Finger Waving Techniques of the 1920′s and 1930′s

FINGER WAVING is possibly the newest branch of beauty culture, yet in its few years of existence it has reached an importance that few phases of the art enjoy. Very little has been written on the subject, and there is a great demand for instructive literature on finger waving being made throughout the country, not only by those just entering the profession, but also by hairdressers whose training preceded the era of finger waving and who want to add this profitable art to their beauty culture knowledge…

Chicago, January 1, 1930

If you could find a copy of this rare book on finger waves it would cost you at least $400. However the digital version of this book has now been published as “Finger Waving Techniques of the 1920′s and 1930′s” and only costs $21. As well as detailed instructions it includes illustrations and photos of each step in creating finger waves.

POIRET VS. THE WOMEN

Source: The Literary Digest for November 12, 1927

American women have seemed to stage a Waterloo for Monsieur Paul Poiret, the acknowledged king of the art of women’s clothes. He comes to us with complaints that they will not change their taste. Having put them in shorts, he now wants longs. But the women seem to have departed from his leadership, and the Philadelphia Record analyzes his plight:

“One of the oldest battles known to the fair sex has been that eternally waged between fashion and comfort. Of old, styles were notoriously uncomfortable. The smart clothes of the day were either too tight or too loose in the wrong places, or they were too long, and in other ways interfered with the free movement of the wearer. Did the dressmakers relent? Not at all. They simply offered a new style which by its difference distracted attention from the discomforts of the old; yet it had discomforts of its own which in time were perceived and caused demand for another new style, and so on. Thus the makers of clothing were kept busy, and profitably so.

“But of late women have desired more comfortable garments, threatening disobedience to the tenets of style. They have gained ground, and to-day’s garb is about as free from distortions as could be. Clothing is not too tight, too narrow, too bulky, nor does it scratch, speaking, of course, from a feminine point of view. Perhaps it does err on the ground of going to the other extreme beyond the actual requirements of comfort, but that is a characteristic of all rebellions.

“Styles in the last five years have not changed greatly, at least in that time no radically different garments have been seriously adopted by womankind. Very probably the reason is that they have at last found garments which may be worn with-out distress, either local or general. . . .

“Not only have present fashions had a long run, but a still longer one is predicted, because they are based on sound principles. Of course, they are becoming, but so is every fashion of the moment, and other generations claimed an outstanding beauty for their own modes, not without cause.”

House with Glass Walls Exhibited in Poland

AN UNUSUAL building that formed an interesting feature of an exposition staged recently at Poznan, Poland, suggests how dwellings of the future may appear if men eventually live in glass houses. Apart from a few posts and beams, the structure is almost entirely of glass. Built in an equal-sided L-shape, with a central tower, the house offers maximum sunlight and ventilation.

Since hothouses almost entirely of glass minister admirably to the needs of plants, some health authorities see no reason why glass houses should not be used for human dwellings. In fact, the United States Public Health Service, in: 1928, erected a building of which glass was the principal material, in an attempt to determine experimentally how much sunlight should be admitted to a house and how large and of what shape windows should be (P. S. M., July ’28, p.74). A few months ago, a Chicago architect suggested the use of translucent casein as a new material for the walls of houses (P. S. M., Sept. ’29, p. 47).

DEFINITION OF FINGER WAVING

FINGER WAVING is the art of shaping or moulding hair while wet into “s”-shaped curved undulations with the fingers and comb. These waves when dried without being disturbed will fall into beautiful deep waves. Finger waves differ from marcel waves in that there are no irons used on the hair. Not only naturally curly or permanently waved hair can be finger waved, but it is equally successful on straight hair.

PREPARING THE HAIR FOR WAVING

In preparing the hair for finger waving, the first requisite, of course, is that the hair is clean. Finger waving can be done especially well after a shampoo inasmuch as the hair must be wet to insert the wave. Some hair-dressers prefer to dry the hair after it has been washed before wetting it again for the finger wave (on the same principle that clothes are allowed to dry thoroughly before they are dampened for ironing). Most patrons prefer, however, to have a finger wave immediately follow the shampoo, and in most beauty shops the time element is so valuable that it is a far more practicable procedure.

