FACTORALY - E53 HAIRDRESSING

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Hairdressing is an ancient art, but never has it been more popular as a profession. Barbers and hairdressers are popping up on an almost daily basis. What's their origin? And what makes us so loyal? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

hello simon hello bruce how are you today i'm feeling top hole thank you very much how are you i'm also feeling um okay that expression has always been on my list of things to google and i've never quite got around to cribbage cribbage go on uh when you play cribbage you know the little thing you play with matchsticks and holes yes i'm aware so the winner is the one who gets to the top hole oh is that right okay it's nothing to do with anatomy no because i always thought if you weren't feeling top hold did that mean you were feeling bottom hole in which case that's a whole thing that you really don't want to be googling no let's let's not go to that hole great good stuff let's let's assume cribbage let's assume

cribbage it seems more more reasonable yes um so this kind of sets the tone for for what we're about to do um welcome to another episode of fact orily. If you haven't been before, this is exactly what we do. We happen to be two professional voiceover artists. My name is Simon Wells. And my name is Bruce Fielding. Well done leading into the mic there. Very nice. We spend our lives talking, reading audiobooks, doing voices for stuff. Yes, encouraging people to take a certain view of things because of the way we sound. Indeed, because we sound convincing and intellectual.

Yes, sometimes. When we're not doing silly character voices. Yes, yes. But once a week we bring our voices and we bring our natural thirst and love for information and random facts and knowledge and stuff. You mean nerdiness? Nerdiness. Yeah, much more succinct. We bring our nerdiness and we unleash it on the unwitting public.

Yes. And we sort of try and make unimportant and uninteresting subjects sound important and interesting. Yes. And vice versa. Yes, we will trivialise important stuff till the cows come home. So this week's subject is something that, well, I care less about these days than I used to. I care about it just as much as I used to, but there will come a time when I will care about it less also,

if that's not cryptic enough for you. Well, they know what it is. They've read the title. Oh, that's true. Oh, spoilers. Wouldn't it be fun if all of a sudden we just said, this week we're talking about avocados? Wait, what?

No, that's not what's on the list. So what are we talking about this week, what? No, that's not what's on the list. So what are we talking about this week, Simon? Well, this week we're talking about hairdressing. Right. Do you have your hair cut? I do have my hair cut. Who do you have your hair cut by? A bloke down the high street. You don't know his name?

Well, it's a different bloke. It's one of those Turkish barbers where they have a different sort of rotational team on uh each week and oh do they put flaming cotton balls in your ears they do yeah yeah they didn't tell me they were going to do it the first time and it came as a real surprise not least because i have a beard and and having someone waft a naked flame really close to your beard makes you panic a little yes um but it is is very pleasant. You know, hot towels and a little cup of inexpensive instant coffee. Zero conversation. I don't think many of the chaps in there speak terribly good English. So conversation is a minimum. But yes, that's my experience.

Is that the sort of hairdresser you've always gone to? No, it's just the cheapest. Okay, fair enough. I go to a place called the Axe Club these days. Right. Is that the place where you stand against the wall and people throw axes at your head and it cuts the hair off inadvertently yes you just have to braid your hair and like pin it to a large wooden door i can't picture you with braids no the visit that the axe club is an excellent hairdresser and i'm very glad to give

him a plug because he's an excellent excellent, really nice man. Wonderful. Good stuff. But it's not where I've always gone for haircuts. I've gone to lots of different other places. Yes. When I was very young, my first hairdresser

was a man called Cyril. Oh. And my dad took me, as most young boys, your dad takes you to the hairdresser, to the barber's. It's a rite of passage, isn't it? It is.

You're plonked into that chair with the little footrest that you can't quite reach. And then you cry. You cry. And you cry and cry and cry. They can be quite vigorous, can't they? Yeah. I can only speak from the men's hairdressers' point of view, but they can be rather vigorous. I just remember just bawling because there was a man cutting my hair.

I felt a bit like Samson. Aw. Poor little Bruce. But I got used to Cyril over time. I thought you were going to say I got used to crying. Well, that as well. But yeah, I got used to Cyril over time. And he's a very nice man. And I enjoyed my haircuts after that.

Great. I've never had a particular loyalty to any one barber over another. They seem to come and go quite a lot around these parts. I think, I don't know whether you sort of have long-term established places in London, but around this area where I live in Surrey, they sort of come and go every few years and then you find yourself trying a new one and that's that. Yes. No, I've generally been quite brand loyal with mine. Well done. I mean, when I sort of grew up a bit, and it was in my sort of late teens, early 20s,

I went to Bond Street. I went to Vidal Sassoon's first salon. Oh, really? Wow. I'm not sure I ever had my hair cut by Vidal. Right, okay. But I definitely thought it was the place to go then. Do you know what?

