonian National Museum of American History, “Tonette Children’s Home Permanent”, Smithsonian Institution. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Collection object 1984.0351.320, made by the Toni Company (Reid Drugstore collection, gift of Blanche E. Reid); undated. Evidence that chemical waving was sold for use on children; not evidence of how often it was used.
Jay Driskell, “Making Waves: Beauty Salons and the Black Freedom Struggle”, Smithsonian Institution, 3 November 2016. Accessed 19 September 2026.
Museum interpretation connecting beauty salons to economic independence and civil-rights organising in the United States. Says Marjorie Stewart Joyner was a founding member of the National Council of Negro Women in 1935 and founded the United Beauty School Owners and Teachers Association in 1945; that Highlander Folk School ran workshops training beauticians in civil disobedience and voter registration; and that parlours “provided shelter for civil rights organizing”.
Moriah James, “Sizzle”, Smithsonian Institution, 10 January 2019. Accessed 25 September 2026.
On the pressing (hot) comb. Corrects the misconception that Madam C. J. Walker invented it; she and her “hair culturists” regularly used it, and her textbook taught a straightening process, though she said her products were for healthy hair. Also lists Poro’s “Marcel Waving Iron” and “Marcel Comb”, and combs heated on the kitchen stove.
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, “Annie Malone and Madam C.J. Walker: Pioneers of the African American Beauty Industry”, Smithsonian Institution. Accessed 25 September 2026.
States that Malone pioneered the path Walker took and that Walker became a Poro agent. Its phrase “enrolled at Malone’s Poro College” is anachronistic — the college opened in 1918.
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, “Strands of Inspiration: Exploring Black Identities through Hair”, Smithsonian Institution. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Hair care and styling as ways of defining Black identities; braided styles that conveyed background, status and life events.
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, “Black is Beautiful: The Emergence of Black Culture and Identity in the 60s and 70s”, Smithsonian Institution. Accessed 25 September 2026.
The movement “affirmed natural hairstyles like the ‘Afro’” and inspired cultural pride; using an Afro pick customised with a black fist was a way to assert allegiance to the Black Power movement.
Kamryn Z. Bess, “It’s More Than “Just” Hair: Revitalization of Black Identity”, Folklife Magazine, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, 6 November 2022. Accessed 12 November 2026.
Draws on interviews with stylists and family memories to argue that hair is central to Black identity and that restoring respect for natural texture is part of revitalising it; mentions school hair discrimination and the CROWN Act.
Beatrice Behlen, “Women’s fashion in 1920s London: Going out!”, London Museum, 6 January 2022. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Early in the decade women kept long hair but put it up at the back and teased curls out at the front to look bobbed; only in the mid-1920s did short hair become ubiquitous, leading to the Eton crop.
Victoria and Albert Museum, “Curling tongs (S.496-1984)”, about 1900. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Iron tongs opening like scissors, made in Great Britain around 1900 and used by wig makers; given by Wig Creations Ltd to the museum’s Theatre and Performance collection.
Science Museum Group, “Hair dryer (object type listing)”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Dated dryers, mostly British, from stoneware (1880–1900) to electric hand, hood and salon models (1920–1999).
Imperial War Museums, “1940s fashion: how to get the look”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
A modern recreation (not a primary source) of 1940s setting — rollers and setting lotion overnight, a headscarf, victory rolls at the front and a roll at the nape over a “rat”.
L. Clouting, “Fashion on the Ration: 1940s Street Style”, IWM blog, Imperial War Museums, 14 May 2015. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Notes a wartime trend for trousers and turbans, and describes the 1943 painting of the factory worker Ruby Loftus as idealised, her hair “safely covered and pulled back”.
Henry Grant (photographer); London Museum, “Punk (HG2806/76)”, photograph, 1978. Accessed 25 September 2026.
A young man with a mohican; the record notes he worked as a car mechanic and could wear the style "without objection from his employers". Included here for comparison.
London Museum, “Vivienne Westwood & Malcolm McLaren: King’s Road royalty”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
The shop at 430 King’s Road — Let It Rock (1971), Sex (1974), Seditionaries (1976), Worlds End (1980) — and its staff, including Jordan (Pamela Rooke), shown with a beehive hairstyle outside Sex.
London Museum, “Blitz: a revolutionary 1980s club night”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Tuesday nights at 4 Great Queen Street, Covent Garden, 1979–81; New Romantic "theatrical hair and makeup" and clothes that "challenged traditional ideas about gender".
University of Cambridge, “Origins of the Afro Comb: 6,000 years of culture, politics and identity”, 2 July 2013. Accessed 25 September 2026.
On the Fitzwilliam Museum and Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology exhibition (curated by Sally-Ann Ashton), tracing the comb from pre-dynastic Egypt to today and "the politicising and popularisation of Afros and Dreadlocks", with community hair stories.
The Henry Ford, ““Lady Carole” Home Permanent Wave Set, circa 1940”, The Henry Ford, object ID 2024.166.48, catalogued as circa 1940. Accessed 12 November 2026.
Home permanent set made by Halgar Incorporated of Chicago and sold by Montgomery Ward & Co.; marked “MACHINELESS OIL METHODS - Self Applied” and “24 HEAT UNITS AND SOLUTION” — a heated home kit that needed no salon machine.
York Museums Trust, “Hair piece (YORYM : 1998.695)”, York Museums Trust (Yorkshire Museum), 250–410 CE (object date). Accessed 25 September 2026.
Collection record for preserved Roman-period hair from a York burial in a sarcophagus with a lead coffin and gypsum, with two jet pins with cantharus-shaped heads still in the hair; quotes a nineteenth-century account calling it "the back hair ... of a young Roman lady".
Larisa Grollemond and Sarah Waldorf, “Did Medieval People Use Shampoo?”, Getty News, J. Paul Getty Trust, 10 May 2023. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Short museum feature using mainly French and Italian manuscripts of c. 1280–1500; states that usually only young, unmarried women wore hair uncovered and loose, and that braided hair covered with a veil, hat, hairnet or wimple was more common; shows age signalled by hair in a Visitation miniature.
Victoria and Albert Museum, “Coif (T.28-1975)”, 1600-1610. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Blackwork and silver-gilt embroidered linen coif made in Great Britain; the record says plain linen coifs were worn by the working class and decorated ones by middle-class and aristocratic women, indoors alone or under a hat in public.
Victoria and Albert Museum, “Coif and forehead cloth (T.53&A-1947)”, 1600-1650. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Matching blackwork coif and forehead cloth; the record says it is still unclear how the forehead cloth was worn because very few portraits show both.
Royal Museums Greenwich, “Elizabeth I: fashion and beauty”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Museum article stating that recipes for dyeing and bleaching emerged as women tried to copy Elizabeth’s red hair, that red wigs became an alternative which the queen also wore, and that a high hairline required plucking. Undated and without footnotes.
National Trust, “Queen Elizabeth and the ‘Mask of Youth’”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Explains the “Mask of Youth” as a standardised, ageless image of Elizabeth I arising from a government decision in 1594 to use an idealised portrait format.
