Learn to LOVE and to pray...

"Picture her to yourself, and 

ere you be old, learn to LOVE and to PRAY!"

~William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

an excellent cautionary tale that beauty is fleeting ~ published 1755

Dorinda at her Glass

by Mrs. Leapor

DORINDA, once the fairest of the train, 
 Toast of the town, and triumph of the plain; 
Whose shining eyes a thousand hearts alarm'd, 
Whose wit inspired, and whose follies charm'd: 
Who, with invention, rack'd her careful breast 
To find new graces to insult the rest, 
Now sees her temples take a swarthy hue, And the dark veins resign their beauteous blue; 

While on her cheeks the fading roses die, 

And the last sparkles tremble in her eye. 

Bright Sol had drove the fable clouds away, 

And chear'd the heavens with a stream of day, 

The woodland choir their little throats prepare,

To chant new carols to the morning air:

In silence wrapp'd, and curtain'd from the day,

On her fad pillow lost Dorinda lay;

To mirth a stranger, and the like to ease,

No pleasures charm her, nor no slumbers 

please.

For if to close her weary lids she tries,

Detested wrinkles swim before her eyes;At length the mourner rais'd her aking head,

And discontented left her hated bed.

But sighing shun'd the relicks of her pride,

And left the toilet for the chimney side:

Her careless locks upon her shoulders lay

Uncurl'd, alas! because they half were gray;

No magick baths employ her skilful hand,

But useless phials on her table stand:

She flights her form, no more by youth inspir'd,

And loaths that idol which she once admir'd.

At length all trembling, of herself afraid,

To her lov'd glass repair'd the weeping maid,

And with a sigh address'd the alter'd shade.

Say, what art thou, that wear'st a gloomy form,

 With low'ring forehead, like a northern storm;

 Cheeks pale and hollow, as the face of woe, 

And lips that with no gay vermilion glow?

 Where is that form which this false mirror told

 Bloom'd like the morn, and shou'd for ages hold; 

But now a spectre in its room appears,

 All scar'd with furrows, and defac'd with tears;

 Say, com'st thou from the regions of despair,

 T0 shake my senses with a meagre stare 

 Some straggling horror may thy phantom be, 

But surely not the mimick shape of me. 

Ah! yes~~~ the shade its mourning visage rears,

Pants when I sigh, and answers to my tears: 

Now who shall bow before this wither'd shrine, 

This mortal image that was late divine? 

What victim now will praise these faded eyes, 

          Once the gay basis for a thousand lyes? 

Deceitful beauty~~~ false as thou art gay,

And is it thus thy vot'ries find their pay; This the reward of many careful years, 

Of morning labours, and of noon-day sears, 

The gloves anointed, and the bathing hour, 

And soft cosmetick's more prevailing pow'r? 

Yet to thy worship still the fair-ones run, 

And hail thy temples with the rising sun; 

Still the brown damsels to thy altars pay 

Sweet-scented unguents, and the dews of May; 

Sempronia smooths her wrinkled brows with care, 

And Isabella curls her gristed hair: 

See poor Augusta of her glass afraid, 

Who even trembles at the name of maid, 

Spreads the fine Mechlin on her shaking head, 

While her thin cheeks disown the mimick red. 

Soft Sylvia, who no lover's breast alarms, 

Yet simpers out the ev'ning of her charms, 

And though her cheek can boast no rosy dye, 

Her gay brocades allure the gazing eye. 

But hear, my sisters, hear an ancient maid,

Too long by folly, and her arts betray'd;

 From these light trifles turn your partial eyes, 

 'Tis fad Dorinda prays you to be wise; 

And thou, Celinda,'thou must shortly feel 

The sad effect of time's revolving wheel; 

Thy spring is past, thy summer fun declin'd, 

See autumn next, and winter stalks behind: 

But let not reason with thy beauties fly, 

Nor place thy merit in a brilliant eye; 

'Tis thine to charm us by sublimer ways, 

And make thy temper, like thy seatures, please: 

And thou, Sempronia, trudge to morning pray'r, 

Nor trim thy eye-brows with so nice a care; 

Dear nymph, believe 'tis true, as you're alive,

 Those temples stew the marks of fifty-five. 

