A botched history of hairdressing

Humans, it would seem, have always had a propensity to mess around with perfectly good and functional parts of their anatomy regardless of any apparent pointlessness or consequences of doing so.

Tattoos.  Piercings.  Victorian era women constricted their waistlines with corsets until their intestines were forced upwards to reside uncomfortably somewhere in the vicinity of their larynxes.

Today toxic injections of the Botulism organism are used to "fluff up" lips, and surplus buttock fat is sucked out to fill up natural laugh lines on faces.

Bald old men still persist in wearing expensive toupees which, even from fifty yards away, resemble dead gerbils draped across the top of their heads, while young hirsute athletes shave it all off and look like little Kojaks hellbent on a mission to acquire cranial skin cancer.

This brings us to our history tutorial for this week;

The History of Hairdressing
It is probably fortunate that luxuriant long hair only sprouts from the head, providing an unchallenged monopoly for hairdressers.
Had it been biologically otherwise, their dominance in the field might have been challenged by an assortment of other occupations such as African Underarm Hair Plaiters and Brazilian Shearers.

Be that as it may.

Ever since Eve discovered Garnier Hair Conditioner (new and improved, containing added aloe vera) on the shelf at her Garden of Eden supermarket, and Randy the caveman slicked back his locks with newly-slaughtered mammoth grease, women and men and been messing around with their hair to attract the opposite sex.
(Note;  Or same sex. This is a non-discriminatory Academy)
The first professional hairdressers were recorded in the 4th century AD, although there is much statuary evidence to suggest that hair decoration was widely practised by ancient Egyptians and Persians too.

When women of the Roman Empire had inadequate tresses they were enhanced with blonde hair shorn from captured warring tribesmen of Germanic origin.

The pinnacle of hairdressing stupidity was reached in England and Europe in the 18th century during the reign of Louis XVI (1774-92).  (refer illustration above)

French coiffeur-to-the-stars Marquis Marcel de Bonkers overindulged in champagne during a lunch at La Cafe Escargot one day after which which he went back to his salon and invented the "coiffure a la frigate", where hair was piled up resembling a monstrous rat's nest with a model warship anchored to the top with pins and combs.

The design went out of fashion following a legal class action from all the male French lovers who had suffered prow wounds to their noses and foreheads sustained during amorous adventures with women adorned with this type of hairstyle.

I am jealous of people who have hair.
In 1964 I adopted a Beatles style 'mop-top', but 47 years later there are only 17 short strands of gray hair left to remind me of that youthful magnificence. (Sorry, 16....one just dropped out while I was typing this paragraph.)

Does anyone have a recently deceased gerbil they would like to donate to a worthy cause?