In the olden days hair-powder was largely used in this country, and many circumstances connected with its history are curious and interesting. We learn from Josephus that the Jews used hair-powder, and from the East it was no doubt imported into Rome. The history of the luxurious days of the later Roman Empire supplies some strange stories. At this period gold-dust was employed by several of the emperors. “The hair of Commodus,” it is stated on the authority of Herodian, “glittered from its natural whiteness, and from the quantity of essences and gold-dust with which it was loaded, so that when the sun was shining it might have been thought that his head was on fire.”

It is supposed, and not without a good show of reason, that the Saxons used coloured hair-powder, or perhaps they dyed their hair. In Saxon pictures the beard and hair are often painted blue. Strutt supplies interesting notes on the subject. “In some instances,” he says, “which, indeed, are not so common, the hair is represented of a bright red colour, and in others it is of a green and orange hue. I have no doubt existing in my own mind, that arts of some kind were practised at this period to colour the hair; but whether it was done by tingeing or dyeing it with liquids prepared for that purpose according to the ancient Eastern custom, or by powders of different hues cast into it, agreeably to the modern practice, I shall not presume to determine.”

It was customary among the Gauls to wash the hair with a lixivium made of chalk in order to increase its redness. The same custom was maintained in England for a long period, and was not given up until after the reign of Elizabeth. The sandy-coloured hair of the queen greatly increased the popularity of the practice.

The satirists have many allusions to this subject, more especially those of the reigns of James and Charles I. In a series of epigrams entitled “Wit’s Recreations,” 1640, the following appears under the heading of “Our Monsieur Powder-wig”:—

“Oh, doe but marke yon crisped sir, you meet!
How like a pageant he doth walk the street!
See how his perfumed head is powdered ore;
’Twou’d stink else, for it wanted salt before.”In “Musarum DeliciÆ,” 1655, we read:—

“At the devill’s shopps you buy
A dresse of powdered hayre,
On which your feathers flaunt and fly;
But i’de wish you have a care,
Lest Lucifer’s selfe, who is not prouder,
Do one day dresse up your haire with a powder.”

From the pen of R. Younge, in 1656, appeared, “The Impartial Monitor.” The author closes with a tirade against female follies in these words:—“It were a good deed to tell men also of mealing their heads and shoulders, of wearing fardingales about their legs, etc.; for these likewise deserve the rod, since all that are discreet do but hate and scorn them for it.” A “Loyal Litany” against the Oliverians runs thus:—

“From a king-killing saint,
Patch, powder, and paint,
Libera nos, Domine.”

Massinger, in the “City Madam,” printed in 1679, describing the dress of a rich merchant’s wife, mentions powder thus:—

“Since your husband was knighted, as I said,
The reverend hood cast off, your borrowed hair
Powdered and curled, was by your dresser’s art,
Formed like a coronet, hanged with diamonds
And richest orient pearls.”John Gay, in his poem, “Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London,” published in 1716, advises in passing a coxcomb,—

“Him like the Miller, pass with caution by,
Lest from his shoulder clouds of powder fly.”

We learn from the “Annals of the Barber-Surgeons” some particulars respecting the taxing of powder. On 8th August, 1751, “Mr. John Brooks,” it is stated, “attended and produced a deed to which he requested the subscription of the Court; this deed recited that by an Act of Parliament passed in the tenth year of Queen Anne, it was enacted that a duty of twopence per pound should be laid upon all starch imported, and of a penny per pound upon all starch made in Great Britain, that no perfumer, barber, or seller of hair-powder should mix any powder of alabaster, plaster of Paris, whiting, lime, etc. (sweet scents excepted), with any starch to be made use of for making hair-powder, under a pain of forfeiting the hair-powder and £50, and that any person who should expose the same for sale should forfeit it and £20.” Other details were given in the deed, and the Barber-Surgeons gave it their support, and promised twenty guineas towards the cost of passing the Bill through Parliament.

A few years prior to the above proceeding we gather from the Gentleman’s Magazine particulars of some convictions for using powder not made in accordance with the laws of the land. “On the 20th October, 1745,” it is recorded, “fifty-one barbers were convicted before the commissioners of excise, and fined in the penalty of £20, for having in their custody hair-powder not made of starch, contrary to Act of Parliament: and on the 27th of the same month, forty-nine other barbers were convicted of the same offence, and fined in the like penalty.”

Before powder was used, the hair was generally greased with pomade, and powdering operations were attended with some trouble. In houses of any pretension was a small room set apart for the purpose, and it was known as “the powdering-room.” Here were fixed two curtains, and the person went behind, exposing the head only, which received its proper supply of powder without any going on the clothes of the individual dressed.

In the Rambler, No. 109, under date 1751, a young gentleman writes that his mother would rather follow him to his grave than see him sneak about with dirty shoes and blotted fingers, hair unpowdered, and a hat uncocked.

