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The Ridiculous -- and Surprisingly Dangerous -- History of Hair Dye · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
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  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the one,
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  Speaker 1: the only, the natural haired super producer mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Max Midnight Williams. Because that's the deep, deep color of
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  Speaker 2: his luscious locks.
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  Speaker 3: Do how do you all think my hair is? Can
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  Speaker 3: I tell you that's outside of the scope of his episode?
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  Speaker 3: Max Fright?
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  Speaker 1: No, it's sound dear butt. I seen it? Is it?
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  Speaker 3: Holy cow?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's made up that word. I like holy cow.
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  Speaker 2: I wasn't wrong about the lusciousness. So I wish y'all
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  Speaker 2: could see it. If only it weren't just any nice.
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  Speaker 2: It looks like a commercial fabyo locks, Fabio locks.
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  Speaker 1: Just so. That's Noel Brown. They call me Ben Bullen
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  Speaker 1: in this part of the world.
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  Speaker 3: We are.
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  Speaker 1: We are three dudes here in the United States, and
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  Speaker 1: we have a ton of questions about history. Now, Noel,
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  Speaker 1: you and I and our God I love. The fabio
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  Speaker 1: thing is not going to leave my head.
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  Speaker 3: You nailed it. I'm very aroused.
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  Speaker 1: We are we are three dudes with again, an enormous
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  Speaker 1: interest in weird, weird stuff, and thanks to the help
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  Speaker 1: of our research associate, the legendary Wren, today we're going
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  Speaker 1: to talk about.
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  Speaker 3: Hair dye for sure.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, it's something that I have always somewhat assumed,
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  Speaker 2: at least in terms of the way it's used today.
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  Speaker 2: Been sort of a modern thing, which isn't that far off,
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  Speaker 2: But in the world of fashion, hair has always been
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  Speaker 2: kind of a symbol of vitality. If we would talk
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  Speaker 2: about Samson, for example, the biblical character who's you know,
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  Speaker 2: magical strength, Apparently the power resided in his hair, and
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  Speaker 2: it was I believe Solomme, who was sort of his
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  Speaker 2: arch that cut his hair off and deprived him of
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  Speaker 2: his strength. So I mean, it's definitely in the lore
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  Speaker 2: that that hair. Having a good head of hair indicates
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  Speaker 2: some form of vitality, not to mention a form of
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  Speaker 2: self expression, as evidenced by Max's aerial style headthrow, you know.
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  Speaker 1: And thank you for not doing dreadlocks.
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  Speaker 3: Max.
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  Speaker 1: If this podcasting thing doesn't work out for us, I'm
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  Speaker 1: gonna I'm clearly gonna ride Max's coattails.
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  Speaker 3: Or pony tails, uh.
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  Speaker 1: Of what he becomes the new face of Claial Herbal essences.
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  Speaker 1: I love the point you bring up, knowl about the
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  Speaker 1: idea of hair as power in those old biblical stories,
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  Speaker 1: true true story. Once upon a time a girl I
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  Speaker 1: was dating used to get so mad when I got
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  Speaker 1: a haircut, and she told me that my hairdresser was
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  Speaker 1: robbing me of my power.
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  Speaker 3: It's very body fluid, very weird.
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  Speaker 2: It is a little weird, yeah, I mean, but there
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  Speaker 2: certainly are religious sects I guess you call them where
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  Speaker 2: you know. I believe it's Pentecostal, where cutting the hair
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  Speaker 2: is a no no, and there is a certain reverence
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  Speaker 2: associated with the hair. So although beauty standards have certainly
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  Speaker 2: evolved and changed and cyclical things kind of come and
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  Speaker 2: go and then come back over time, one thing that
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  Speaker 2: certainly remains to some degree is that too many gray
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  Speaker 2: hair is seen as a sign of aging and therefore
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  Speaker 2: perhaps been a sign of weakness, which is wild. I
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  Speaker 2: don't care does love a silver fox. I would much
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  Speaker 2: rather go gray than go bald. And that is no
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  Speaker 2: shades any of our bald community out there, any receding
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  Speaker 2: hairline folks or widows peaks, what have you. I personally
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  Speaker 2: pride myself on having a pretty good head of hair
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  Speaker 2: that will definitely one day be entirely gray. But I
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  Speaker 2: don't think the hair itself is going anywhere. And that's
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  Speaker 2: a bargain that I can be on board with.
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  Speaker 1: Widows. Peaks are awesome. They make you look smarter, They
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  Speaker 1: make you look a little bit like a vulcan munster,
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  Speaker 1: all right, So I wore a hat for this one. Look, folks,
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  Speaker 1: we know the hair dye industry is boomy right now.