It took me quite a long time to realize that vidal sassoon was the name of a person i thought it was i thought it was like tony and guy or pharaoh and ball or smith and wesson i thought it was two names you know um but it's just the name of a guy who yes was the hairdresser yes great Yes. Great. So where did this hairdressing, where did it start? It started once upon a time in ancient Egypt. As an awful lot of things that we've researched recently do seem to go back to ancient Egypt, don't they? Yes. Around 4,000 years ago, there is evidence of hairdressers in ancient Egypt.

When I say hairdressers, I mean actual specific people whose job it is to do that right i expect people have been doing interesting things to their own hair for you know even longer than that yes but professionals yeah the concept of actually going to a person yeah um is first mentioned in in ancient egypt um they have recipes for making conditioner type products that include almond milk castor oil and frankincense yep um there are records of them using natural henna um dye to to cover up gray hairs yes i didn't realize that henna came from the leaves of a shrub ah it's actually a plant called the henna tree. You grind it up into powder and mix it with water, and that makes the dye.

So it goes all the way back to ancient Egypt, if not before. I heard, and this may be right, lots of wigs. And only sort of very, very senior royal aristocratic Egyptians were allowed to wear wigs at all. So generally the slaves would have their heads shaved. Yes. And everybody else in court would basically have a shaved head. But the pharaoh and family would go for a wig if they wanted to. Right.

Okay. The Egyptian ones were sort of a mixture of human hair and horse hair. Right. And sort of wheat strands and things like that. Okay. So lots of different stuff went into an Egyptian wig. Hmm. Then, of course, we skip a couple of thousand years and we get the Romans,

who were rather, in the upper classes at least, were rather proud of their appearances. And we did an episode on perfume and the Romans were all over perfume and baths and all that sort of stuff. What did the Romans ever do for us? Quite a lot. And including kiss curls.

I beg your pardon? Kiss curls. Go on. You know those curls that you see on the forehead? Oh, is that what those are called? Yeah. Did you not know? No, I didn't know that. I on the forehead. Oh, is that what those are called? Yeah. Did you not know? No, I didn't know that.

No, I didn't realise. Yeah, so there's like curly, sort of like traily bits. Yes, I'm picturing sort of Betty Boop. Yeah, that kind of thing. Yeah. Oh. I never knew.

There you go. But yeah, so the Romans, again, it was a status thing. You know, if you could afford to have usually a slave in your own home doing your hair for you, and if you could go out to meet your friends at the forum and you had the Romans were, whichever colony they were in, you sort of had a local Romanesque hairstyle that went with that particular outpost. And yeah, it was only the very wealthy who could get these things. Everyone else just sort of let their hair grow long and wild and rugged.

And of course, because hairdressers or barbers had an array of sharp things on their premises, they could sort of operate on your body. Well, it's a natural thing, isn't it? Let's do both at the same time, shall we? Yes, let's do that. And then, of course, as we mentioned in our flags episode i think they used to tie the bloody bandages around a pole yeah which gave you that red and white stripy pole that's one of my favorite facts still to this day if you if you walk past the barbers

and they've got the red white i think they they do red white and blue these days just for patriotic reasons but uh yes actually wrapping the the bloodied bandages around a pole to well a to dry off but b to advertise look we'll pull your teeth for you and and and and chop your arm off if necessary all sorts all sorts yeah back in the days when um medicine wasn't quite as rigidly certified or you know looked over by a particular governing body, anyone could do it, and barber surgeons were those type of people. Yes, no administration required to oversee it. Oh, by the way, did you know that the barber's pole in Hong Kong

signifies a brothel? No, I did not. Really? Yes. Wow. So if you go in asking for you know a quick one you might come out with a haircut you might not yes right no i didn't know that i'm not i'm not totally sure i can prove this but but it sort of seems to be the case that gentlemen... We're talking about barber surgeons, so obviously I'm instantly thinking of London around the 1700s, 1800s,

coming into the sort of Sweeney Todd era. Gentlemen's barbers were quite popular. It wasn't really that common a thing to have a woman's hairdresser as a shop, as an entity. Yeah, you would have a maid, wouldn't you? You'd have a maid do your hair for you. Yeah, exactly that. You'd have someone in-house doing it.

