Photo Hunters: Bad Hair

Today’s Photo Hunt is “Bad Hair.” This was a difficult one for me. We usually don’t take photos of ourselves (well, I don’t); we usually snap photos of the places we travel. Hmmm.

I remembered some old tintypes I have that I inherited from my uncle. Now, back then, those people had BAD HAIR! Even when it was all “done up,” it still looked bad (I think). While practical, the hair styles were atrocious! Here’s an old tintype of my great-great grandmother, Delilah. I think she has a bad case of bad hair. “Bangs” had just become popular, and ladies curled their bangs with a heated, metal rod.

This photo was taken in the 1890s, I think. Delilah was a widow with five small children. You can just see the hard work etched in her face. It’s as if she got all dressed up for a quick portrait, while the photographer was in town, but she has work to do and needs to get back to it in a hurry. She is horribly skinny, too, which was unattractive in a lady back then. Her eyes are so blue they are almost white, a trait that is not evident on my side of the family (we are dark-eyed and dark-skinned like my Spanish-looking great-great grandfather).

In Hollywood movies about the “olden” days, we often see the women scampering around with long, flowing hair. Of course, the women of the day never did this. And they never scampered around in their corsets, either! It was a serious social disgrace to wear one’s hair down or expose any bare part of your skin, unless a lady was alone or with her husband at home alone. I do wonder why Hollywood spends billions of dollars on costumes and props to try to be as historically accurate as possible, then they turn around and have the characters in the movie behave like they are on Times Square. Sheesh!