Back in the day, you washed your hair over the sink, and Lustre-Creme was my shampoo of choice. Marilyn liked it too.
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| Lustre-Creme shampoo ad featureing Marilyn Monroe vintageadsandstuff.com |
Shaving your legs was no walk in the park. I wish I had a dollar for every time I sliced 'n' diced my shin or almost severed my Achilles tendon. Believe me, there was nothing safe about safety razors, except as they compared to straight razors. It's all relative, I guess.
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| Gillette safety razor and blades auburn.newyork.olx.com |
Next came a generous slathering of Mum cream deodorant that came in a jar. No rolling or spraying or twisting up a solid stick here. You applied it with your fingers.
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| Mum cream deodorant in a jar dipity.com |
Once you got your hair up in curlers, you settled in for a long bake under the bonnet hair dryer. You'd better have a good book, because this took a while. And, unlike the girls in the photo, you'd better have wads of toilet tissue to put under the elastic of the bonnet, or you'd go out on the town with a crimped pattern on your forehead.
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| Bonnet hairdryer midlifecrisishawaii.com |
Putting on make-up was a little less time-consuming than it is today, because there weren't as many products to use. Generally, what you had at your disposal was Max Factor Pan-Stik or Pan-Cake, some Maybelline cake mascara and lipstick. Adults wore red or dark pink on their lips. Teens wore Tangee Natural, which looked bright orange in the tube but changed to a "natural color" when applied. (Germ alert: Ideally, you'd wet the mascara brush at the bathroom sink, but many a teenage girl threw caution to the wind and spit on the cake in a pinch.)
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| Max Factor Pan-Cake makeup makeupconquest.blogspot.com |
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| Maybelline cake mascara beautyscentral.com |
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| Tangee lipstick flickr.com - alsis35 |
After all this preparation, it was time to squeeze yourself into a girdle and fasten your nylons to the attached garters. Unfortunately, wads of toilet tissue weren't an option here, so garters caused indentations in your skin that couldn't be avoided, especially on the backs of your legs.
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| Warner's girdle with garters |
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| Nylons with reinforced heels and toes tressugar.com |
At last, it was time to don the darling gingham spaghetti strap dress that you had whipped up earlier in the day on your trusty Singer sewing machine. And off you went to the Dairy Queen and a movie with your steady. (I had that yellow dress, complete with the rickrack trim around the neck and the homemade belt made of the same fabric as the dress, which was called a "self-belt.")
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| Simplicity pattern vintagepatterns.wikia.com |
How did you ever find the time? Mmmmm apply deodorant with you fingers, lovely? But it would have been worth it for that original butterfly chair! Great post Dana! ;)
ReplyDeleteBy the time I finished this post, I realized just how much time it actually did take to get ready to go out back then. And, yes, cream deodorant was really goopy and gross.
DeleteOh, this was such a fun read!!!
ReplyDeleteI should write a post for how I get ready today, and save it for when it's "vintage" and hopefully women 50 years from now will say "you bothered with makeup? in 2062 women are considered beautiful without any painful of chemical laden prep".
My deodorant broke yesterday so I had to apply it the "mid-century way," lol, so I can appreciate how un-fun that must have been.
The yellow dress you had was so cute. I love 1950s style dresses because they suit my shape the most. I could deal with spitting on my makeup for the cute dresses.
It really would be fun for you to write that and put it away somewhere...your own little time capsule. It really is interesting for me to look back 50 years and see how much things have changed. I had completely forgotten about that cake mascara till I ran across a picture of it on Pinterest. That's kinda what inspired this post.
DeleteLoved the flash back Dana! I did first shave my legs with a safety razor - EEEK! But soon after came disposables, whew. I remember when my mom went out we could spend an hour or more laying on the bed watching her get ready because it was a PROCESS! But she smelled so good and looked so pretty when she was done.
ReplyDeleteYou're right. It really was a process. Just the hair rolling and drying took forever. I didn't realize till I wrote this post how grateful I am for simpler hairstyles and powerful blow dryers.
DeleteI loved watching my mom get read too. And, I loved the way she smelled on her way "out" with my dad. They went out every Saturday night and we had a babysitter. What did they do? I actually don't know, I should ask them.
DeleteSecret lives of parents...:) You really should ask them.
DeleteAnd now most people just roll out of bed and go as is... I see why "stepping out" was a big deal! ;)
ReplyDeleteI think there's a weird disconnect today where fashion is concerned. On the one hand, people are much more concerned with designer labels today than they were back then, and for the most part, people have much larger wardrobes than back then...but with all the money spent today, people do seem to just roll out of bed and go as is a lot of the time, like you said. We laugh about the People of Walmart site...but that sort of thing would have been unheard of in the 50s and 60s. Absolutely no one would have been caught dead out in public like that.
DeleteHoly mackerel, this triggered my memory. My mom used to wash her hair over the sink too! Her shampoo of choice was Palmolive. It was kryptonite green. Lol
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to believe that showers weren't really common in houses back then. We take them for granted now.
DeleteTalk about bringing back memories! Great post. I remember sleeping with those rollers in my hair, and cutting my legs up the first time I shaved them with that razor. Ah, the memories!
ReplyDeleteOh, those rollers were awful. Remember the little rectangles of pink foam that you could put under them? That was one of the greatest inventions of the era! :)
DeleteThis post made my morning!
ReplyDeleteI am glad we don't need to put deodorant on with out fingers anymore.
I do wash my hair over the sink every now and then! *lol*
Those razors sound awfully scary! just getting a little knick while using the current ones freaks me out. (Until I realize its a teeny cut and "I will survive" *hahaha*)
I have come across a few of that style of hair dryers... but the caps are usually damaged. I hope to find a real good one some day.
See the small striped section of the razor handle? That part turned to open or close the head, so you could put in a new blade. While you were shaving, if the pieces that held the blade down tight got the least bit loose, you could take big chunks out of your shins and the backs of your ankles. It was awful. Thank goodness for disposables with permanently secured blades.
DeleteMan, this post makes me glad that I'm not a woman. A shower, shave, and deodorant are all I need. On the rare occasion, if I feel like churchin it up a bit, I'll throw on some cologne. Ah, the simplicity of being a man.
ReplyDeleteOne of these days, we women are going to wise up! :)
DeleteSadly, I think it might be going the other way. Now there's a good number of men who spend more time primping than the ladies!
DeleteHaha. Up until a couple years ago you could find Max Factor Pan-Stik at drugstores still. I used it for a few months, but it broke me out like nobody's business. Tangee and Lustre-Creme can still be had from the Vermont Country Store. I'm curious to give them a try.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen any Pan-Stik in ages...but then again, I haven't been looking for it. I'm sure I kept Clearasil in business because I wore Pan-Stik! :)
DeleteThe best safety razor blades is famous for various reason such as the razor looks really good with the ivory color acrylic handle capped with chrome finished components. The Edwin Brand has a lot of very loyal and proud users.
ReplyDelete