We have seen that hair-powder was taxed, and on the 5th of May, 1795, an Act of Parliament was passed taxing persons using it. Pitt was in power, and being sorely in need of money, hit upon the plan of a tax of a guinea per head on those who used hair-powder. He was prepared to meet much ridicule by this movement, but he saw that it would yield a considerable revenue, estimating it as much as £200,000 a year. Fox, with force, said that a fiscal arrangement dependent on a capricious fashion must be regarded as an absurdity, but the Opposition were unable to defeat the proposal, and the Act was passed. Pitt’s powerful rival, Charles James Fox, in his early manhood, was one of the most fashionable men about town. Here are a few particulars of his “get up” about 1770, drawn from the Monthly Magazine: “He had his chapeau-bas, his red-heeled shoes, and his blue hair-powder.” Later, when Pitt’s tax was gathered, like other Whigs he refused to use hair-powder. For more than a quarter of a century it had been customary for men to wear their hair long, tied in a pig-tail and powdered. Pitt’s measure gave rise to a number of Crop Clubs. The Times for April 14th, 1795, contains particulars of one. “A numerous club,” says the paragraph, “has been formed in Lambeth, called the Crop Club, every member of which, on his entrance, is obliged to have his head docked as close as the Duke of Bridgewater’s old bay coach-horses. This assemblage is instituted for the purpose of opposing, or rather evading, the tax on powdered heads.” Hair cropping was by no means confined to the humbler ranks of society. The Times of April 25th, 1795, reports that:—“The following noblemen and gentlemen were at the party with the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn Abbey, when a general cropping and combing out of hair-powder took place: Lord W. Russell, Lord Villiers, Lord Paget, &c., &c. They entered into an engagement to forfeit a sum of money if any of them wore their hair tied, or powdered, within a certain period. Many noblemen and gentlemen in the county of Bedford have since followed the example: it has become general with the gentry in Hampshire, and the ladies have left off wearing powder.” Hair-powder did not long continue in use in the army, for in 1799 it was abolished on account of the high price of flour, caused through the bad harvests. Using flour for the hair instead of for food was an old grievance among the poor. In the “Art of Dressing the Hair,” 1770, the author complains:—

“Their hoarded grain contractors spare,
And starve the poor to beautify the hair.”

Pitt’s estimates proved correct, for in the first year the tax produced £210,136. The tax was increased from a guinea to one pound three shillings and sixpence. Pitt’s Tory friends gave him loyal support. The Whigs might taunt them by calling them “guinea-pigs,” it mattered little, for they were not merely ready to pay the tax for themselves but to pay patriotic guineas for their servants. A number of persons were exempt from paying the tax, including “the royal family and their servants, the clergy with an income of under £100 per annum, subalterns, non-commissioned officers and privates in the army and navy, and all officers and privates of the yeomanry and volunteers enrolled during the past year. A father having more than two unmarried daughters might obtain on payment for two, a license for the remainder.” A gentlemen took out a license for his butler, coachman, and footman, etc., and if he changed during the year it stood good for the newly engaged servants.

Powder was not wholly set aside by ladies until 1793, when with consideration Queen Charlotte abandoned its use, swayed no doubt by her desire to cheapen, in that time of dearth, the flour of which it was made. It has been said its disuse was attributable to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Angelica Kauffmann, and other painters of their day, but it is much more likely that the artists painted the hair “full and flowing” because they found it so, not that they as a class dictated to their patronesses in despite of fashion. The French Revolution had somewhat to do with the change, a powdered head or wig was a token of aristocracy, and as the fashion might lead to the guillotine, sensible people discarded it long before the English legislature put a tax upon its use.

With reference to this Sir Walter Scott says in the fifth chapter of “The Antiquary”:—“Regular were the Antiquary’s inquiries at an old-fashioned barber, who dressed the only three wigs in the parish, which, in defiance of taxes and times, were still subjected to the operation of powdering and frizzling, and who for that purpose divided his time among the three employers whom fashion had yet left him.”

“Fly with this letter, Caxon,” said the senior (the Antiquary), holding out his missive, “fly to Knockwinnock, and bring me back an answer. Go as fast as if the town council were met and waiting for the provost, and the provost was waiting for his new powdered wig.” “Ah, sir,” answered the messenger, with a deep sigh, “thae days hae lang gane by. Deil a wig has a provost of Fairport worn sin’ auld Provost Jervie’s time—and he had a quean of a servant-lass that dressed it hersel’, wi’ the doup o’ a candle and a dredging box. But I hae seen the day, Monkbarns, when the town council of Fairport wad hae as soon wanted their town-clerk, or their gill of brandy ower-head after the haddies, as they wad hae wanted ilk ane a weel-favoured, sonsy, decent periwig on his pow. Hegh, sirs! nae wonder the commons will be discontent, and rise against the law, when they see magistrates, and bailies, and deacons, and the provost himsel’, wi’ heads as bald an’ as bare as one o’ my blocks.”

It was not in Scotland alone that the barber was peripatetic. “In the last century,” says Mrs. G. LinnÆus Banks, author of the “Manchester Man” and other popular novels, “he waited on his chief customers or patrons at their own homes, not merely to shave, but to powder the hair or the wig, and he had to start on his round betimes. Where the patron was the owner of a spare periwig it might be dressed in advance, and sent home in a box, or mounted on a stand, such as a barrister keeps handy at the present day. But when ladies had powdered top-knots, the hairdresser made his harvest, especially when a ball or a rout made the calls for his services many and imperative. When at least a couple of hours were required for the arrangement of a single toupÉe or tower, or commode, as the head-dress was called, it may well be understood that for two or three days prior to the ball the hairdresser was in demand, and as it was impossible to lie down without disarranging the structure he had raised on pads, or framework of wire, plastering with pomatum and disguising with powder, the belles so adorned or disfigured were compelled to sit up night and day, catching what sleep was possible in a chair. And when I add that a head so dressed was rarely disturbed for ten days or a fortnight, it needs no stretch of imagination to realize what a mass of loathsome nastiness the fine ladies of the last century carried about with them, or what strong stomachs the barbers must have had to deal with them.”

The Tories often regarded with mistrust any persons who did not use hair-powder. The Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A., the eminent antiquary, relates a good story respecting his grandfather. “So late as 1820,” says Dr. Cox, “Major Cox of Derby, an excellent Tory, declined for some time to allow his son Edward to become a pupil of a well-known clerical tutor, for the sole reason that the clergyman did not powder, and wore his hair short, arguing that he must therefore, be a dangerous revolutionist.”

In 1869 the tax on hair-powder was repealed, when only some 800 persons paid it, producing about £1,000 per year.