A Lesson Learned.Again

Gentlemen, with the advent of summer close upon us here in the middle of the States, I wanted to try one last time to do a full snurdle of oil based pomade without it being a small disaster. Well it was not meant to be. My haircut is a few weeks old, it is now humid here, and I kind of look like Daryl Dixon with shorter hair. Well, my hair is no that disheveled but it does NOT look good. Let alone groomed.

I popped the lid on the Sweet Georgia Brown red this morning scooped out a healthy almond sized amount and worked it in well. First a coarse Kent comb followed by a fine tooth model to help get it spread evenly. Then a thorough buffing with the Kent military brushes to make sure it was not clumped anywhere, parted and combed into place and off to the church I trundled. I noted by end of service I was most certainly losing hold and my hair was going quite flat. By this evening Daryl was staring back at me in the mirror.

I am going to have to get it through my head that I cannot do a slick back with my hair unless it is very well cut. It is not that my hair is thinning. Indeed, I have about as much as I did thirty years ago. But it is light in colour(darkening as I age) and just a bit fine stranded. It even has natural body/slight wave to it but it simply will not stand up to oil based pomades in any kind of heat or humidity. Heck, even in dry winter time I have to watch it. So, back to the heavier holds(less shine) and only enough to use it as a grooming aid. On the other hand, my products are going to last a long time!

Hey Phog, it sounds like you need a pomade that adds volume to your hair. You might want to try Dax Green and Gold. It's a medium base pomade with wax that adds great volume and beautiful shine. Think James Dean in his movie Giant. As long as you don't cake the stuff on, you get great volume. It's one of my faves when I want my hair to look like Dean or when I want to take control of my hair. It's a cool mix of ingredients. No mineral oil if that's something you're not into. Green and Golden doesn't weigh your hair down as long as you use just one scoop for the front.

I wonder what men did back in the day, then? I thought oil based pomades were the most common type of hair dressing in the 1920's and 30's (and earlier), so it makes me wonder how men coped in humid weather. I guess it depended on what kind of hair the man had, and how well it was cut.

David, thanks. I will look into it. Indeed, wax based products are the ones for me. Any sort of liquid oil featured near the top of the ingredient list is a no no.

Kevan, I wondered about this too and then it dawned on me. Hats. Most men up til the sixties would not really go anywhere without a hat. So a bad hair day was easily covered for the most part.

We also forget that men would indeed buzz their hair in hot weather in the early part of the 20th century. Particularly if they had a manual labour job. Other than the pompadour and long ducktail days of the 50s many men in the 1920s/30s kept the sides of their heads somewhat shaved. It was not necessarily like an executive contour nicely tapered from the ear up but sometimes buzzed pretty close right up to where the part line would normally be. I don't know how common that was really but I have seen a number of photos depicting it.


Another thing we need to keep in mind is hair hygiene was not what we think of it as being these days. My dad told me when he was little that most men washed their hair about once a week. The other days got a hot water rinse and some more hair dressing to keep it in place. I remember when I was about five or six(1968 or so) and would watch my dad shave every morning and he would always wet his hair all over and then comb it into place. He did not wear dressings at all once he grew up and had kids but he always went through the water treatment every day. He shampooed it about once a week.