Beauty Rituals

I saw a post on Facebook earlier in the week that reminded me of hairstyles when I was a kid. I have always had short hair. For whatever reason I have never been able to grow my hair to any length. I am blessed with really thick hair which just gets thicker not longer.

Anyway as a a kid Mum would often have a go at cutting our hair particularly our fringes. Now when this happened they were always on a slant and when dad got home he would straighten them up and the fringe would be extremely short and still crooked. These hair cutting events would invariably happen around school photo time and in order to hide the crooked fringe Mum would pin it all back of the forehead and plonk a bow on top. In those days I really wanted to have long hair but sadly that was not to be. Having been reminded about this it got me thinking about other things our mothers did to our hair and the things we did to ourselves in the name of beauty.

There were the curling tongs. These were a similar in shape to the modern day curling tongs but of course were not connected to electricity. Mum would heat them on the flame of the gas stove then when they heated she would apply them to our hair to produce curls. Now having been afflicted with “hair as straight as sticks” it never really worked to give a curl just a frizzy bit on the end. If you happened to move your head during this process then you would have a burn on the place the tongs would contact. And the smell of burning hair would pervade the house for many hours.

Then there was rag curls. This also met with limited success with my straight hair. Mum would spend hours wrapping our hair around pieces of rag before we would go to be and in the morning we were meant to be transformed into a Shirley Temple look alike. My younger sister had long hair (which I always envied) and her hair would have some semblance of curl. Mine on the other hand would just be sticking out at odd angles all over my head.

Kiss curls were fad of my teenage years. I would spend a great deal of time in front of the mirror pinning my hair in bobby pins to achieve a perfect look of kiss curls framing my face. By the time I perfected this technique. kiss curls had gone out of fashion and sweeping bangs were the order of the day. This is something that I could achieve with relative ease, having thick hair and the right cut…Cilla Black was popular at the time and we all aspire to look like her with sweeping side bangs and a full fringe. Hair rollers were sometimes needed to achieve this look for special occasions when you wanted a more dramatic effect. So you would wind your hair around these massive rollers and stick pins in them and off you would go to bed for a very restless night of trying to get comfortable despite the hardware prodding your scalp. When the rollers came out you would spray your hair with lacquer….a substance that made your hair feel like toffee and could withstand a tropical cyclone. The lacquer came in a clear glass bottle with a pump atomiser attached. Mothers were great users of rollers for themselves. Many a mother would be seen at the shops on a Saturday morning or at confession on a Saturday afternoon with the hair in rollers covered by a colourful scarf in preparation for a night out or Mass on Sunday morning. The scarves were gaily coloured, often souvenir scarves with greetings from Port Macquarie or Tasmania emblazoned on them.

Home perms were popular as well in my teenage years. Again the job of rolling the hair fell to Mum….end papers would be applied, foul smelling lotion would be applied and then you would wait for some time for it to take effect and the result would be curly until you had to wash it then it transformed into a mass of frizz.

I had a friend in my teenage years who had long blonde hair. She was so lucky as she was able to use a mauve rinse called Magic Silver White to give her locks a mauve tint. Before we would go out on Saturday nights she would iron her hair so it would be straight. Hair Straighteners had not even been thought of back then.

Another friend tells the story of her mother using a solution of sugar and water when she was a little girl to keep her hair in place. This story always gives me a vision of flies and ants following her around as she went about her childhood activities.

It is great times have changed in relation to these beauty routines but we have lost something in that we sometimes miss out on one-on-one mother/daughter bonding that was a part of these rituals.

 

                                     Earliest Memories

 Even though I longed to have a grandmother both my earliest memories involve my grandparents.

My grandfather (Dad’s father) lived in a flat on Beldford Street Broadmeadow. I remember, as a very young child, going to visit Pop there.  As a little kid and as an adult I thought Pop was just a fabulous man.  Maybe the activity on this day had something to do with it.

On this particular day when we got  Pop’s place he was having a cup of tea (made from a tea pot and almost the colour of tar.)  He decided I needed a treat.  I cannot say how old I was but I think maybe around three or four. I was small enough for Pop to pick me up and sit me on the sink in the kitchen.  I can remember it was a cream enamel sink not the stainless steel type in homes of today.  He then fed me on the most delicious fresh bread, cut really thickly and lathered with butter and golden syrup.  

When we got home of course it was dinner time and I did not want any of my evening meal as I had eaten too much with Pop.  Mum says Dad was in big trouble for allowing this to happen and for me missing out on my vegetables.

My other memory is more of a feeling than a recollection and it was only about 10 years ago that I learned the truth of what had happened

The feeling was on of fear.  I thought I was with my grandmother and the incident involved a tram.  I was telling Mum about this memory of being fearful and the tram about 10 years ago and she told me about this incident thus solving the riddle of my memory.

Mum told me that it was actually my great grandmother Sophie I was with and we were hit by a bus.  I was about two and a half at the time.

Grandma was visiting her daughter Alma (my grandmother) in Baird Street.  At the time Alma had advanced breast cancer and was extremely ill.  Sophie  asked Mum if she could take me to the corner shop with her.  Mum said  a definite no as she thought Sophie was too frail for such a responsibility.   From what I have learned about my great grandmother Sophie over the years was that she was never one to  be told no.  So Grandma took me  to the shop anyway.  We had to cross busy Donald Street (long before the days of the overhead bridge but still a busy thoroughfare) As we were crossing the road we were hit by a bus. Mrs Parkin a neighbour who lived near the crossing came and told Mum what had happened.

Luckily we were not badly hurt. I think I escaped pretty much unscathed  but grandma had some scrapes and bruises.  Grandma's actions saved me from trauma as when we fell grandma held me in her arms and protected me with her body as the bus went over the top of us. Mum says that this perhaps saved my life. Mum none the less was very angry about what had happened.  She said her displeasure with Grandma was like water of a duck’s back and her response was “well she wasn’t hurt I don't know why you are in such a state.”