Jamestown Rediscovery (Historic Jamestowne), “Comb”, Historic Jamestowne. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Over 40 plain bone combs from the early fort (c. 1607–1610), used on hair and beards against lice, fleas and nits and probably brought by the first colonists; contrasts them with elaborately carved status combs.
Science Museum Group, “Ivory powder bottle used by a wig dresser, England, 1701-1800 (A182306)”, 1701-1800. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Ivory powder bottle; the record says powder was made from ingredients such as flour and clay. Its further claim that men and women commonly shaved their heads is not supported by the other sources we have read for women.
London Museum, “Licenc’d to wear hair powder!! (49.10/6)”, 1 June 1795. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Satirical print published by S. W. Fores showing a chimney sweep with hair powdered white; the museum calls it a satire on the thirst for fashion.
Victoria and Albert Museum, “Mourning ring (M.10-1973)”, 1810-1811. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Black-enamelled gold ring, London 1810–11, with an urn and plaited hair under a crystal. London-hallmarked mourning ring with a hair panel in a funerary urn; the record explains bequests for mourning rings, neo-classical funerary designs and hair set into or behind them.
Victoria and Albert Museum, “Pendant (927-1888)”, 1802. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Pendant containing the hair of Frances Fisher (d. 1802, aged 53); the record suggests it may have begun as a sentimental gift and been made a memorial later, and says hair jewels circulated in England from the seventeenth century.
Mona Choo, “Hair”, V&A Blog, Victoria and Albert Museum, 25 June 2009. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Short post on V&A hair jewellery (c. 1810 and 1842 examples); says not all hair jewellery was associated with death — it was also made as keepsakes of love and friendship.
Tate, “The art, life and love of the Rossettis”, The Rossettis (Tate Britain exhibition, to 24 September 2023). Accessed 25 September 2026.
States that Elizabeth Siddal and Jane Morris designed their own outfits, did not wear traditional corsets and “left their long hair loose”.
Victoria and Albert Museum, “Mourning bracelet (WE.4293-2014)”, ca. 1846. Accessed 25 September 2026.
English band of woven human hair with a gold clasp, commemorating Josiah Wedgwood II (d. 1843) and Elizabeth Wedgwood (d. 1846, aged 82); the inset hair is possibly a mixture of both.
Science Museum Group, “Box for the ‘Tyne’ Hair Restorer, England, 1890-1915 (1988-1405/1)”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Made by R. Cubey, chemist, of Blaydon-on-Tyne; sold at one shilling a bottle to stimulate weak hair and replace lost hair; the box shows a woman with full hair.
Somerset House, “Hair by Sam McKnight”, exhibition, 2 November 2016 – 12 March 2017. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Exhibition on the session hairstylist Sam McKnight, who created Diana, Princess of Wales’s short, slicked-back style and worked with Kate Moss, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell.
London Museum, “Black Beauty and Hair Magazine (2007.1/166)”, May–June 1986. Accessed 25 September 2026.
A bi-monthly British magazine for “the beauty conscious black woman”, recommended by the Caribbean/Afro Society of Hairdressers UK.
Autograph, “Eileen Perrier Afro Hair and Beauty Show, 1998-2003”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Perrier’s portraits of attendees at the Afro Hair and Beauty Show, Alexandra Palace, 1998–2003, on improvised backdrops; quotes Perrier on her own childhood cornrows and thread-wrapped hair.
Victoria and Albert Museum, “Acquiring an early YouTube watch page and its first-ever video”, V&A, last updated 19 February 2026. Accessed 25 September 2026.
YouTube was registered as a company on 14 February 2005, its first video was uploaded on 23 April 2005 and it launched its first website in May 2005; the V&A collected a watch page dated 8 December 2006.
National Inventors Hall of Fame, “Marjorie Stewart Joyner”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Inductee page (inducted 2023). Life dates 24 Oct 1896 – 27 Dec 1994; born Monterey, Virginia; first Black graduate of the A. B. Moler Beauty and Culture School, Chicago, 1916; trained at Walker's school; vice president and national supervisor for 200 Walker Co. beauty schools; 1928 permanent wave machine (US 1,693,515); two US patents; helped write Illinois' first cosmetology laws (1924); NCNW founding member (1935); founded Alpha Chi Pi Omega (1945) and, "a year later", the United Beauty School Owners and Teachers Association. Also states that most American women styled their own hair until the 1920s.
Rose Sinclair; Horniman Museum and Gardens, “Winifred Atwell: Hair Entrepreneur”, Horniman Museum and Gardens, 3 October 2022. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Written for the Hair Untold Stories exhibition. States that there were no UK salons specifically caring for Caribbean migrants' hair in the late 1940s and early 1950s and that "Grooming and hair care took place in the home"; dates Atwell's Brixton salon to 1956; says "Winifred was not the first Black woman to open a salon", naming Carmen Maingot's North Kensington salon of 1955.
Korantema Anyimadu; Horniman Museum and Gardens, “A Hair Shop Tour”, Horniman Museum and Gardens, 22 March 2022. Accessed 25 September 2026.
The curator's tour of her Afro hair shop installation in Hair Untold Stories (relaxers, Pink Oil, Blue Magic, bobbles, wigs); recalls having her hair done at her aunt's "house-come-hair salon" and primary-school bobbles; notes that Pak's, "arguably the most well known afro hair shop", is South Asian owned.
Horniman Museum and Gardens, “Hair: Untold Stories”, exhibition open until 19 June 2022. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Exhibition page; includes an installation exploring "the experiences of Black women and non-binary people with their hair in the UK", the Migration Museum's barbershop installation, and "Intimate Archives" curated by Rambisayi Marufu.
Neil Kenlock (photographer); London Museum, “Afro haircuts (IN40066)”, c. 1976. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Collection record for a photograph by Neil Kenlock, c. 1976 (pigment print), acquired with Art Fund and V&A Purchase Grant Fund support. The record gives little description of the sitters.
Raphael Albert (photographer); Victoria and Albert Museum, “Black Beauty Pageants (E.311-2013)”, c. 1970s, printed 2012. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Acquired through Staying Power, "a five year partnership between the V&A and Black Cultural Archives"; Albert, a freelance photographer for West Indian World, founded the Miss Teenager and Miss West Indies in Great Britain contests in 1974.
Rianna Norbert-David; London Museum, “Windrush style: Psychology, identity & resilience”, London Museum, 25 October 2021. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Museum blog on Windrush-generation dress; the author recalls her granny telling her "my hair was my crown" and to keep it "neat".
National Portrait Gallery, “Alexandra of Denmark”, National Portrait Gallery, London, display, 28 September 2007 – 13 January 2008 (Room 29 wallcase). Accessed 25 September 2026.
Past-display text stating that photography and illustrated magazines put images of Princess Alexandra in high demand and that "her clothes and hairstyles were widely copied" — an institutional assertion, not itself evidence of copying. Read via a Wayback Machine copy (npg.org.uk returns 403).