The person who dresses you, looks after you, tends to your daily needs, also does your hair. Yes. And even in the lower classes, people just sort of tended to do it for each other or or just you know for themselves um but it was the barber surgeons who as we've said did your hair shaved your beard whipped out your kidney if there was something wrong with it pulled your teeth that was sort of the one of the forerunners of actually going to a shop yes to get your hair done although the visiting uh there were visiting hairdressers as well. Oh, who would come to you? They used to visit visiting hairdressers.

But sometimes the visits were quite long. Okay. For example, Catherine the Great was a bit ashamed of the fact that she had dandruff. Right. And so when her hairdresser came to visit, she decided to lock him up in an iron cage for three years to stop gossip. Oh my goodness. That seems a bit extreme, doesn't it? I know, I know.

It's a bit much. Crikey. That's just bizarre. Yeah. Catherine the Great was a very strange lady. But women are very loyal to their hairdressers. Yes. I mean, if you can afford it, you kind of fly them all over the world or fly back.

So the first one I found was Diana Dawes. Right, yeah. Whose hairdresser was a chap called Raymond Teasy Weezy. Of course it was. I'm going to assume that's not his birth name. No, his birth name was Bessone. Okay. And Raymond Bessone was one of the first TV hairdressers.

Oh, really? Yeah, he was like a hairdresser to the stars. Yeah. And, I mean, he trained loads of people. He trained Vidal Sassoonsoon for example okay um diana doors flew him to the us just to style her hair in the 50s right and the cost of the flight and his fee was about the same as the cost of a house oh my goodness how preposterous yeah but i mean you know more recently people like Colleen Rooney have,

she actually flew back from the 2006 World Cup in Germany to have her hair done. It's like a 900 mile round trip for a haircut. I mean, fine. If you've got the rapport and the relationship and you don't like your head being touched by complete strangers and if you've got the rapport and the relationship and you don't like your head being touched by complete strangers and if you've got the money then fine yeah also i think there's a kind of like a part of your self-esteem lies in your hair and you don't want to put that

self-esteem into the hands of somebody who you don't know or trust no true um i suppose with i mean this is you know quite a a stereotype to make, but I would imagine there's less to get wrong in a bloke's haircut than in a woman's because we tend to have shorter hair. You say that, but look at David Beckham. Well, yes, that's true. Yes. He's quite proud of his haircuts. Yeah. And they change quite a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe it's just me then maybe i'm not adventurous enough bruce yes you just don't care i just don't care but i mean there there are all of these celebrity hairdressers

i mean i mentioned teasy weasy yes you did because he would be on tv and just say i'll just give a little bit of a teasy weasy here a little bit of a teasy-weezy here, a little bit of a teasy-weezy there, as he was making these huge bouffant haircut hairstyles. Yeah, yeah. And Vidal Sassoon, obviously. But there are other people like Trevor Sorby, Nicky Clark, those kind of people, who have started to monetize their names.

Yes, okay. So you get the Mascolo brothers are very famous for monetizing their names. Do you know who get the mascolo brothers are very famous for monetizing their names do you know who the mascolo brothers are no i'm hoping you're about to tell me a one's called guy and one's called tony right so i mentioned them in passing earlier on is that right yes uh so yes so there was uh they they all start to get into this kind of making hair products. And for example, I'm going to talk a little bit more about Vidal Sassoon as we go along because he's probably the best known hairdresser in the world.

Yeah. Of all time. I should think so, yeah. And he got into a fight with Frotch and Gamble. All right. About using his name on their products. And he claimed that they were – he sold the rights to his name on their products. I see.

And then helped to formulate products with them, which he then claimed were being used in Pantene. Oh, really? And that they weren't pushing his brand as much as they should and took them to court. Oh. And that's why the Vidasasun products started to disappear from shops.