 Let Isabel unload her aking head 

Of twisted papers, and of binding lead; 

Let sage Augusta now, without a frown, 

 Strip those gay ribbands from her aged crown; 

Changed the lac'd flipper of delicious hue 

For a warm stocking, and an easy shoe; 

Guard her swell'd ancles from rheumatick pain, 

And from her cheek expunge the guilty stain. 

  Wou'd smiling Sylvia lay that hoop aside, 

'Twou'd shew her prudence, not betray her pride: 

She, like the rest, had once her flagrant day, 

But now she twinkles in a fainter ray. Those youthful airs set off their mistress now, 

Just as the patch adorns her autumn brow: 

In vain her feet in sparkling laces glow, 

Since none regard her forehead, nor her toe. 

Who would not burst with laughter, or with spleen, At Pruda, once a beauty, as I ween? 

But now her features wear a dusky hue, 

The little loves have bid her eyes adieu: 

Yet she pursues the pleasures of her prime, 

And vain desires, still unsubdu'd by time; 

Thrusts in among the frolick and the gay, 

But shuts her daughter from the beams of day:  

The child, she says, is indolent and grave, 

And tells the world Ophelia can't behave: 

But while Ophelia is forbid the room, 

Her mother hobbles in a rigadoon; 

Or to the found of melting musick dies, 

And in their sockets rolls her blinking eyes; 

Or stuns the audience with her hideous squall, 

While scorn and satire whisper through the hall. 

image source~ wiki commons

  Hear this, ye fair ones, that survive your charms, 

Nor reach at folly with your aged arms; 

Thus Pope has sung, thus let Dorinda sing; 

"Virtue, brave boys, 'tis virtue makes a king."

Why not a queen ? fair virtue is the fame 

In the rough hero, and the smiling dame: 

Dorinda's soul her beauties shall pursue, 

Though late I see her, and embrace her too: 

Come, ye blest graces, that are sure to please, 

The smile of friendship, and the careless ease; 

The breast of candour, the relenting ear, 

The hand of bounty, and the heart sincere: 

May these the twilight of my days attend, 

And may that ev'ning never want a friend, 

 To smooth my passage to the silent gloom, 

And give a tear to grace the mournful tomb. 

Geisha!

geisha costume

Of course every nation has its own standard of feminine loveliness and finds it difficult to understand and appreciate any ideal of personal beauty that does not conform to that particular standard.

The most peerless of our American beauties would probably fail to excite the admiration of an African savage, while the Hottentot belle would scarcely reign as such in a New York drawing-room.

The Japanese ideal is strikingly different from ours. To the native eye, women of the Western world are very far from handsome. That golden-haired blonde loveliness that to us is the highest type of female beauty is not pleasing to the Japanese.

They call those sunny locks red! Indeed, all hair save ebony black they so designate, and when we recall the fact that their artists always depict the devil with fair or red hair, we realize in what estimation they hold it!
The rosy complexion of our blonde to them is florid and unhealthy looking, and the small waist, large bust and hips are positive deformities.

The Japanese ideal of beauty was thus publicly described by a native gentleman at the Paris Exposition:

 "The head should be neither too large nor too small. The large black eyes should be surmounted by perfectly arched eyebrows and fringed with black lashes. The face should be oval, white, and but slightly rosetinted in each cheek, the nose straight and high. The mouth small, regular, and fresh, the thin lips parting to show the white teeth behind them. The forehead should be narrow and bordered with long black hair growing round the face in a perfect arch. This head should be joined by a round neck to a large but not fat body. The loins should be slender, and the hands and feet small but not thin, the swell of the breast modest and unexaggerated." Mere physical beauty has never been regarded by the Japanese as the sole criterion; fascinating manners, a ready but modest wit, and a gift for writing poetry and understanding poetical allusions weigh heavily in the balance, and some of their famous so-called "beauties" owe their reputations as such more to fascination of manner and a witty tongue than physical charms.

the GEISHA DANCE!