W. & D. Downey (photographers); National Portrait Gallery, “NPG x22090; Queen Alexandra; Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife”, National Portrait Gallery, London, September 1868. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Catalogue page stating that this portrait of Alexandra carrying Princess Louise on her back "became the most popular photograph ever made in England, selling 300,000 copies" — circulation evidence for an image, not for a hairstyle. Read via a Wayback Machine copy.
Chris O'Rourke, “Queer Uses of British Fan Magazines”, The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, University of Exeter, February 2020. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Picture Show (1919–1960), initially 2d, appealed to working-class and lower-middle-class film fans around the country and primarily targeted a female readership; mid-1930s circulation about 60,000, against over 111,000 for Picturegoer (1913–1960).
John Cowan (photographer); Victoria and Albert Museum, “Vidal Sassoon Demonstrating his Skills, 1964”, V&A, catalogued as made 1961; museum number E.2051-2004. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Gelatin-silver print. The catalogue summary says Sassoon "rose to fame in the 1960s for creating the 'bob' haircut, popularised by the fashion designer Mary Quant" — useful as an example of how institutions compress credit; the title's 1964 and the made date of 1961 disagree.
Science Museum Group, “Collection of nurses caps including one veil with lining”, 1910–1940. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Object 1982-561/41 — British nurses' caps including Sister Dora caps, army caps and a veil, early twentieth century.
London Museum, “Cap, waitress cap (85.534/2b)”, 1925–1939. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Cap from the uniform of a "Nippy" waitress at J. Lyons and Company's teashops or corner houses.
London Museum, “Shampoo (86.382/1)”, 1939-1945. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Two unopened sachets of Palmolive olive-oil powder shampoo by Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Ltd; the wartime pack was "reduced in size but contains two full shampoos as before".
Victoria and Albert Museum, “Box (W.71-1983), Halex Ltd”, 1930-1940. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Cellulose-acetate dressing-table box made in Walthamstow; the record says Halex (founded as British Xylonite in 1896) pioneered celluloid manufacture in Britain and by the 1930s made combs, toothbrushes and other affordable plastic goods.
Victoria and Albert Museum, “Comb (CIRC.18-1961)”, early to mid-20th century. Accessed 25 September 2026.
A decorative comb of casein formaldehyde plastic (Galalith, Erinoid), probably made in Britain or Europe.
Science Museum Group, “Three Hindes No.2 hair curlers (1999-1082)”, c. 1930-1960. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Small plated-metal domestic curlers, English, catalogued c. 1930–1960.
Muzeum Okręgowe w Sieradzu, “Mistrz Antoine”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Regional Museum in Sieradz exhibition page — photographs of hairstyles and costumes he designed, personal clothing and hairdressing tools, and a portrait by Bolesław Czedekowski.
Muzeum Okręgowe w Sieradzu, “Cierplikowski ⁄ Dunikowski. Przyjaciele”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Exhibition page on his friendship with the sculptor Xawery Dunikowski (met in Paris in 1914) and his gift of his collection to the Dunikowski museum at Królikarnia, Warsaw; cites his memoir "Antoine. J'ai coiffé le monde entier".
Victoria and Albert Museum, “David Bailey's box of pin-ups”, V&A, Explore the Collections, museum number E.2047:3-2004, 1965. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Bailey's 1965 portrait of Sassoon; the catalogue credits him with "such influential hair styles as the assymetric 'Bob' cut" (spelling as in the record).
The Jackie Robinson Museum, “Freedom National Bank”. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Museum history of the Harlem bank - groundwork from 1963, opening in December 1964 with Jackie Robinson as board chairman, closure by regulators on 9 November 1990. Does not name Rose Morgan.
Victoria and Albert Museum, “HD176/70 (Fro Fro) | Ojeikere, J. D. 'Okhai (Mr) | V&A Explore The Collections”, 1970, printed 2012 (museum no. E.232-2013). Accessed 25 September 2026.
Catalogue record; series begun 1968 with the Nigerian Arts Council; "almost a thousand hairstyles", rear view, "sculptures for a day"; Fro Fro attributed to the Mikiki family, traditionally worn by unmarried women; acquired through the V&A–Black Cultural Archives Staying Power project.
Victoria and Albert Museum, “HD849/75 (Abebe) | Ojeikere, J. D. 'Okhai (Mr) | V&A Explore The Collections”, 1975, printed 2012 (museum no. E.231-2013). Accessed 25 September 2026.
Catalogue record; Abebe (Yoruba for a hand fan) style worn for special events, which Ojeikere credited to 'Elegant Twin Sisters, Lagos'.
Victoria and Albert Museum, “HD14/69 (Pineapple) | Ojeikere, J. D. 'Okhai (Mr) | V&A Explore The Collections”, 1969, printed 2012 (museum no. E.233-2013). Accessed 25 September 2026.
Catalogue record; the pineapple style, worn for casual events and office work, as an everyday style reflecting modern living; small thread braids forming a pattern of squares.
Victoria and Albert Museum, “Untitled, HG 423-04 | Ojeikere, J. D. 'Okhai (Mr) | V&A Explore The Collections”, 2004, printed 2012 (museum no. E.227-2013). Accessed 25 September 2026.
Catalogue record for a Headties (gele) photograph; birthplace Ovbiomu-Emai; says he began documenting Nigerian culture in 1967 with the arts council (other V&A records say the hairstyles series began in 1968).
Tate, “'Hairstyles', J.D. Okhai Ojeikere, 1971–5”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Tate catalogue group of eight gelatin silver prints (1971–5, printed 2012), purchased 2013 with the Acquisitions Fund for African Art supported by Guaranty Trust Bank; viewable by appointment at Tate Britain; copyright reserved.
Tate, “Tate and Africa – Press Release”, 2 November 2012. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Announces Tate acquiring a series of photographs from Ojeikere's Hairstyles series through the Acquisitions Fund for African Art supported by Guaranty Trust Bank.
Jumoke Sanwo, “Ojeikere: Fleeting and Captured Moments”, post: notes on art in a global context, The Museum of Modern Art, 23 February 2022. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Essay on Fro Fro and two other works in MoMA's collection; series begun in Lagos in 1968 and continued until 2014; "more than two thousand images"; sitters included friends and church members; diptychs from behind and in profile; Ojeikere's "collective endeavor" statement.
Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, “J. D. ’Okhai Ojeikere”, Collection of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain. Accessed 12 November 2026.
Collection artist page. Says he died in Lagos in 2014; that the Hairstyles series, “initiated in 1968”, comprises “nearly a thousand photographs”, made in black and white with a Rolleiflex 6x6; and that the Fondation showed sixty-four of them “for the first time outside Nigeria” from 4 April to 27 May 2000, when “His work was integrated into the Fondation Cartier’s collection”.
Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, “J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere”, 4 April – 27 May 2000. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Exhibition page; sixty-four Hairstyles photographs shown for the first time outside Nigeria; styles photographed mostly from behind, sometimes in profile.