Oh, I see. It's because P&G just decided that they weren't going to sell it because it could lead to all sorts of issues. Anyway, they resolved it and he sold his name to somebody else who then was bought by Procter & Gamble. And it's all come full circle. It's all fine. But yes, I mean, a lot of these, Trevor Sorby is another one one who's you can buy his products in saints press right yeah yes and and you know to go to go and have your hair cut by these guys yeah yeah can cost you a lot of i mean a 500 quid for a haircut is is not unusual yeah yeah no i hadn't i hadn't really thought about the association with products but yes you're you're totally right i i remember i i used to go to a particular barber shop and they had a really really nice um uh hair product sort of a styling

gel but i couldn't i couldn't find in the shops anywhere so i i ended up going to this particular barber shop till it closed down for quite a while purely because they used one particularly nice product you didn't think to buy it at the barbers they didn't sell it ah they just they used it yeah very secretive that's where they're missing a trick yeah but they do that now i'm aware that my local barbers you know they have a whole array of of different you know gels and pomades and sprays and all sorts of things and they can actually recommend you know for your hair type why don't you try using this? And then you can go and buy it. But yes, if you can actually put your name on that product and say,

this is the product that they use at Vidal Sassoon, therefore buy it, then yeah, you've got a captive audience, haven't you? Well, Vidal Sassoon was quite interesting because he was one of the first people to open up the salon. Because originally you were all in little separate rooms. Okay. But what Sassoon did is he kind of made a large open space with lots of sinks and what have you around the room. And he also opened late. Okay. So that he would, you know, during the day he would be cutting and styling women's hair.

Yeah. And then after a certain time, like five o'clock, he would then start to cut and style men's hair. Oh, I see. In the same space. Right. Back in the day when the men were at oh i see in the same space right back in the day when the the men were at work all day and the women weren't yes um right interesting makes sense i never i would never really have associated vidal sassoon with men's hair cutting really yeah i just always assumed it was a women's so he invented the five point bob bob. Oh, really? Yes. That sort of very, very Mary Quanty kind of look.

Yeah, yeah. That sort of very sculptural, architectural look was something that he was very keen on. And he generally cut women's hair much, much shorter than anybody else did. But still kept the men and women separate at that point. And in fact, it was my old hairdresser, Keith, Keith Wainwright at Smile, who invented the unisex salon where he had men and women's hair being cut at the same time. Oh, Keith, you forward thinker. So you were talking about famous hairdressers. I came across a chap called Philip Kingsley.

Have you heard of him? No. So he was a hairdresser to movie stars back in the 50s, 60s, 70s. Okay. Technically, he was a professional trichologist. Okay. Which I had never heard of, which is someone who specifically studies the scalp and the health of hair at sort of root level. This chap, Philip Kingsley, he was one of the first people who really sort of put together the idea of health, well-being, nutrition with the quality of your hair.

It just hadn't really been a thing before. before but no this this chap was one of uh one of a group of people who who realized well actually the things you eat your well-being your health has an impact on every other part of your body it probably has one on your hair as well so he sort of started looking at conditioners that you put in nutrients into your hair and okay thickening agents and all that sort of stuff yeah i remember the first time i found some you know i think my hairdresser used a conditioner on my hair and I'd never heard of conditioner before. Yes, even though it's been around since ancient Egypt.

It obviously took a break for a while. But this chap, he came up with a product called a pre-shampoo mask, which again, me being an average short back and sides bloke, I don't really know what that is. But apparently it's a thing that you can apply to your hair and allow it to sit for a while to improve the the health and nutrition and shine of the hair before you actually wash it um and he came up with this product which he called elasticizer um specifically for audrey hepburn okay um so he was doing audrey

hepburn's hair in 1976 when uh she and Sean Connery were in Robin and Marion. And her hair was just really flat and lifeless. And she called on this chap, Kingsley, who went away and designed a brand new product for her to nourish and luxuriate her hair. It became a very popular product. And now apparently one of these things is sold every two minutes at some point all over the world wow and he just you know he came up with it on the spur of the moment specifically for Audrey Hepburn on set and now it's um a worldwide hair nourishing product gosh which which again I've never heard of and don't use but in fact the america's first self-made uh female millionaire was a woman who invented hair products uh madam cj walker oh okay and she invented hair products

specifically for for black hair okay right and um there's a very good podcast about madam cj walker which i'll put a link in the in the show notes which uh you'll find at factorily.com factorily.com you say factorily.com a wonderful rabbit hole of further information yes i apologize for that don't apologize it's excellent i i read a thing about um the origin of caribbeanons. You know, you have to have people who have experience and training and technical know-how to style that kind of hair. Yeah. During the 1940s, 50s, sort of the windrush generation when people first started settling from the Caribbean in the UK, local hairdressers were of no use to them because they just didn't know how to work with hair of that texture yes um so people you know started started setting up their own salons in their

living rooms and sort of just doing the hair for their local community um the first person who set up a caribbean hair salon in in london at least in 1955 was a lady called Carmen Mango, who was an immigrant from the Caribbean. And she set up a salon in 1955 in North Kensington to do her friend's hair and for them to just sort of have a social place where they could hang out. They would spend entire days just hanging out at the salon, drinking tea, chatting with their local community and getting their hair looking spic and span. Apparently, when the first wave of the Windrush generation settled in England, apparently the cold, damp climate in England was really bad for their hair. It just made it droop and sag and lose all of its life.