A "number one" geisha must be cultivated and well read besides being able to dance and sing.
 Gentlemen who are giving dinner-parties or entertaining guests engage two or three or more geisha to come and amuse the company. They sing, dance, and talk, play various little games with their hands and fingers, and tell stories—anything, in fact, which seems to interest and amuse their patrons.

From time to time, some geisha becomes famous all over Japan for her beauty and brilliancy, and she is as much talked about as a celebrated actress is with us. Young men rave about her and commit  all sorts of extravagances  for her sake.
                                                                                                                                                                              

Drunken Courtesan~ Utamaro

The morals of the geisha are of all shades, good, bad and indifferent, varying with the individual, but the geisha are quite distinct from the yugo. Though the geisha are not, correctly speaking, actresses, they hold a somewhat similar position in the Japanese social scale to that which actresses do with us; and there is as wide a bridge between the first-class geisha and the lowest as there is between the famous actress whose name is above reproach, and the " song and dance" artiste of the dives.

In the same way as some very conscientious but rather narrow-minded people regard every woman connected with a theatre as morally depraved, so some people in Japan consider every geisha a woman of bad character.

Of course this is very far from the truth in either case. There are women as good and as pure on the stage as off. It can scarcely be denied, however, that both the actresses of the European theatres and the geisha of Japan live in a more relaxed moral atmosphere than most other women, though how much they are affected by it depends upon themselves...


...Manner and bearing are more highly regarded by the Japanese than beauty, and the same Japanese gentleman who described the native ideal of female loveliness added as necessary accompaniments to physical beauty "a gentle manner, a voice like a nightingale which makes one divine its artlessness, a look at once lively, sweet, gracious, and always charming; witty words pronounced distinctly, accompanied by charming smiles; a look sometimes calm, sometimes gay or thoughtful, and always dignified. Manners noble, simple, and a little proud, but without incurring the suspicion of undue assumption."...

...In European dress the Japanese woman is, as a rule, far from pretty, though whether she looks as badly to us as our women in Japanese costume look to the Japanese is a mooted question.
The reason for this lies not only in the dissimilarity of figure, but also the distinctly opposite carriage of the body adopted by Eastern and Western women. The bearing considered the most correct and aristocratic for a Japanese lady is the head bent slightly fonvard, the shoulders rounded, and a slight stoop of the upper part of the body; a submissive deportment being regarded as an eminently proper one for the inferior sex. In the loose, draped kimono of the native dress, such a carriage does not seem awkward or ungraceful, but in Western attire the effect is singularly bad.

The national dress demands a very curious gait, a sort of short, shuffling trot. The narrow skirt open down the front would flap round the legs and make more exposure than would be either comfortable or decorous if our easy, free walk were adopted. In order to prevent the least tendency to striding, girls frequently have a cord tied from one knee to the other. The shuffling is due to the heavy geta or wooden sandal, which is fastened to the foot only by a strap passing over and between the great toe.

The geisha have a peculiar swaying walk and carry the hands before the body in a manner considered particularly elegant. The dress of the "beauty," the empress and the maidservant differs only in the daintiness, the richness, or cheapness of the material employed; the cut and style are the same, with the exception of the court robe, which is longer and drags on the ground.


On state occasions, the ladies attached to the court wear long trailing costumes of exquisite painted crepe, set out round the lower edge by a roll of silk batting.