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  Speaker 1: In the current global economy, the hair dye industry alone
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  Speaker 1: racks up about twenty three point one point five billion
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  Speaker 1: US dollars. And for a lot of people, you know,
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  Speaker 1: this is a very sensitive thing. Hair can be challenging,
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  Speaker 1: It can be a statement, it can be it can
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  Speaker 1: be something people judge you for.
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  Speaker 3: And while I am on.
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  Speaker 1: Record loving gray hair, a lot of people do get
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  Speaker 1: bothered by this. So hair dye by modern standards is
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  Speaker 1: way more recent than you might imagine, folks. It's existed
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  Speaker 1: in a modern industry for about a century. But even
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  Speaker 1: in its early days, the iterations were relatively simple. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: some of us in the audience remember the idea of bluing,
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  Speaker 1: you know, like Mark Simpson, there.
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  Speaker 3: Was all blue thing.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if I know about that, I guess
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  Speaker 2: I've I've heard of older ladies sometimes referred to as
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  Speaker 2: blue hairs. There is a shade of gray that has
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  Speaker 2: a bit of a bluish hue that I've always found interesting.
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  Speaker 2: But man, we gotta do it because every time we're
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  Speaker 2: talking about the history of pigments and fashion and and
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  Speaker 2: you know, fabric, for example, we always end up back
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  Speaker 2: with the ancient Egyptians, who were huge innovators in many
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  Speaker 2: many ways, and industrialization, irrigation, farming techniques, construction, and of course, yes,
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  Speaker 2: one hundred percent weaponry, myths making.
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  Speaker 3: Let's just say a lot of we always talk about.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know if you've seen them film heretic,
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  Speaker 2: but there is some interesting There's an interesting part where
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  Speaker 2: the character pedantically talks about how some of the ancient
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  Speaker 2: myths of Egypt have a lot of parallels with biblical stuff.
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  Speaker 2: There is this sort of hero's journey repeated story, and
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  Speaker 2: there is some truth to that dating as far back
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  Speaker 2: as the ancient Engines.
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  Speaker 1: Shout out to Joseph Campbell, thank you of cambell A,
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  Speaker 1: thou still exactly right, Ben, A really good one.
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  Speaker 2: If you're into Star Wars, and you're seeing some of
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  Speaker 2: these tropes that begin to start to seem a little
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  Speaker 2: bit recognizable.
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  Speaker 3: There's a reason for that.
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  Speaker 2: But one thing the ancient Egyptians pride themselves on was
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  Speaker 2: looking good, fine, smelling good.
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  Speaker 1: Especially as the royal family became increasingly habsburg esque. I
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  Speaker 1: said it, yeah, just look, come on, man, you get it.
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  Speaker 1: Look at King Tu.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, King indeed.
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  Speaker 1: Indeed, So going back to like fifteen hundred BCE, uh,
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  Speaker 1: the well to do people in ancient Egypt would use
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  Speaker 1: heada to give their hair a reddish brown hue. It
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  Speaker 1: would also help obscure gray hair, because we have to remember,
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  Speaker 1: for a long time in human history, gray hair was
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  Speaker 1: not cool. Now, I want to be clear here, Max
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  Speaker 1: is a brownie. My pal Nola and I have various
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  Speaker 1: streaks of gray. Nole's got a cool roguish from the
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  Speaker 1: X Men streak of gray and nice gray goatee. I
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  Speaker 1: got these two gray stripes that.
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  Speaker 3: Make me look like ros al Ghoul.
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  Speaker 1: And I've got the gray at my temples like Reed
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  Speaker 1: Richards from Fantastic four.
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  Speaker 2: What do they call those polly walnuts in and they
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  Speaker 2: call them wings? Actually some people dye them that way
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  Speaker 2: on purpose. Well, it's like a thing. Yeah, Polly talks
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  Speaker 2: about getting his wings done, and it's like it's like
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  Speaker 2: maybe an Italian kind of thing, a little bit dated,
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  Speaker 2: but very funny for that character. But the ancient Egyptians
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  Speaker 2: used kind of, like you said, to dye their hair
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  Speaker 2: this reddish brown color. And it certainly there was an
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  Speaker 2: aspect of max sking, you know, the signs of aging,
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  Speaker 2: because we know the Egyptians were a pretty vain people,
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  Speaker 2: and I think that's too much of a hot take.
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  Speaker 2: But it was also like kind of a societal flex
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  Speaker 2: in a way too, a way of differentiating the haves
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  Speaker 2: from the have nots. It was popularized, as often the case,
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  Speaker 2: by a great ruler, a very prominent figure, Pharaoh Rameses
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  Speaker 2: Rameses rather the Great. A nineteen seventy six study of
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  Speaker 2: his mummified remains concluded that he did not, in fact
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  Speaker 2: have black hair, but rather.