La Biennale di Venezia, “Biennale Arte 2013 - Artists”, 2013. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Artist list for The Encyclopedic Palace (55th International Art Exhibition, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, 1 June – 24 November 2013), including J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, "Born in 1930 in Ojomu Emai, Nigeria".
Skirball Cultural Center, “Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite”, 11 April – 1 September 2019. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Exhibition page; AJASS 1956 and Grandassa Models 1962 founded with Elombe Brath; fashion shows with clothing designed by the models themselves; school photo shoot for a group that began to embrace natural hairstyles; organised by Aperture Foundation and Kwame S. Brathwaite.
Barbican Centre, “Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica”, 11 June – 6 September 2026. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Barbican Art Gallery, London; exhibition co-organised by the Art Institute of Chicago and MACBA; Kwame Brathwaite named among participating artists (works shown not listed).
Archives and research guides
Library of Congress, “Flappers: topics in Chronicling America”. Accessed 19 September 2026.
Research guide to digitised American newspapers; a route to primary reporting on bobbed hair.
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, ““Miss America receives a permanent wave””, photograph, 14 October 1926. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Photograph of Norma Smallwood, Miss America 1926, seated with her hair attached to electric permanent-wave equipment.
State Historical Society of Missouri, “Annie Turnbo Malone”, Historic Missourians. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Born Annie Minerva Turnbo, 9 August 1869, Metropolis, Illinois; died in Chicago on 10 May 1957; moved her business to St Louis in 1902; established Poro College there in 1918.
Calum Cockburn, “Keeping a cat and other rules for anchoresses”, British Library blogs (Medieval manuscripts), British Library, 29 October 2024. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Describes Cotton MS Cleopatra C VI (c. 1225–30) as the earliest surviving manuscript of Ancrene Wisse. On Ancrene Wisse (early 13th century; British Library Cotton MS Cleopatra C VI); summarises its rules that anchoresses have their hair cut, shaved or trimmed four times a year and wear a wimple or simple cap.
Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, “Preposterous Headdresses and Feathered Ladies: Hair, Wigs, Barbers, and Hairdressers”, Lewis Walpole Library, 2003 (exhibition 8 May – 29 October 2003). Accessed 25 September 2026.
Exhibition checklist of British satirical prints (1761–1813) with BM Catalogue numbers, including Darly’s The Preposterous Head Dress (1776), The Boarding-School Hair-Dresser (1786), a 1772 hairdresser’s advertisement plate, Cruikshank on the 1795 powder tax, and Gillray’s The Wig (1810).
Robert Eyre (Warwickshire County Record Office), “Hair Powder Tax”, Our Warwickshire. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Describes Warwickshire Quarter Sessions returns for 1795–96 of people who bought a certificate carrying a one-guinea stamp duty to use hair powder, listing names, parish and household role (including servants); lists exemptions and says the tax was not repealed until 1869.
Alexandra Palace, “A Look Back at Alexandra Palace (timeline)”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Under 1994, records that the Afro Hair and Beauty Show arrived at Alexandra Palace and ran there for the next fifteen years.
Black Cultural Archives, “Our Story”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
The archive's own history; founders including Len Garrison responded to events of 1981; mission to "collect, preserve and celebrate the histories of people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK"; headquarters at 1 Windrush Square, Brixton.
Houston Public Library, African American History Research Center, “National Hair-Weev Association Executive Board”, MSS 0181 Elvira Pickens Collection, item MSS0181-PH027, Houston Public Library Digital Archives, undated. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Undated Cleveland photograph of the association's executive board, captioned with Christina M. Jenkins as "Founder & Executive Secretary Hair-Weev Inc." and the Houston beautician Elvira Pickens as third vice president.
The HistoryMakers, “Finding Aid to The HistoryMakers Video Oral History with Rose Morgan”, The HistoryMakers, Chicago (collection A2002_009), Interview 2002-01-28; finding aid processed 2023-05-30. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Archive finding aid with a biographical note (Edward, Mississippi, 1912; Ethel Waters 1938; staff of 29 by 1946; 1955 House of Beauty with dressmaking and charm school; wig salon early 1960s; over 3,000 employed and trained; a founder of Freedom National Bank in 1965; retired 1970s). Catalogues her as "Morgan, Rose, 1912?-2008".
Film and media
Pamela Hutchinson, “How the Lulu bob became cinema’s most imitated haircut”, BFI, 29 May 2018, updated 9 November 2020. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Brooks had her bob cut in 1924 at Saveli’s New York salon and kept it for Pandora’s Box (1929); traces later imitations. Repeats the claim that Antoine de Paris cut the first ladies’ bob in 1909.
99% Invisible, “The Hair Chart”, 17 April 2018. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Radio/podcast episode on stylist Andre Walker's 1990s hair-typing chart, created to sell his products, its adoption by people turning to the internet for natural-hair advice, and criticism that sites favoured looser curls over tighter textures.
Tanisha C. Ford, “Black Is Beautiful”, Aperture (issue 228, Fall 2017; online "From the Archive"), Aperture Foundation, 11 June 2020 (first published Fall 2017). Accessed 25 September 2026.
Historian's article based on interview with Brathwaite; AJASS formed 1956; Grandassa recruited teenage and young adult women; Naturally '62 at the Purple Manor, 28 January 1962; images appeared in Black publications in the US, Britain, Nigeria and Rhodesia.
Aperture, “Remembering the Life and Work of Kwame Brathwaite”, 7 April 2023. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Tribute recording his death on 1 April 2023 aged eighty-five, the 2019 Aperture monograph and the touring exhibition.
Journalism
Maureen O’Donnell, “Margaret Vinci Heldt, creator of lofty beehive hairdo, dead at 98”, Chicago Sun-Times, 14 June 2016. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Obituary. Reports that Heldt created the style for the February 1960 issue of Modern Beauty Shop, inspired by a favourite fez. Evidence of her account and reputation; the magazine issue itself is the primary source to check.
The Yorkshire Post, “ghd: How firm is strengthening its Yorkshire roots to give women worldwide a ‘good hair day’”, The Yorkshire Post. Accessed 12 November 2026. details to checkBusiness feature. Says ghd (Good Hair Day) was founded in Yorkshire in 2001 by the former hairdresser Robert Powls with his business partners Gary Douglas and Martin Penny. Read through search-result text; the site blocks automated access.
Sophie Huskisson, “Halo Code: UK’s first Black hair code aims to protect employees from discrimination”, The Voice, 14 December 2020. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Reports the launch of the Halo Code by the Halo Collective, young Black organisers from The Advocacy Academy (co-founder Katiann Rocha was 16), with Unilever as an early adopter. Quotes 2019 survey figures from World Afro Day and De Montfort University.
Emma Tarlo, “The Secret History of Buying and Selling Hair”, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 November 2016. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Excerpt from Tarlo’s Entanglement. Quotes T. A. Trollope (1840) on girls’ hair bought at Breton fairs, an 1875 account of the London Hair Market at Mincing Lane ranking Chinese against European hair, and notes that cropping of inmates’ hair in British prisons, workhouses and hospitals was no longer compulsory by the 1850s.