Lady Iwai Shijaku,  by Utagawa Toyokuni, 1831

Some of these court robes are indescribably beautiful. I remember seeing one worn by a Japanese marchioness at a ball in Tokyo, which surpassed anything I had ever imagined. It was of pale blue-gray crepe, with a flower pattern in dark blue, light blue, white and palest rose-pink, embroidered in silver and white silk floss.

The Japanese are essentially a nation of bathers, and the native belle frequently takes two or even three scalding hot baths a day.

Strange as it may appear, this excessively hot bathing has a beneficial effect and is refreshing instead of weakening, as we might naturally suppose. The water used is so warm that the bather comes out the color of a boiled lobster; no soap is used, and the little towel, with its artistic blue or red border, is about as large as a fair-sized pocket-handkerchief.

the bath

After her bath the beauty rubs herself with a little coarse muslin bag filled with rice chaff, which is supposed to have a wonderfully good effect upon the skin and complexion. Probably its real benefit lies in the fact that the skin is thus more thoroughly dried than by the simple use of the towel.

This part of her toilet completed, a light cotton kimono is slipped on, and the geisha comes out of the bathroom fresh and smiling, to place herself in the hands of the shampooer, who is usually a blind man, shampooing or massage being almost as popular a resource as organ-playing is in America.

The Japanese amah rubs down only, never up, and he uses the flat part of the forearm as well as his hand. Sometimes he rubs with a " massage box." This is a wooden ball fitted into a round wooden box sufficiently tightly to prevent its falling out, but loosely enough to allow it to move freely.

After paying the amah the customary fee of three cents an hour, the beauty places herself under the hands of the professional hair-dresser, who comes twice or four times a week, according to the length of his customer's purse. One of the greatest beauties of the Japanese women is long, lustrous black hair, the slight coarseness of which is more than atoned for by its length and abundance.

Unfastening the heavy coil of hair from the top of her head, where the geisha had rolled it up while she took her bath, the hair-dresser carefully washes it in tepid water, anoints it liberally with fragrant camellia oil, and fans it until it is dry. He proceeds then to build it into that elaborate superstructure affected by Japanese women. In order to make it into that apparently solid ebony mass, he stiffens it with a sort of black wax, similar to the cosmetique used by our dandies and men of fashion upon their mustachios.

coiffure

The hair of the native beauty is never disordered, and no husband or lover would dream of stroking or caressing the wonderful coiffure of his lady-love. No rebellious little curls run riot in sweet confusion over her pretty head. The slightest tendency to curl or wave the Japanese girl regards with horror, and every hair is marshalled into place like a soldier.

Except costly and elaborate hair ornaments she wears little or no jewelry—no earrings, bracelets, rings, etc., but the inlaid tortoise-shell pins in her hair may cost a small fortune. After the hair-dresser has finished dressing his customer's abundant locks, he draws out of his case a pair of tiny tweezers and removes all the superfluous hair about the eyebrows, forehead, and neck.

Before the days of much foreign intercourse the ladies of the imperial family and court had the eyebrows entirely plucked out, and two black dots or lines high up on the forehead replaced them; but this custom is now obsolete.

If the geisha has no very clever maid, the hair-dresser will probably finish his work by painting Beauty's face for her. First with white ricepowder he marks out two V-shaped points, one running just below the nape of the neck at the back, and the other to a similar depth in front. He then powders her whole face and neck as far as the points indicated, rouges her cheeks slightly, reddens the lower lip in the centre, and carefully dots it with three gold spots. It is not at all uncommon to see the red paint on the lips put on so heavily that it shows the metallic green lustre.

Though all geisha and many aristocratic women of the old school still paint their faces upon special occasions, the custom is dying out among the latter. The use of cosmetics on the face is never looked at askance, or as a secret of the toilet as it is with us. A few years ago Japanese women not only painted the neck and face upon festive occasions, but the company were supposed to be quite well aware of the fact. Indeed a native lady would have felt mortified if she thought the other guests imagined she did not know enough to wear cosmetics upon ceremonial occasions. It was as much a feature  of full dress as de'collete' costume is in Europe and Great Britain.