After being washed, the hair must be thoroughly dampened with water or curling fluid and combed completely free of all snarls whatsoever. If the hair is naturally wavy or if the patron has been given a perfect permanent wave, the finger wave can be inserted when the hair has been wet with water only.

1920′s Finger Waving continued here

Repairs on the Fly

BOARDING a flying plane by a sixty-five-foot rope ladder and leaving via parachute was the unusual performance of Dale Dryer, airplane mechanic, when an endurance plane over Buffalo, N. Y., sent a call for repairs.

Heavy weather had damaged the stabilizer of the airplane, which had been aloft more than 190 hours. First a rope ladder was passed from another plane to the endurance craft, whose crew attached it to the under part of the fuselage. Then Dryer went aloft in a relief machine, flew beneath, and caught the ladder on the third attempt. He scrambled up it, while the relief plane dived to keep out of the way. The repair was soon completed, and Dryer left by parachute.

The feat was all the more remarkable because it was entirely without previous arrangement. Despite the daring stunt, the endurance plane was forced down a short time later when it was damaged again in refueling.

Tailless “Flivver” Plane

V-SHAPED wings and the absence of any tail whatever are novelties combined in the latest German plane tested recently at Berlin. It demonstrates, as did the “windmill” autogiro plane, that radical ideas may still have a place in airplane design.

The tailless machine is shaped like an arrow, with the pilot’s cockpit in a stubby fuselage. A motor of only eight horsepower drives it at a speed as high as seventy-eight miles an hour. In landing, vertical rudders serve as brakes. On the take-off the plane is launched by a catapult, needing a run of only a few feet.

Especially significant is the fact that the “stork,” as the new plane is called, can be sold at a lower price than many automobiles—about $800. This and the reported ease of piloting suggest its possible development as a new type of “flivver” plane for private use.

Planes Hunt Bacteria

AN AIRPLANE hunt for bacteria was a recent novelty at Cambridge, England. Its object was to determine how plant and crop diseases are spread in upper air currents.

Several kinds of germ traps were used by the airplane that made the tests. Glass slides smeared with petrolatum, and test tubes and glass dishes filled with jellies offering breeding places for germs, were exposed at certain times during the flights, which reached a maximum altitude of 13,000 feet.

The tests showed that large numbers of bacteria and fungus spores were present and vigorously alive as far as two miles above the earth. They seemed especially to congregate upon clouds. Although the tests were not concerned with disease germs of a sort that attack man, they showed that these, too, probably are carried by wind currents at great heights above the earth and that epidemics may spread in this way.

Seaplane Up with 170 Passengers

WITH 169 persons numbered in the official list of passengers and crew, the Dornier monster seaplane DO-X recently made a flight of nearly an hour over Lake Constance, Switzerland. A four-year-old boy not counted in the records brought the total to 170 persons, by far the largest number ever taken aloft at once, either in airplane or dirigible, in the history of aviation.

This achievement marked the latest of nearly forty successful flights of the German seaplane. On this occasion it lifted a dead weight of fifty-two tons into the air. Despite the enormous weight, it landed on the lake surface so smoothly that many of the passengers, who were sitting on benches and chairs, were not aware of it.

A transatlantic flight tentatively scheduled for next spring is proposed for the future program of the DO-X plane. Two sister ships of equal size are under construction for the Italian government at the Friedrichshafen, Germany, plant. Similar or even larger ships will be built in the United States, according to the recent announcement of the American automobile concern which will back their construction here under the Dornier patents.

Experts suggest that such huge flying boats may seriously compete with dirigibles for large-scale transport. They point out that while dirigibles have a slightly greater cruising range and more comfort, an airplane of the DO-X’s size has the advantage in greater speed and in the smaller crew required to run it.