Yes. And so it was quite pressing that they did something about it and and so these these unique bespoke salons started to to crop up in their hundreds the thing about working in a barbershop is i guess it can be quite dull um which is why you start singing oh bruce you went down the barbershop quartet route yeah bless you sir well done so so they kind of there's a there's a feeling that they originated in the sort of late 19th early 20th centuries in america yeah but it could be a blend of white and african music style i mean there's all sorts of things but it kind of it it went out of style in the 20s and then came back in the 30s

yeah um there's a wonderful thing called the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. Wow. The S-P-E-B-S-Q-S-A. It's now known as the Barbershop Harmony Society or BHS, which is much easier. BHS. Brilliant. And their first meeting was at the Tulsa Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1938. Only male singers. Right.

Although there was a parallel organization for women in Tulsa called Sweet Adelines International and Harmony Incorporated. How wonderful. Which were the female ones. Yeah. And there were sort of well-known and popular barbershop songs. I'll put a link to a YouTube video of people singing barbershop in the show notes. Brilliant. But they used to dress in these stripy waistcoats. Yes. With a boater. I'll put a link to a YouTube video of people singing barbershop in the show notes.

Brilliant. But they used to dress in these like stripy waistcoats. Yes. With a boater. Great fun. So there are some hairdressers that don't stop at being hairdressers and they should. Okay. For example, there's one, John Peters, who was a celebrity hairdresser.

And he cut the hair of all sorts of famous people, including the woman he married. In fact, he married several women, but the one that he married, Barbara Streisand, was probably the most famous of the women that he married. He produced or bought the rights to A Star is Born. Okay. And then let her star in it because A Star Is Born. Okay. And then let her star in it because she was his wife.

Ah. So he had the rights to A Star Is Born and still had them when they remade it. So he's executive producer on both of those. Do you ever see a film called Shampoo with Warren Beatty about a celebrity hairdresser? No, I'm aware of it, but I haven't seen it. I'll put a link to a trailer for it in the show notes. And he reckons that Warren Beatty's character,

Hal Ashby, was inspired by him, you know, by John Peters. Oh, really? And the one thing I like about John Peters is he was very single-minded. So he bought the rights

to Superman. So he was a producer on Superman. But he was a producer on Superman. But he wanted Superman to fight a giant mechanical spider. Right. And they said, well, he's never done that in any of the comics. And he said, yeah, but I think it would look really good if Superman was fighting a giant mechanical spider. And they said, no, thank you very much.

And then carillon made it as normal so he i mean he didn't give up so he produced several other films including wild wild west and guess what's in wild wild west oh there's a great big giant mechanical spider isn't there oh that is fantastic what a link. Absolutely great guy. So have we got any records about hairdressers? Yes, we have. Yeah, there are quite a few. So the first one I found was the Guinness World Record for the most haircuts given within a particular time period.

Okay. This is like our sheep shearing one. Yes, a little bit like that, yes. So this was a Polish fellow called Nikodem Sulk, and he managed to, well, he and his team in his barbershop, managed to cut 467 people's hair within an eight-hour period. Oh, eight hours, okay. Yeah, it's a reasonable amount of time.

It doesn't actually say how big the team was. If there's 100 of them, then that's nothing. If there's only two of them, then that's quite a feat. But he was the only one with scissors. I mean, I assume the whole team had scissors. But that was in 2022. So that was the most number of haircuts in a time period. Gosh.

The tallest hairstyle was 2.9 meters tall. So that's roughly one and a half times either you or me in height. And this was achieved by a Syrian fellow called Dani Hiswani in Dubai in 2022. And yeah, so this particular customer of his ended up with a 2.9 meter haircut. Well, I've run out of facts about hairdressers.

Yes, I'm going a little thin myself. Well, thank you very much for listening. Absolutely. Thank you for coming. We hope you enjoyed yourselves. If you would be so kind, please go and leave us a beautiful glowing five star review and you know tell your friends because you're obviously into nerdy stuff because you're still here and you probably have friends who are too indeed and then whatever platform you're listening to this on if you could like and subscribe then you'll get a lovely little notification the next time an episode appears oh yes please Please come again next time for another exciting instalment of Factorily.

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