      

Native ladies who have received a -Western education, either at home or abroad, do not openly assume paint or wear the three gold dots on the lower lip. But numbers of Japanese women beside the geisha retain the custom. The paint on the lower lip requires that it should be slightly protruded lest the moisture of the upper lip affect it, which tends to give a half-pouting but not ill-tempered expression to the face, though it can scarcely be said to improve the appearance.

The blackening of the teeth by married women has become almost obsolete. About twenty years ago the present empress endeavored to totally abolish this ugly practice, and discouraged it not only by precept but by example. The stain was made by soaking iron filings in sake' and was of so temporary a nature that it had to be renewed at least once a week, and if it was not constantly applied the teeth soon regained their natural hue. Here and there an old woman may be found who refuses to yield to the strange new-fangled ideas that are contaminating the young women of the day, and still blackens her teeth to-day just as she did when first married. Certainly no custom could be more disfiguring or produce a more ghastly effect, but it has so nearly died out that a foreigner might live for months in Japan without meeting a woman with blackened teeth. Yet Mr. Clement Scott is credited with denouncing the Japanese women for following this unsightly fashion, which is much as if a Japanese writer were to condemn American women for wearing nightcaps, because he chanced to know, here and there, some old lady too conservative to change from the fashions of her youth when every one wore nightcaps as a matter of course.

Until very recently the age and condition of a Japanese woman was signified by the manner in which she wore her hair. If it was rolled back from the face in one pompadour puff, the wearer was a married woman; if the puff was divided into three, forming one in the middle and one on each side, she was unmarried. Widows wore two different styles of coiffure, according to whether they wished to marry again or not. But these fashions are not so closely followed as they used to be, though they may still be seen occasionally.

In one particular the distinctive way of dressing the hair is very strictly preserved. No woman of good character ever wears the elaborate coiffure or the array of gaudy hair-pins that ayugo does. A halo of tortoise-shell ornaments, some of which may be a foot long, and a sash tied in front proclaim to the world at large the yugo's calling. Never under any circumstances does the geisha wear her sash thus; a fashion which is imposed by law upon the yugo.

After the geisha has been thoroughly rubbed by the amah and had her tresses arranged and her face painted by the professional hair-dresser, she retires to her own room to dress.

Slipping off her cotton kimono, she ties two little aprons round her waist, puts a sort of shirt over them, then an inner kimono is assumed. This is fastened round the waist by a narrow band called a shita-jim/, which is drawn as tightly as possible. The shita-Jime"'is placed not at the waist line, but round the hips and lower part of the waist. The beauty of a woman's figure, according to the Japanese standard, lies in a straight line drawn from under the arm to the feet. The long, severe lines of the kimono do not accord with curves, but demand that the lines of the figure beneath it be as little undulating as possible.
If the tare geisha's figure shows an unfortunate tendency to curve at the waist and enlarge at the hips, she procures the assistance of her maid to draw her shita-jimd as tightly as she can endure it.

Western dress reformers who advocate the Japanese costume as not only artistic but healthy, would do well to consider these two points: in the first place, though there is little or no compression at the waist, there is frequently very severe pressure round the hips; and secondly, the skirt of the kimono is so exceedingly narrow that free movement                                                                                                             of  the legs is almost impossible.

Geisha- Utamaro

Though from the standpoint of beauty I admire the Japanese dress, I very much doubt if from the side of ease and comfort it can be highly recommended.

Over the inner kimono and shita-jimd comes the outside kimono, which bears in five places the coat of arms of the establishment to which the geisha is attached. If the wearer is a lady, the wife of a gentleman or noble, she wears the crest of her husband's family stamped or worked in these five places, viz., between the shoulders in the back, each side of the breast in front, and on each sleeve near the wrist. If the weather is cold two or three kimonos are worn, one over another, while in warm weather only one is put on.