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  Speaker 3: Red or auburn hair. What a flex.
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  Speaker 2: That's very interesting. So wait, he had black hair, like
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  Speaker 2: when it was? He was his hair naturally red or auburn?
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  Speaker 2: Is that what they're saying?
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  Speaker 3: What?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was it was natural? Like how I'm a
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  Speaker 1: semi ginger? Dave Walker, did we call it. Yeah, it's
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  Speaker 1: being a not quite ginger was a huge social flex.
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  Speaker 1: Really at that time, you were associated with royalty, you
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  Speaker 1: were associated with the deity of the desert sands, Set,
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  Speaker 1: who was not a bad guy at that time. Going
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  Speaker 1: back to our earlier song of Ice and Fire Habsburg jokes,
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  Speaker 1: this pharaoh in particular probably got his red hair via genetics.
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  Speaker 1: His father had also been born as a guy with
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  Speaker 1: red or auburn hair. The issue is that they wanted
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  Speaker 1: to maintain that red hair can go gray early, and
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  Speaker 1: gray at that time meant you were running towards the grave.
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  Speaker 1: So you always wanted to have your hair unique and
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  Speaker 1: you wanted it to be a statement. You could also,
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  Speaker 1: at this time in ancient Egypt, use indigo as a
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  Speaker 1: dye to achieve that kind of blue black, silky shade.
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  Speaker 1: Or sure you could go blonde. Yeah, I guess.
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  Speaker 2: That's what I was a little confused about. I'm trying
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  Speaker 2: to find some more specific mentions. But the indication was
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  Speaker 2: that it was thought that Ramses had black hair, but
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  Speaker 2: in fact he had red or auburn hair that was
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  Speaker 2: genetically inherited from his father, who was named after Set.
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  Speaker 2: You know, for this this unique tray, this familial trade.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm guessing that perhaps he used a he died
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  Speaker 2: over that.
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  Speaker 1: Co I think as he went gray, he died over it. Okay, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: I got it.
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  Speaker 2: I'm just wondering if he was using indigo, because certainly,
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  Speaker 2: if you already got the red and people are using
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  Speaker 2: this stuff to get the red fakely, he'd be just
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  Speaker 2: rocking it all naturale. But I guess you're right he
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  Speaker 2: could have used the hanna to cover up some of
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  Speaker 2: those grays. And of course, if anyone's ever messed with
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  Speaker 2: turmeric in the kitchen, you know that that spice can
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  Speaker 2: stain your fingers pretty bright yellow pretty quick. And that
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  Speaker 2: was actually used to create kind of a quasi blonde
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  Speaker 2: shade of yellow.
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  Speaker 3: And we got to think too, they didn't really have chemical.
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  Speaker 2: Lightning techniques yet at this point, so it's not going
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  Speaker 2: to be the same like platinum blonde type look as
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  Speaker 2: we're going to get to a little further down the line.
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  Speaker 2: So by three twenty three BC, ancient Egypt, Rome and
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  Speaker 2: Greece were kind of co occupying the Greco Roman period
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  Speaker 2: collectively and contributing various bits, you know, to culture and
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  Speaker 2: history with a lot of parallel thinking going on as well.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, absolutely, Look there's another great and this guy
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  Speaker 1: is named Alexander, the Great, super humble dude Greek general
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  Speaker 1: conquered Egypt. When he dies, he's got an employee, a
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  Speaker 1: real up and comer named Ptolome related to Cleopatra, and
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  Speaker 1: takes over Egypt. Everything carries on for about three hundred
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  Speaker 1: years until Julius Caesar has the worst work meeting of
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  Speaker 1: his life. Then Cleopatra loses control of Egypt in a
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  Speaker 1: battle to the Romans because she chose the wrong side,
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  Speaker 1: and that post Caesar power vacuum these cultures. The reason
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  Speaker 1: we're telling you this, folks, is that these cultures reach
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  Speaker 1: a confluence of hair dye. The ancient Greeks and Romans
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  Speaker 1: look at this jet black hair that most people are
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  Speaker 1: rocking in Egypt, and they go, oh, man, this is
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  Speaker 1: so cool. Let's be like the cool people. And then
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  Speaker 1: they make a series of just terrible choices in creating
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  Speaker 1: their hair dye. Can we name some of the ingredients here?
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  Speaker 3: We can?
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  Speaker 2: And I just want to say, I think maybe where
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  Speaker 2: I was getting off with the whole Ramsey's hair color
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  Speaker 2: thing was that, Yeah, it's really the good points that
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  Speaker 2: you make ben Egyptians were typically born with jet black hair,
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  Speaker 2: so for Rameses to have that red hair was super
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  Speaker 2: unusual and remarkable and perhaps even what people looked to
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  Speaker 2: in wanting to.