Chanté Griffin, “How Natural Black Hair at Work Became a Civil Rights Issue”, JSTOR Daily, 3 July 2019. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Describes the 1981 American Airlines braids case (without naming it) and the Hyatt Regency’s treatment of Cheryl Tatum’s cornrows (less than a decade later); says US hair-care advertising in the 1980s and 1990s encouraged Black women to alter their hair’s texture.
Deborah Gabriel, “UK naturals to watch: The YouTube vloggers”, People With Voices, 11 October 2011. Accessed 25 September 2026.
A dated 2011 profile describing a "vibrant and expanding community" of Black women in Britain sharing natural-hair experience and expertise on YouTube.
Staff writer, “Student sent home over afro calls for schools to improve policies”, The Voice, 11 February 2020. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Ruby Williams, then 18, received an £8,500 out-of-court settlement after being repeatedly sent home from The Urswick School in Years 10 and 11 under a policy that "afro style hair must be of reasonable size and length"; the EHRC supported the case and the governors did not accept that the school had discriminated.
Mark Smulian, “School agrees £8.5k settlement to pupil excluded over size of afro hair”, Local Government Lawyer, 13 February 2020. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Legal-press report that the EHRC funded Ruby Williams's claim as a race discrimination case, argued as indirect discrimination; the London Diocesan Board for Schools settled without admitting fault. Also notes the EHRC-funded 2017 Fulham Boys School locs case.
Suzanne Bearne, “Roots manoeuvre: embracing grey hair”, Positive News, 19 November 2018. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Dated 2018 report on grey-hair communities, including the Instagram account Grombre (over 46,000 followers), a Facebook group with close to 20,000 members, and a 44-year-old woman from Essex inspired by Grombre.
Michelle Ganley (Graham Media Group), “Going gray a little sooner than expected? Join the 'grombre' movement”, 11 May 2020. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Profile of Grombre founder Martha Truslow Smith, a North Carolina graphic designer who found her first grey hair at 14 and stopped dyeing at 24.
Tony Warner, “The Afro Hair and Beauty Show promotes European standards of beauty”, People With Voices, 1 June 2011. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Opinion piece criticising skin-bleaching stalls at the show; states it was established by Dyke and Dryden with Tony Wade in 1982 and that the company was sold to Soft Sheen in 1997. Evidence of debate inside the Black British beauty market.
Allison Marsh, “How the Electric Hot Comb Became an Entrepreneurial Tool”, IEEE Spectrum (Past Forward), 30 August 2019. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Historian's column calling the hot comb an "anonymous technology"; credits Grateau with a heated curling iron around 1872 and repeats the identification of Grateau with the US patentee François Marcel Woelfflé.
PAP (Polish Press Agency), “„Król fryzjerów i fryzjer królów” - Antoni Cierplikowski”, dzieje.pl, 6 August 2016, updated 30 August 2016. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Polish news-agency profile. Birth date and place; to France 1901; salon at 5 rue Cambon; dates the Lavallière haircut to 1909; client list; more than 120 salons under his name in the US; return to Sieradz 1971; death 5 July 1976; Sieradz Open Hair Festival since 2009.
Christopher Reed, “Vidal Sassoon obituary”, The Guardian, 2012-05-09. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Obituary giving birth (17 January 1928, Whitechapel) and death (9 May 2012) dates, his training, Bond Street salons, the 1963 cut for Mary Quant, "wash-and-wear" cuts needing a visit every six weeks rather than weekly, salons abroad from 1964, schools, the 1973 trade product line and the 1983 sale of the business.
NPR, Fresh Air (Dave Davies; Terry Gross interview of 2011), “Remembering Vidal Sassoon, An Iconic Hairdresser”, Fresh Air, 2012-05-18. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Broadcast transcript. Sassoon in his own words on cutting Nancy Kwan's hair after The World of Suzie Wong, on never setting "those kind of heads", and on the setting and spraying he was reacting against.
Mhairi Graham, “Vidal Sassoon's Box Bobs”, AnOther, 2012-10-03. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Short magazine feature on Eric Swayne's photograph of Grace Coddington's "Five Point Cut by Vidal Sassoon"; names the five-point cut but gives no date for it.
Michael Henry Adams, “Beauty empire builder, Black bank founder, and star of Harlem's high society: Remembering Rose Morgan”, New York Amsterdam News, 2026-03-19. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Harlem newspaper profile; adds addresses (401 West 148th Street; 507 West 145th Street, designed by John Lewis Wilson), the partnership with Olivia Lee Dilworth Stanford, and her marriage to Joe Louis. Much of its biographical wording follows the HistoryMakers note.
Herb Boyd, “Celebrated photographer Kwame Brathwaite dies at 85”, New York Amsterdam News, 5 April 2023. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Obituary; born Gilbert Ronald Brathwaite in Brooklyn on 1 January 1938; died 1 April 2023; co-founded AJASS (1956) and Grandassa Models (1962).
Holly Chant, “Family who battled against school hair policy to help write guidance”, Hackney Gazette. Accessed 12 November 2026.
On Ruby Williams and Urswick School. Quotes the governors: they “do not accept the school has discriminated, even unintentionally, against any individual or group”; says the settlement offer was made by the London Diocesan Board for Schools. The page shows no publication date (early 2020).
Equality and Human Rights Commission, “Preventing hair discrimination in schools”, published 27 October 2022. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Current guidance for schools in Britain. A policy banning hairstyles associated with particular racial or religious groups, without exceptions, is likely to be unlawful indirect discrimination; names Afro hairstyles, braids, locks, twists, cornrows, plaits, skin fades, head coverings and head wraps, and disability-related needs such as wigs during cancer treatment.
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, “Pubs, restaurants and hairdressers to reopen from 4 July”, GOV.UK, 24 June 2020. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Announced that hairdressers in England could reopen from 4 July 2020, with guidance that stylists wear a clear visor.
Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), “Roman York: Burials”, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in City of York, Volume 1, Eburacum, Roman York, HMSO (London), via British History Online, 1962. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Official inventory of Roman burials in York; records gypsum burials that preserved hair, including "an adolescent girl whose auburn hair, fastened in a bun by two jet pins, is preserved in the Yorkshire Museum" (p. 83) and another burial in which "auburn hair in ringlets survived" (p. 81).
Laura Brown, “The bloody death of Mary Queen of Scots”, Historic Environment Scotland Blog, Historic Environment Scotland, 8 February 2017. Accessed 25 September 2026.
States that at Mary’s execution (1587) the executioner was left holding her wig and that her own hair was short and grey. Cites no eyewitness source.
US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, “Hair Smoothing Products That Could Release Formaldehyde - Time line”, OSHA. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Month-by-month timeline of 2010–11 investigations into keratin-based smoothing products, including tests of products labelled formaldehyde-free, stylists' reported nosebleeds and breathing problems, and recalls in Ireland in October 2010.