Last of all comes the obi, the pride and glory of the Japanese belle. This obi or broad sash may cost a small fortune or only a few dollars. It may be stiff with gold bullion, silver embroidery, or of silk woven with an exquisite pattern, designed by some great artist.

A silk cord fastens it at the back, and a cushion or pad is placed under the broad ends. This pad, I honestly acknowledge, spoils the effect of the whole costume, to my eye. The sash ends are frequently too short to be graceful, and the padding so large as to be out of all proportion to the figure.

The geisha's toilet is completed when she assumes her tabi or thick white socks with a compartment for the big toe, and padded soles. If, however, she is going out the maid brings her sandals of lacquered wood and fine plaited rice-straw, and slipping her big toe under the brilliant velvet strap, the beauty is attired for the street. She is ready then either to pay visits or to go shopping. No hat, bonnet, gloves, mantle, or cloak troubles her. If the weather is very cold a square of silk lined with crepe is tied over the head. Inside of it are two little ear-straps, which make it fit over the head smoothly, but to arrange it quickly and gracefully requires considerable knack. It is always worn square, never three-cornered.

Should the weather chance to be stormy, the geisha shelters her pretty head with a paper or silk umbrella, and replaces her sandals with a pair of high clogs....

from "The Nightless City",  By Joseph Ernest De Becker

from "The Nightless City",  By Joseph Ernest De Becker

from "The Nightless City",  By Joseph Ernest De Becker

article source: "The Professional Beauties of Japan", The Californian Illustrated Magazine~ 1893

POUF REDUX, or, instructions

plocacosmos

So you say you want a pouf?  Basic pouf instructions follow, compliments of Mr. James Stewart, the author of "Plocacosmos, or, the  whole art of hairdressing; wherein is contained ample rules for the young artizan, more particularly for ladies women, valets, as well as directions for persons to dress their own hair", published by the author, London, 1782. I have taken the text from a Gale Ecco print book. These books are scanned images of the actual pages, therefore there is some blurriness of text, some page curl, and some faded print. Some of the text is indecipherable... I've done the best that I can.


I've taken snippets from exhaustive instructions on creating the mode of the day... this is not the complete text, just a general overview.

racinette

These instructions are for a relatively restrained pouf. For a full-on Leonard pouf, just elevate the structure and add lots and lots of accessories, and you, too, can be Marie Antoinette for a day, or a month, or as long as your hair-edifice will last. ! Oh, there are instructions at the end of this post on protecting the pouf during sleep. Be sure to share them with your maid~

Gazette de Beaux Arts

ON THE DEMEANOR OF THE HAIRDRESSER: The first thing you should remember is, to form your intended operations into method, resolve yourself with the various parts, and how you must act to complete them to your wish, in short, form your plans into a perfect rhythm, always having in your eye, that the most trifling thing you do should be well done, and in perfection, or not at all. One thing is particularly necessary, that you should be under no embarrassment, but be possessed of a considerable share of easy, silent determination, you must imagine, to obtain this that the person on whom you operate is a mere statue, or at best, a piece of still life. For that reason, it is plain, that you should not give way to conversation, as that will draw your attention from your business...

plocacosmos

ON HAIR TEXTURE, QUANTITY...: If the quantity of hair should be very great, and grow very quick and close at the roots, and if it should be moist or sweaty, you must beat a quantity of powder into it before you you comb it, and then it is to be cut properly and freely. If, on the contrary, the hair should be thin, that is a small quantity, and grow straggling as if you could count each hair,... you must, in order to dress it properly... mellow it by soaking it well in the ... oil, or or at least some very nutritive, glutinous, penetrating substance, the night before....

