Hair Cutting

[Material Culture]

Some folks in the period didn't like getting split ends so they burned the ends of the hair with a special candle.

What is a Hair Cutting Candle?

Sam Hayle

[ryanbmm]

Re: Hair Cutting

I just seen this, know it don't help much but people still get a hair cut with candles in India.
MUMBAI: Aqueel Kiratpuri, a master of hair styling, is the only barber in the country who does hair cutting with burning candles.

[Trish Hasenmueller]

Re: Hair Cutting

There's a barber in Memphis, TN who uses this technique:

http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/Content?oid=oid:27002

Trish Hasenmueller

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Hair Cutting

Sam, may I ask where you found the original reference that raised your question? Singed hair is a new one to me, and I'd be interested to read more primary sources on it.

[Material Culture]

Re: Hair Cutting

Brigham Young at Home by Clarissa Young Spencer

Sam Hayle
"Don"t want the ends of my hair to bleed Mess"

[Hank Trent]

Re: Hair Cutting

Here's the specific passage, from the online edition:

Brother Squires would return with me, bringing his bottles of bay rum and sweet-smelling hair oil, the curling irons, and the big calico cloth to cover over Father. We would all go to his private room for the "barbering," and after Brother Squires had singed the hair (Father never allowed it to be cut as he said it made the ends bleed) he would give me a nice little sprinkle of cologne or bay rum as he finished his work. After a time he left the shop near our home and moved over on Main Street, and when I went over there to have my own curls trimmed I would take in payment a small pail of buttermilk, of which he was very fond.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[xamier]

Re: Hair Cutting

Umm:
I don't know if it is the same thing, but an old technique to get rid of split ends is the candle cut. One's hair is parted into small bits, twisted tightly so the split ends stand out and then the ends are singed off with a candle. One's hair smells burnt for a couple of days, but all of the split ends are gone.

I was told that this is a very old cut from the time when ladies all wore very long hair. I don't know how old, but perhaps a place to start looking?

[Stephen Shepherd]

Re: Hair Cutting

Hair Singeing

The practice of singeing instead of cutting hair dates back centuries, in some cases when the culture didn’t have the tools to cut hair and in others the thought that cutting the hairs allowed the bodily essences to escape. Whereas singeing the hair would cauterize the ends of the hair and prevent the losses of vital vapors.

Singeing was thought to prevent split ends as well as promote hair growth.

Early descriptions call for a taper (small diameter candle) being employed and small tufts of hair are gathered up with the comb and the lighted taper waved near, igniting them and they extinguish as they reach the comb. Horn, bone or tortoise shell combs I presume.

The practice is largely dismissed in the late nineteenth century in publications on medicine and hygiene but remain popular in trade periodicals about livestock, especially horses.

I have heard of a tin shield or sconce that was used in connection with hair singeing but I have no documentation.

Stephen

[Uncle Pig]

Re: Hair Cutting

This year my family is hosting an exchange student from Japan.

When he got here he was shaving (his face and other areas with a candle) my wife did not like the idea and made him stop. According to him that is how everyone in Japan does it.

So it is still used in some parts of the world today.