UK Parliament (via legislation.gov.uk), “Hairdressers (Registration) Act 1964”, The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), 1964 (c. 89), revised text. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Establishes the Hairdressing Council and a register of hairdressers for persons entitled "who apply in the prescribed manner"; registration requires apprenticeship or an approved course and a sufficient standard (s. 3); the Council has no powers over wages or conditions (s. 14); defines hairdressing to include shampooing, dyeing, waving, straightening and setting (s. 15); does not extend to Northern Ireland (s. 16).
Hair and Barber Council, “Hair Council”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
The statutory council's own statement that state registration "is not so for hairdressers and barbers for whom registration is currently voluntarily", and that it seeks a change to the Act so that all practising hairdressers and barbers must register. An interested party on the case for mandatory registration.
Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (now Skills England), “Hair professional (ST0213, version 1.1)”, Approved for delivery 21 December 2016; updated 23 May 2023; now retired. Accessed 25 September 2026.
English Level 2 apprenticeship standard, typically 24 months; states that hairdressers and barbers "must be able to work with all hair types ranging from straight hair to very curly, wiry hair" and that achievement makes the apprentice eligible for State Registration with the Hair Council. This version is marked retired.
Haringey Council, “West Green Road Businesses”, Tottenham Tales. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Local-heritage page. Dyke & Dryden was established by Len Dyke and Dudley Dryden in West Green Road, Tottenham, in May 1965, joined by Tony Wade in 1968, and became an Afro hair and beauty company; includes a resident's memory of a family business where a barber's shop had "a ladies' hairdressers upstairs".
United States Patent and Trademark Office, “Beyond Baker’s list: Black innovation then and now”, 28 February 2023. Accessed 25 September 2026.
States that in 1898 Lyda D. Newman, a New York hairdresser, received a patent for a hairbrush, and that her invention paved the way for "other Black innovators" in hair care, including Marjorie Stewart Joyner — so Joyner was not the first Black woman to receive a US patent.
English Heritage, “Winifred Atwell | Pianist and Entrepreneur | blue plaques”, plaque erected 2025. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Blue-plaque page (plaque at 18 Bourdon Street, Mayfair); says she opened the Winifred Atwell Salon in Brixton in 1957, "one of the earliest salons in the country to specifically serve Black women's hair needs", followed in 1958 by a product brand including "Stay Straight". Its 1957 date differs from the Horniman's 1956.
UK Parliament, “Equality Act 2010, section 9: Race”, legislation.gov.uk, 2010. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Defines race as including "colour", "nationality" and "ethnic or national origins"; the section extends to England, Wales and Scotland, not Northern Ireland.
UK Parliament, “Equality Act 2010, section 19: Indirect discrimination”, legislation.gov.uk, 2010. Accessed 26 September 2026.
A "provision, criterion or practice" that puts people sharing a protected characteristic (including race, religion or belief, sex and disability) at a particular disadvantage is discriminatory unless shown to be "a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim".
UK Parliament, “Equality Act 2010, section 20: Duty to make adjustments”, legislation.gov.uk, 2010. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Sets out the duty to take reasonable steps where a provision, criterion or practice puts a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage compared with non-disabled people.
UK Parliament, “Equality Act 2010, section 26: Harassment”, legislation.gov.uk, 2010. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Defines harassment as unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic that violates dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.
Health and Safety Executive, “Getting started”, Engineering, page dated 2025-02-24. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Advises that long hair "should be tied back or appropriate hair net worn" when operating engineering machinery — a task-specific entanglement control that applies to anyone with long hair.
Health and Safety Executive, “Entanglement hazards”, Agriculture – Machinery, page dated 2024-10-24. Accessed 26 September 2026.
States that "every year people are killed or severely injured by becoming entangled in power machinery" and lists "trailing hair" among operator errors.
Food Standards Agency, “Safer food, better business for caterers: Personal hygiene”, GOV.UK, collection published 29 January 2020. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Says it is "good practice" for staff to keep hair tied back and wear a hat when preparing food, because uncovered hair "is more likely to fall into food" and staff are more likely to touch it.
NHS England and NHS Improvement, “Uniforms and workwear: guidance for NHS employers”, NHS England, 2 April 2020 (web page last updated 28 March 2023). Accessed 26 September 2026.
Good-practice table says "Tie long hair back off the collar", giving the reason that patients prefer staff with "tidy hair"; permits turbans, kippot, veils and headscarves on religious grounds subject to care, infection control and safety; notes the 2007 guidance was updated in 2010 to accommodate faith groups.
Ministry of Defence (British Army), “Army General and Administrative Instructions, Volume 2, Chapter 59: Dress and Personal Appearance”, GOV.UK, August 2021 (AEL 139). Accessed 26 September 2026.
Para 59.04 permits women's braids, twists, cornrows, locks, extensions, weaves and wigs within length and symmetry limits, bans hair accessories and "unauthorized" colours, keeps separate safety and food-hygiene requirements, and has annexes on the hijab and Rastafari hair.
Government Equalities Office, “Dress codes and sex discrimination – what you need to know”, GOV.UK, 17 May 2018. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Employer guidance that a requirement for women to "wear hair in certain styles" is likely to be unlawful where there is no equivalent requirement for men.
Office for National Statistics, “Census unearthed: explore 50 years of change from 1961”, 9 August 2021. Accessed 25 September 2026.
The 1961 Census asked about an inside toilet (nearly 7% of households in England and Wales lacked one), a fixed bath with waste-water plumbing and hot water; households without a fixed bath sometimes used a standalone bath filled and emptied by bucket or ladle.
UK Parliament (Hansard), “Households (Amenities)”, House of Commons Debates, 4 May 1964. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Oral question (No. 16) from Frank Allaun; Mr Braine (Ministry of Health) circulated the answer in the Official Report (HC Deb 4 May 1964, vol. 694, cc. 888–9). Gives 1961 Census figures for England and Wales — 3,221,260 households lacking a fixed bath and 3,206,588 lacking a hot water tap — and noting that a post-enumeration survey found the bath figure understated by about 5%.
Hon. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, “Celebration of the Life of Christina Jenkins”, Congressional Record, vol. 149, no. 175 (Extensions of Remarks), p. E2478, US Government Publishing Office (govinfo), 2003-12-08. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Memorial tribute by her congresswoman - her death aged 82, Leland College degree (1943), work for a Chicago wig manufacturer from 1949, the Hairweev process, teaching at Christina's HairWeev Penthouse Salon in Shaker Heights until 1993, training sessions in Europe. A tribute, not a researched biography (it dates the patent to 1951, the filing year).
British Association of Dermatologists, “Traction alopecia”, produced February 2019. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Patient information leaflet. Names tight ponytails, buns, braids, weaves and extensions, clips and tight head scarves; risk rises when combined with chemical relaxers. The leaflet’s own review date (February 2022) has passed.
British Association of Dermatologists, “Caring for Afro-textured hair”, produced July 2023. Accessed 12 November 2026.
Patient information leaflet. Says a relaxer should never be left on long enough to burn the scalp, that burns can lead to permanent hair loss, that relaxers on skin can cause contact dermatitis, and that there have been reports linking relaxer use with a higher risk of central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA), a scarring hair loss. The leaflet’s own next review date (July 2026) has passed.