Gazette de Beaux Arts

TO CURL THE HAIR:...The hair that is alloted for the curls must be ... done with the finger over or else over a well-turned pair of toupee-irons the same as over the tail-comb already mentioned in order to give them the proper buckle without cramping. To do it with the fingers, you must hold it at the points, and keep it constantly turning over with the points of your right finger and thumb, and keep them so close as to prevent the hairs from touching each other, though curled your left finger your left fingers guiding your right all the way down to the roots of the hair, when, as usual, you take the curl between your left finger and thumb and apply the paper...

plocacosmos

THE BEAUTY OF THE CURL: ...when all is done, they look like regular rows of trees, truly set, with their heads bending to the crown, as if blown thence by a gust of wind from the face, that in idea you could walk a file of men three deep, not only from the front to the crown, through one of these rows, without meeting the least obstruction, but traverse from one ear to the other, in the same regular line...


....If the hair is all curled properly it looks very pretty, being like to many rows of tubes, pipe above pipe, like the small flutes of an organ, only placed horizontally. The hair being now both in papers, and curled with the toupee irons, for the present we will leave them to make the chinong(chignon), or the hair behind...

"ENGLAND UNDER THE HOUSE OF HANOVER"

ON POMATUM AND POWDER: Before you proceed to this, you must have your soft pomatum and powder placed conveniently by your side, with a swan-down puff, and large silk puff, your soft pomatum should, at all events, be sweet, with a proper degree of consistency... and in order to render it nourishing, great great care should be taken that the fat it is composed of should be taken from a healthy young animal, this is easily known by the colour... Calves fat is most proper, and is generally used in pomatums and unguents, being resolutive and emollient. That of hogs and bears have the same qualities, and are strengthening besides... (here Mr. Stewart goes into a discourse on the value of various animal fats as pertains to health issues, including the gem that eel's fat makes the hair grow...!)

"Daring Do's", by Molly Frasko

magasin pitoresque 

ON WORKING VAST QUANTITIES OF POWDER AND POMATUM INTO THE HAIR: ...take now about the bigness of a walnut of soft pomatum, put it in the palm of your left hand, and, with the points of your left fingers, rub it into the head and roots of the hair, taking it from your left hand as you want it, it must be used freely... by rubbing it in gradually from the roots all the way up to the points. There must be a cloth pinned to the lady's shoulders at the two corners, and the other two round the back of the chair she fits in, this will form a bag into which you may put part of your powder, as you want. Now take the end of your comb, and shelve? it into the powder, bringing up as much as will lie on the comb, this you lay on the strip of hair just pomatumed, with your left hand under it, and shove part up to the roots, and part fall lower, in order to mix properly with the pomatum, this you must repeat until it is entirely free from the greasy look from root to point, and let the wide end of a comb pass gently through it, and that the loose powder may fall from it, and no more. ... proceed to the next parting...

plocacosmos

ON FRIZZING: ...while you hold it between your first two fingers(not holding the hair perpendicularly up, but slanting toward your left shoulder) you are to take with you, the most essential part of hairdressing depends on your frizzing well. As the hair is now held in your left hand, grasp your dressin-comb in your right, about the middle of the comb, leaving the small teeth to perform their office, you must hold the comb with a considerable degree of strength... Your comb thus placed, your two hands has the same combat on the other side, the left pulling from, while the right beats down the hair, from the roots to the very points, this, by being wove on both sides, makes it much softer, but great pains must be taken, that it is not reduced in it's length, but appear as long as it really is...

plocacosmos

THE ART OF THE FRIZ:...There is double reason for this firmness, as without it the hair would not have a proper consistency to stand erect and keep together, and at the same time have the full length that it originally had. If it is well done, it appears like a frape?? of hair-cloth well-wove, transparent, yet strong, and stand as high as the length of the hair...


THE FRIZ BEAT:......You must begin and beat or frizz down the hair towards the face, in a regular friz, your left hand giving way imperceptibly, as your right hand gains upon the hair, remembering, that you hold it straight, and friz it even; that it is not writhed and thwarted, nor warped to one side or the other, and that the hair falls regularly in a friz, and not in the least bunch or cluster; if it does, you must loose your hold, smooth the hair, with the the comb under your hand, all the way up, and begin afresh...

