Who invented hair color

In the 18th century, European elites favored perfumed white and pastel powders made from wheat flour dusted lightly onto natural hair and wigs.

While most hair dyes were composed of plants and animal products, the evolution of the practice also saw the use of dangerous, even lethal methods to change hair color: lead combs to darken it, or sulfuric acid to lighten it. It wasn't until the early 20th century that hair dye as we know it -- chemical, in a rainbow of colors, shop-bought or salon-applied -- came to be. Two years later, Schueller founded his business, the French Harmless Hair Dye Company -- a name meant to alleviate people's fears of using manufactured hair color.

A shop assistant holds a color sample against a customer's hair in The aging card. For the first decades of the 20th century, women were fearful of commercial dye formulants. Chemical hair color was considered unsafe, and the practice itself had an image problem: as in the modest Victorian era, it was seen as something vain women, not respectable housewives, would do. In the s, even as the beauty trend became more popular, salons offered back entrances for clients who didn't want to make their dye habits known.

To expand their market, some beauty companies decided to tap into the anxiety around aging and sell color as a way to cover up gray hair. A Clairol print campaign from , "Gray Hair -- The Heartless Dictator," declared: "Without justice or kindness, gray hair can rule your life It can dictate many things you say or do. No wonder other women refuse to tolerate this tyrant. Pressuring women to maintain their hair color as they aged "was the marketing ploy that made hair dye as ubiquitous as using soap," said Claire Robinson, author of the essay "Grey is a Feminist Issue.

Advertising companies also worked on normalizing dyes by selling them on their subtlety, such as the iconic Clairol ad "Does she Around that time, the debut of home-color kits also ensured privacy, paving the way for the widespread use of hair dye. Advertisers saw an opportunity to market home coloring kits to women in the s. In South and East Asia, the picture is similar. China and South Korea have all seen a huge increase in demand for hair color products, mostly darker dyes, both for men and women.

In Japan, the beauty ideal attached to black hair is so strong that some schools force students to dye their hair black, though in recent years the rule has provoked backlash. When the approach was discovered to be toxic, the Romans switched to using leeches , which they fermented in lead pots for a couple of months. While most Roman citizens were free and eager to dye their hair dark, sex workers were required to have blond hair.

Some of them did like the Egyptians and wore wigs; others soaked their hair in a solution of ashes from burnt nuts or plants to change the color. Between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, a number of dangerous hair coloring methods remained widely practiced, including the use of sulfuric acid, which was an accepted form of hair coloring around the s, and laying out in the sun with hair covered in lye a century later.

The ambitious French chemist was approached by a barber who was interested in the creation of new hair dyes. Schueller had a breakthrough in The building blocks of hair color have changed very little since the discoveries of Perkin, Hofmann, and Schueller, which proves just how important their work was to the hair color industry.

Still, these products have gone through many changes and evolutions over the years. By the middle of the 20th century, Clairol came out with the first at-home hair dye. Highlights: the Great Debate.

Related Articles. The Psychology of Hair Color. Personal Care Products Safety Act. Hairstyles Through History. Fact or Fiction? Debunking 10 Hair Myths. Hair Tutorials. Hair Color. Share Tweet Pin Email. Hair Color History Like many great modern inventions, hair color as we now know it was invented by accident.

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