NHS, “Hair dye reactions”, page last reviewed 29 December 2025. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Many permanent and some semi-permanent dyes contain PPD, which can irritate skin or cause allergic reactions.
US Food and Drug Administration, “Hair Smoothing Products That Release Formaldehyde When Heated”, content current as of 15 October 2024. Accessed 12 November 2026.
“When the solution is heated, the formaldehyde in the products is released into the air as a gas”, which can seriously irritate the eyes, nose and lungs. Replaces the FDA’s 2021 consumer update on the same subject. (A proposed FDA ban on formaldehyde in straightening products had not been published when we checked in November 2026.)
Health and Safety Executive, “COSHH and hairdressers - key messages”, page dated 2025-07-03. Accessed 25 September 2026.
States that frequent contact with water and shampoo can irritate the skin leading to dermatitis, that some products cause dermatitis and skin allergies, and that dusty products such as persulphates and henna can cause asthma.
Primary sources
Toni Company (advertisement), “Toni Home Permanent advertisement: “Which twin has the Toni?””, Radio and Television Mirror, July–December 1950, Macfadden Publications, 1950. Accessed 12 November 2026.
American magazine advertisement, read through the Media History Digital Library. “One of these Twins has a Toni, the other has a $20* permanent”; asks “WHICH TWIN HAS THE TONI?”; claims experts cannot tell “the $1 Toni” from “the beauty shop wave”.
The Argus (Melbourne), “[Report on the ‘Victory Roll’ hair style]”, 1 August 1941. Accessed 25 September 2026. details to checkQuoted in several secondary histories as the earliest dated use of “Victory Roll” for a hairstyle, “inspired by the V for Victory campaign”. Headline and wording still to be checked against the scan.
Nestle Co. (advertisement), “Nestle Home Outfit for permanent waving”, Photoplay, July–December 1920, Photoplay Magazine Publishing Company, Chicago, 1920. Accessed 12 November 2026.
Magazine advertisement, read through the Media History Digital Library, offering the “Nestle Home Outfit” for permanent waving by post, with a refund if returned within seven days.
Channel 4, “10 Years Younger”, Series 1 first broadcast 28 April 2004. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Channel 4's programme page; series 1 ran from 28 April 2004, volunteers faced a public "age survey" before a makeover. (The page no longer names the makeover team; episode listings name hairdressers such as Nicky Clarke.)
World Afro Day, “Our Team”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
The organisation's own statement that founder Michelle De Leon established the Day on 15 September 2017, inspired by her daughter, as a focal point of pride and acceptance for Afro hair.
Marjorie S. Joyner, “Permanent waving machine (US 1,693,515)”, United States Patent Office (via Google Patents), filed 16 May 1928; granted 27 November 1928. Accessed 25 September 2026.
The patent itself; assigned to the Madame C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company of Indianapolis.
Marjorie Stewart Joyner, “Scalp protector (US 1,716,173)”, United States Patent Office (via Google Patents), filed 26 November 1928; granted 4 June 1929. Accessed 25 September 2026.
A shield to protect the client's scalp from a hot iron during permanent waving; assigned to the Madame C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company. A divisional application, split from her application filed 16 May 1928 (Serial No. 278,174).
House of Commons (Hansard), “Prison Regulations—Hair Cutting.—Question”, HC Deb 24 May 1875 vol 224 cc788-9, 24 May 1875. Accessed 26 September 2026.
The Home Secretary quotes Oxford Castle prison rules: "the hair of any female prisoner shall not be cut without her consent, except it is rendered necessary by illness or dirt"; male prisoners' hair cut "so far as is necessary for health and cleanliness".
House of Commons (Hansard), “Holloway Gaol—Cutting of Female Prisoners' Hair while under Remand”, HC Deb 04 August 1904 vol 139 cc982-3, 4 August 1904. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Two young women (aged 20 and 17) on remand at Holloway had their hair cut short; the Home Secretary cited a rule allowing cutting for "dirt or vermin", said it was "not the custom", and promised inquiries when asked whether it was cut before medical inspection.
Employment Tribunals (Scotland), “Ms A Vial v Mr S Alsafar, Case No 4102133/2022: Judgment”, GOV.UK, 10 October 2023. Accessed 26 September 2026.
First-instance tribunal found that repeatedly asking an 18-year-old waitress in Dundee to remove the wig worn over her braids, and attempting to remove it, was harassment related to race under s.26 Equality Act 2010; the tribunal accepted that Black women in the UK regard braids under a wig as a "protective style".
Naohiko Kakita et al. (assignee Kanegafuchi Chemical Industry Co. Ltd, now Kaneka), “Modified cross-section fiber for artificial hair (US 5,683,814)”, United States Patent Office (via Google Patents), filed 11 April 1996; granted 4 November 1997. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Lists modacrylic, vinyl chloride, vinylidene chloride, polyester, polyamide and polyolefin fibres as used for artificial hair, and addresses fibres for voluminous braids.
Francois Marcel Woelffle, “Curling-iron (US806386A)”, United States Patent Office, filed 2 March 1905; granted 5 December 1905. Accessed 25 September 2026.
US patent for a waving/curling iron; the inventor declares himself "a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the city, county, and State of New York", signed 1 March 1905.
Francois Marcel, “Hair-waving iron (US1277739A)”, United States Patent Office, filed 18 December 1916; granted 3 September 1918. Accessed 25 September 2026.
US patent for a hair-waving iron; the inventor declares himself a US citizen resident in the borough of Brooklyn, New York.
François René Marcel, “Curling iron (US1622834A)”, United States Patent Office, filed 12 June 1924; granted 29 March 1927. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Curling iron with a heat-insulating block between rod and handle, by François René Marcel of Brooklyn, New York.
August W. Kahle and Ludwig Rensman, “Marcel-waving iron (US855709A)”, United States Patent Office, filed 3 October 1906; granted 4 June 1907. Accessed 25 September 2026.
A New York patent by two other inventors for an iron to make "Marcel" waves, pitched at women doing their own hair without training — shows the name was already generic by 1906.
Joseph Rohrer, “Prof. Rohrer's Artistic Marcel, Water, Permanent Waving and Hair Bobbing”, Prof. Rohrer's Institute of Beauty Culture, New York, 1924. Accessed 25 September 2026.
New York hairdressing manual. Dates the Marcel wave to 1872 and "Monsieur Marcel of Paris", records a "Fete Marcel" at King's Hall, London, on 28 July 1908 and a Paris celebration of his seventieth birthday in 1922; separately advertises "Prof. Francois R. Marcel's" patented irons and permanent-waving machines used in New York; includes children's and ladies' bobbing and the shingle bob.
Charles Nessler, “Artificial eyelashes and method of making same (US1450259A)”, United States Patent Office, filed 30 June 1921; granted 3 April 1923. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Shows Nessler as "a citizen of the United States, and resident of New York city" by 1921, working on other beauty products.