Les Annales conferencia

FRIZ BEAUTY:...If well done, it looks now like the hedge before-mentioned, but considerably polished, at the same time examining, and if you find two hairs together, or writhed from their regular course, or the least hollow cavity or dent. you must look on any or all of those as blemishes; at the same time so light and transparent that it may be seen through like a piece of hair-cloth or feathery gauze. Again take some soft pomatum, but in small quantity, and gently touch the front all over with it, take your machine and blow a considerable quantity of powder in the hair from the front and behind, in order to give it a light, clear, clean look...

Les Annales conferencia

THE HAIR CUSHION(aka the POUF structure):...The hair now being ready for the cushion thus far... What follows depending altogether on the whim or fancy of the day... the cushion used cannot be too small, it's shape nearly that of a heart... it should be made clean, or delicately neat, or else, being placed on the warmest part of the head, it may breed and become troublesome. Be careful to place your cushion entirely in the center, if not, the hair will look very bad...


PINNING THE HAIR: ...The cushion being fixed, begin in the front, and with a thin, slender, well-made hair pin, hang the hair to the cushion, this is done by pushing the pin in the friz, and catching the back friz by lifting it, as it were, then pushing the pin in the cushion, if the head of the pin has caused any chasm, or break, you are to pick it out with the next pin you use, go on doing this down the side of the toupee, which may take seven pins for the front, one the middle, and three for each side....

CURLS AROUND THE FACE: On curls around the face: ...If well done, they look like a small plot of ground, thickly planted with small tulips or daisies, bending their heads to the ground, but more commonly compared to a bull's forehead, hence it may well be called "en tauro".


ON, CAPS, RIBBONS, GAUZE, ORNAMENTS:  ...when it is the fashion for lappets, and other trumpery vagaries behind, they should be the smallest and simplest of the kind, every cap loaded too much, particularly behind, looks trolloping. For full dress, young ladies will look best without any cap at all, a cluster of curls should adorn the top of the head... These curls are generally false, and used ready powdered and pomatumed and frizzed, they are placed or stuck on with a black pin, like a bunch of flowers. The ornaments should be most simple, and wore from the right point of the toupee(cushion), sloping or winding down gradually to the center of the left side, in the middle of the front hair. Whatever is placed on the head should be placed in this shape, and for very young ladies, only a few flowers and pearls, with a few good feathers, if in fashion...

...The toke, or dress-cap, when wore, should be exceedingly small and and narrow... that it may with ease drop into the space made for it's reception,  in the ornaments it should be made rich, genteel and fanciful but by no means crowded, as no genteel lady will ever be seen with a bungling, crowded head.

English Illustrated Magazine, 1901

 English Illustrated Magazine, 1901

ON PROTECTING THE HAIR-
EDIFICE WHILE ATTEMPTING SLEEP: ...The lady now being entirely complete, we must wait her time of coming home at night, in order to give her a few directions about her night-cap. All that is required at night is to take the cap or toke off, or any other ornament... with regard to the hair, nothing need be touched but the curls, you may take the pins out of them and with a little soft pomatum... do them with long nice rollers, wind them up to the root, and turn the end of each roller firmly in to keep them tight, remembering at the same time that the hair should never be combed at night, having almost always so bad an effect as to give a violent head-ache the next day. After the curls are rolled up, touch them with your pomatumy hands, and stroke the hair behind, after that, take a very large net-fillet, which must be big enough to cover the head and the hair, and put it on, and drawing the strings to a proper tightness behind, till it closes all around the face a neck like a purse, bring the strings round the front and back again to the neck, where they must be tied, this, with the finest lawn handkerchief, is night covering sufficient for the head.

modes de femmes, image source, " XVIIIme Siècle, institutions, usages et costumes: France 1700-1789" By Paul Lacroix