12. In ancient times, great attention was paid to dressing the hair. The Hebrew women plaited, and afterwards confined it with gold and silver pins; they also adorned it with precious stones. The Greeks, both male and female, at every period of their ancient history, wore long hair, which they usually permitted to hang gracefully upon the shoulders, back, and sometimes upon the breast.
13. Adult males, among the Romans, usually wore their hair short, and dressed with great care, especially in later ages, when attention to this part of the person was carried to such excess, that ointments and perfumes were used even in the army. The hair was cut for the first time, when the boy had attained his seventh year, and the second time, when he was fourteen years old. His locks, at each cutting, were commonly dedicated to Apollo or Bacchus.
14. Both men and women, among the Greeks and Romans, sometimes permitted their hair to grow in honor of some divinity. The Jews, also, when under the vow of a Nazarite, were not permitted to trim their hair or beards. In grief and mourning, the Romans suffered their hair and beards to grow. The Greeks, on the contrary, when in grief, cut their hair and shaved their beards, as likewise did some of the barbarous nations of early time.
15. Artificial hair began to be fashionable, at an early period, and was used by the Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans. In the time of Ovid, blond hair was in great favour at Rome; and those ladies who did not choose to wear wigs, powdered their hair with a kind of gold dust. They wore hanging curls all round the head, to which they were fastened with circular pins of silver. Every wealthy Roman lady of fashion kept at least one slave to frizzle and curl the hair.
16. The time, when wigs first came into use, cannot now be ascertained. It is certain, however, that they were worn by females a long time before they became fashionable among the men.
17. Wigs, perukes, or periwigs, were revived in the seventeenth century. In the reign of Louis XIII., or about the year 1629, they became fashionable at Paris; and, as that city was generally imitated by the rest of Europe in things of this nature, they soon became common. The wigs were very large, as may be seen by examining ancient portraits, and were covered with a profusion of hair-powder. At first, it was disreputable for young people to wear them, as the loss of the hair at an early age was attributed to a disease, which was, of itself, discreditable.
18. When wigs were first introduced into England, some of the clergy opposed them violently, considering their use more culpable than wearing long hair; since, as they alleged, it was more unnatural. Many preachers inveighed against wigs in their sermons, and cut their own hair shorter to manifest their abhorrence of the reigning mode.
19. The worldly-wise, however, observed that a periwig procured for the wearer a degree of respect and deference which otherwise might not have been accorded; and hence there was a strong tendency to the use of this appendage. The judges and physicians, especially, understood well this influence of the wig, and gave to it all the advantages of length and breadth. The fashion, at length, was adopted by the ecclesiastics themselves, not only in England, but in most of the European kingdoms, as well as in the British colonies of America.
20. The fashion, however, except in cases of baldness, wherein alone it is excusable, is now nearly banished from Europe and America. This desirable change was effected principally by the example of republican America, and by the influence of the French Revolution. The law passed in England in 1795, imposing a tax of a guinea a head per annum on those who wore hair-powder, contributed to the same result, as well as to diminish the use of that article.
21. The manufacture of wigs and false curls is an important branch of the business of the barber. The first process in forming a wig is to produce, in the hair about to be used for this purpose, a disposition to curl. This is done by winding it on a cylinder of wood or earth, and afterwards boiling it in water. It is then dried, and baked in an oven. Thus prepared, it is woven on a strong thread, and is subsequently sewn on a caul fitted to the head. False curls are made on the same principle.