How Did Women Curl Their Hair in the 19th Century? The Smoky, Sizzling Truth

Have you ever been having a bad hair day and found yourself saying, “I’ll just throw it up into a bun”? Well, you didn’t have that luxury when you were a woman in the 19th century. Victorian is renowned for a tidy symmetrical straight half-updo with twisted knots and waves- an iconic look of womanhood, grace and class. But there was no electricity or plug-in curling irons or hairspray — what kind of black magic were they using to achieve such iconic hair? Those methods were original, brutal and sometimes flat-out dangerous. So let’s fire up our time machines and go back in time to explore the fascinating, if a bit smoky, history of how women curled their hair during the 1800s.

The Why: Social Value Drives Beauty The beauty race is, unfortunately, a cycle.

But before we get into the “how,” let’s start with the “why.” In the 1800s, a woman’s hair and dress were indelible signifiers of her virtue, as well as her place in society. But slicked, styled hair was a sign not only of cleanliness (or wealth, by means of having someone else tend to your hair), but also of an individual’s willingness to conform to often rigid social mores. Curls were also in vogue, ranging from Romantic era delicate ringlets to the larger-than-life frizzzed bangs known as “Apollo knots” of later times. \(Mme. \) Recamier was clear about how a lady should interpret this: ‘when a lady has curls adroitness with hot irons should be acquired. This social pressure reaches the point where, just to get the perfect bounce, women are willing to undergo some pretty extreme procedures.

The Homemaker’s Hero: Papering and Rag Curls

For the vast majority of women — and perhaps especially for those not born to wealth — this was the mechanism one could depend upon. It was free, available and required no supplies at all other than some old pieces of fabric scraps or paper.

It was a nightly routine the routine of it. A lady could’ve made a wisp of her strands moist (with the remnants of footbath soaps or odorless salves,) twisted it in cloth or paper and twirled them around a rod to keep it that way for you. She’d grab the rag and rock it, knotting up the end; sometimes securing both ends. Literally hundreds of these rag curls would be painstakingly rolled and pinned to cover your entire head before going to bed at night. And then she would sleep on this lumpy, uncomfortable pillow of fabric knots, damp with moisture and tight from tension to achieve that perfect curl by morning. The result? Soft, springy waves. It did work, but not very successfully.

The Dangerous: The Tongs/Curling Iron

For a more reliable and vivid curl, women turned to the tongs iron. This, of course, is the type of tool most of us imagine: a long metal rod with a hinged clamp on one end (and often made from steel or iron).

It’s just this one small complication: Such a tool sets the map on fire. A woman (or one of her servants) would place the iron in a flame, whether from a fireplace, candle or oil lamp, until it became red hot. Can you imagine? The reading was a bit of a guessing game; you would often spit on it, or flick it against your hand. Using it required a steady hand — and a high tolerance for pain. It was all too easy, if quick (from here), to singe hair and create either a bad, burnt-keratin smell or something more harmful: actual burns on the scalp, neck and ears. Talk about suffering for beauty! These irons were also famous for being incredibly brutal, creating kinked and crimped lines instead of smooth curls in some instances.

The Revolution: The Marcel Iron

As the century came to a close there was revolution in the air. The French hairdresser Marcel Grateau (bless him! changed everything. He mastered a different kind of curling iron, which features a rounded, clampless barrel with a heated groove.

He heated this clever device over a spirit lamp and got himself a nice, smooth wave — the Marcel wave, as it was soon known — and they sold like hotcakes. This was not just for curls it was sleek, S-shaped waves that were polished and modern. The Marcel iron was the OG game-changing invention in hair-styling technology, everything else – all of our modern heated tools that we’ve come to know and love – stems from its roots. It was still sketchy but a huge leap forward in control and style.

The Less-Glamorous Reality: Soot, Stink and Singed Hair

We have too much of a tendency to romanticize the past, but daily life was messy. Imagine the residue! The irons, heated in a fire, would get covered in soot that then transferred to the hair — which of course made frequent washing even more necessary (or not) as another laborious chore.

Then there was the smell. Even when you got the perfect curl with a hot iron there was still that warm hair smell. Mistakes were the stinky, ineradicable whiff of singed hair that reeked for all eternity. And what about that most basic investment of time? Wealthy women had maids, of course, but the regular woman each week spent hours working on her hair — styles we could duplicate in mere minutes with our modern tools. It was a tale of patience and persistence.

Conclusion: A Testament to Ingenuity

The 19th-century road to curls was one of ingenuity, luck and persistence. From the flea-ridden rag curl to the revolutionary Marcel iron, women grabbed whatever object they could find to meet increasingly high standards of beauty demanded of them. Their tactics expose a story that goes far, far deeper than mere looks; it’s about societal pressure and technological progress and the never-ancient longing for us all to say something about ourselves with our garb. So the next time you effortlessly handle a perfect cascading curl with just a quick whirl of your wand, don’t forget to respect the innovation and singed fingertips of centuries past that brought it to fruition.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1.Were there curling irons in the 1800s?

Yes, but they were nothing like the ones today. They were essentially two or three mini-molten glue guns that connected at one end, and the huge disadvantage was of course being incredibly dangerous and unwieldy since they were raw metal rods (iron or steel) that could be heated in an open fire like a fireplace.

2.What did they use before a curling iron?

Before metal tongs were a thing, the most popular way to get curls was “papering” or “rag curls. Women would wind damp hair around strips of cloth, or even paper, and sleep on it to set the waves, Leigh added.

3.How did Victorians curl hair without heat?

Top no-heat method was rag curls. They also depended on other setting methods that involved using “pomades” or, as they were known in French and English, “pomatums” (tacky waxes or fats) to hold shapes and waves once they had been styled.

4.What was the Marcel wave?

The style which is most associated with him, and which he made popular in the post-World War I era, was a "deep" wave incorporated into the hair, allowed by the new irons he developed. If anything it was a pretty massive fashion trend in the late 1800s through the early 1910s, and thought of as very modern and chic.

5.Didn’t those curling irons scorch their hair?

Constantly! Questions of singeing hair were a known, accepted risk. There was always the smell of burning hair in the embarrassement.

6.Am I the only one who is wondering how all of their curls stayed up?

They employed pomades of bear grease, lard or beeswax and later homemade sugar waters or gum arabic solutions, the forerunner of hairspray. These can be cumbersome and also attract dirt.

7.How long did the curls last?

It depended on the method. If really tight and the hair was clean, rag curls might last a day or two. Curls, which a tonging iron could easily whip in, would stay for the workday, but then often dropped out or went frizzy without today’s holding aids.

8.Did Poor Women Wear Curls?

Sure, they could have; but they were more likely to utilize the rag approach, as it didn't require complicated apparatus or great wealth. Most middle and upper class women who had the time, money, or help to deal with that complicated process would adopt heat-styled curls.

9.When was the electric curling iron invented?

Although Grateau was the first to conceive and design a modernized style of curling iron, it was not until 1959 that an electrically heated Hair Curler (essentially a pair of hinged-tongs) was invented in France by Rene Lelievre and Roger Lemoine. The 19th century was the era of flame-powered warmth.

10.Were there any other methods?

There are some references to berries or acidic fruit juices used to help “set” a style, in historical records but the most popular methods involved rags and heated metal irons. The basic principles were moisture, tension and heat.