Antoine (Antoni Cierplikowski), “Antoine. J'ai coiffé le monde entier”. details to checkHis memoir, cited by the Sieradz museum; publisher and date not yet checked.
Christina M. Jenkins, “Permanently attaching commercial hair to live hair”, United States Patent Office, patent 2,621,663 (via Google Patents), Filed 1951-05-04; granted 1952-12-16. Accessed 26 September 2026.
The patent itself - a method and apparatus for anchoring cords along a parting and weaving commercial hair onto them; 19 claims; filed 4 May 1951, granted 16 December 1952, not assigned to a company.
Thomas Adolphus Trollope, “A Summer in Brittany, vol. I”, Henry Colburn, 1840. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Chapter XVIII (pp. 322–23) describes girls’ hair being cut and sold at the fair at Collinée; the introduction dates the tour to the summer of 1839.
Robert Wingfield (attributed; signed “R.W.”), “Narrative of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1587), transcription”, Wingfield Family Society, first published 1752; edited by Jocelyn Wingfield, 8 July 1987. Accessed 12 November 2026.
Eyewitness narrative, reproduced in part, describing Mary’s hair as grey, as if she were “threescore and ten Years old”, and “powled very shorte”; does not mention a wig. The online transcription renders the long s as “f” and has small errors, so the printed text should be cited when checked.
US District Court, Northern District of Illinois, “Jenkins v. Elligan, 253 F. Supp. 403 (N.D. Ill. 1965)”, decided 22 November 1965. Accessed 12 November 2026.
Infringement suit by Christina M. Jenkins and Hair-Weev, Inc. against Lydia Adams Elligan and Lydia Adams Beauty College over US patent 2,621,663; the findings record the defendant’s public demonstration of attaching false hair at the Savoy Ballroom, Chicago, in October 1939. Case summaries report that the court held the patent invalid over prior art; we have not yet read the conclusions in full.
UK Parliament, “Hairdressers (Registration) Act 1964, section 3 (as enacted)”, legislation.gov.uk. Accessed 26 September 2026.
As enacted, allowed registration after an apprenticeship or approved course to a "reasonable and sufficient standard", or after three years' practice before the appointed day (a route repealed in 2004).
Halo Collective, “Halo Collective | End Hair Discrimination”. Accessed 12 November 2026.
The campaign’s own site. Says it was “founded by young Black organisers” from The Advocacy Academy, and presents the statistic that 46% “of parents say their children’s school policy penalised Afro hair”.
Frances (Fanny) Burney, “Evelina, or, the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World”, Project Gutenberg (eBook no. 6053), first published 1778. Accessed 12 November 2026.
Full text of the novel. The original preface says the heroine makes “at the age of seventeen, her first appearance” in the world, and she later says she is seventeen; includes the passage on having her hair dressed “full of powder and black pins, and a great cushion on the top of it”.
Other histories
A’Lelia Bundles, “The Facts about Madam C. J. Walker and Annie Malone”, aleliabundles.com. Accessed 25 September 2026.
By Walker’s biographer. Walker sold Malone’s Poro products in St Louis and Denver in 1905–06; discusses the “first self-made female millionaire” claim and documented wealth. Gives Malone’s dates as “1877* – 1957”, with the footnote “Malone was born in 1877. This is a correction.”
Douglas Harper, “bobby pin (n.)”, Online Etymology Dictionary. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Dates "bobby pin" to 1928, from "bob" (short hair) + "pin".
Susan J. Vincent, “Hair: An Illustrated History”, Bloomsbury, 2018. Accessed 25 September 2026. details to checkCultural history of hair in Britain from the seventeenth century; for further reading.
Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, “Fashion Victims: Dress at the Court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette”, Yale University Press, 2015. Accessed 25 September 2026. details to checkStudy of French court fashion including hairdressers and the pouf; for further reading.
Fashion, Costume, and Culture (via Encyclopedia.com), “Rachel Haircut”, Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear through the Ages. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Reference entry crediting the cut to Chris McMillan of Los Angeles for Jennifer Aniston on Friends; long layers just below the shoulder, Velcro rollers for fullness; spread in the United States and Great Britain. Print edition details still to check.
Anne Kreamer, “Going Gray”, Little, Brown, 2007. details to checkAn American journalist's first-person account of stopping colouring her hair in midlife; not opened.
Black Plaque Project, “Dyke, Dryden & Wade”. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Community heritage biography, no named author; says the partners' first Tottenham shop "was a huge hit in the Black community" and dates the first annual Afro Hair and Beauty Expo to 1983.
Serena Lee, “Fashion & Windrush: Voyage, Hope, and Popping Style”, National Windrush Day, 22 June 2020. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Says many women and men straightened hair with pomade and "a heated metal comb", that hair stayed straight until it met water, and that headscarves protected it from rain; refers to the National Caribbean Heritage Museum's 2016 "Stories in a Suitcase" mock-up luggage, which included a hot comb, curlers and tongs.
Peter Higginbotham, “Poor Law Unions in Scotland”, The Workhouse (workhouses.org.uk). Accessed 26 September 2026.
Historian's account of Scottish poorhouses after the 1845 Act, stating that "children under fifteen had their hair regularly cut to keep the length at two inches for boys and three inches for girls"; the underlying rule is not cited on the page.
Peter Higginbotham, “Entering and Leaving the Workhouse”, The Workhouse (workhouses.org.uk). Accessed 26 September 2026.
On admission to English workhouses, "children (although not adults) could be required to have their hair cut".
L’Oréal Groupe, “L’Oréal’s history: the adventure of beauty”, L’Oréal. Accessed 12 November 2026.
Company history. Says Schueller founded the Société Française des Teintures Inoffensives pour Cheveux in 1909; that his first dye was called “L’Auréale”, after the fashionable Auréole hairstyle; and that the company became L’Oréal in 1939. A company account, so useful for names and dates rather than for claims about its own importance.
Joanna Izowska, “Antoine de Paris, visionary hairdresser artist”, Europeana, 27 February 2026. Accessed 25 September 2026.
Europeana story. Born 24 December 1884 in Sieradz; to Paris 1901; three years making wigs in the basement of Decoux's salon; first salon 1912 at 5 rue Cambon; repeats the Lavallière bob story dated 1909; returned to Sieradz 1971; died 5 July 1976.
H. Lehmberg, “Karl Ludwig Nessler und die Erfindung der Dauerwelle”, 2nd edn, 1986. details to checkListed in the NDB bibliography for Nessler; not seen.
Kwame Brathwaite (photographs and foreword); essay by Tanisha C. Ford; afterword by Deborah Willis, “Kwame Brathwaite: Black Is Beautiful”, Aperture, 2019. Accessed 25 September 2026. details to checkFirst monograph of Brathwaite's work; not opened by us.
Grace’s Guide, “British Xylonite Co”, Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History. Accessed 26 September 2026. details to checkIncorporated 13 June 1877 at Homerton; bought the Hale End (Walthamstow) site in 1896; "Halex" was its Hale End brand.
Entries marked “details to check” have been identified from publisher, library or catalogue records but not yet checked against the item itself.