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  Speaker 3: Use that hennah to kind of match that freak, you
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  Speaker 3: know what I.
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  Speaker 1: Mean, divinely inspired. Also, I like the nomenclature, match that freak.
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  Speaker 1: That's what the Romans were trying to do. They mixed
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  Speaker 1: lead oxide, bad stuff, calcium hydroxide water. This is the
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  Speaker 1: first permanent black hair dye. This is not that stuff
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  Speaker 1: you would buy at gadzooks or a hot topic.
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  Speaker 2: And we know even today that a lot of hair
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  Speaker 2: lightning products and hair dyes can be pretty gnarly. You
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  Speaker 2: gotta be careful, you know, and you got to have
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  Speaker 2: a professional do it. You can literally set your hair
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  Speaker 2: on fire, yes, if you're not careful, yes.
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  Speaker 1: And you can fry your You can fry your scalp.
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  Speaker 1: The thing is, neurology was not really a science at
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  Speaker 1: this point, so the formula these Greeks and Romans cooked
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  Speaker 1: up was bad for you. It could cause brain damage,
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  Speaker 1: It would corrode your scalp eventually. Without being neurologists, the
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  Speaker 1: Greco Romans figured this out and they said, all right,
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  Speaker 1: here's what we're gonna do, a much more healthy option.
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  Speaker 1: We're gonna ferment leeches in vinegar, and we're going to
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  Speaker 1: apply that so that we look more look like an Egyptian.
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  Speaker 2: No you want to They're definitely the cool kids. They're
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  Speaker 2: definitely the trendsetters of history at this point, leaving behind
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  Speaker 2: a lot of pretty cool stuff that got kind of,
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  Speaker 2: you know, styled on.
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  Speaker 3: Let's just sit later on down the line, dude.
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  Speaker 1: Also, some of the Greeks, who were obviously trying to
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  Speaker 1: be edgy, I guess, trying to do their met Gallas stuff,
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  Speaker 1: they leaned into their lighter hair. To your excellent note
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  Speaker 1: about lightning hair color, they used potassium pollen and crushed
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  Speaker 1: yellow flower petals to kind of make their hair lighter.
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  Speaker 1: They made a paste or really, if we're being honest,
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  Speaker 1: a poultice, because we love that.
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  Speaker 2: Weird Hannah would be similarly thick and pasty, and I
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  Speaker 2: think it would honestly be almost something that you would
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  Speaker 2: apply to the hair, because without bleaching it, you're not
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  Speaker 2: You can't dye black hair a color. It just doesn't
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  Speaker 2: really work. It doesn't take. That's why you have to
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  Speaker 2: bleach it first. So I'm wondering if they would rub
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  Speaker 2: this stuff in their hair. And the color kind of
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  Speaker 2: came from the fact that this was like in there. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: the salt is reacting with the keratin in the hair.
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  Speaker 2: They knew the process, they didn't have the same words
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  Speaker 2: we have for it now, and they knew that the
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  Speaker 2: sunshine would touch the hair when you had this pasty
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  Speaker 2: stuff on it. It's kind of like how red points out.
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  Speaker 2: It's kind of like how if you park a car
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: in the sun for a long enough time. Yeah, the
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: energy from the sun will have an effect on the paint.
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  Speaker 2: So you can use the sun to like expose photographic
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  Speaker 2: plates and things like that, you know, I mean, like
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  Speaker 2: whatever you know obviously, But if you leave say a
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  Speaker 2: drawing out like on a on a piece of regular
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  Speaker 2: art paper long enough, it will lighten over a time.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And now fast forward Greeks Egyptians. Sorry, guys, the Romans
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  Speaker 1: are running stuff now. And when the Romans are running stuff,
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  Speaker 1: they steal from the Egyptians. They steal from the Greeks.
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  Speaker 1: This is not a hot take. This is how their
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  Speaker 1: culture worked. They started creating this one percent or class
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  Speaker 1: in a different way, such that if you are a
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  Speaker 1: woman of significant means or a person of significant means, honestly,
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  Speaker 1: you got blonde hair, you want to look blonde, right,
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  Speaker 1: you want to stay blonde, And so if you have
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  Speaker 1: the means at this point in time, you will apply
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  Speaker 1: literal powdered gold with a special comb so you get
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  Speaker 1: a sparkly hair.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know if you know it's been
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: but a hair glitter is apparently back in a big way.
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  Speaker 2: It was big and I think the late nineties and
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: early two thousands, and apparently that movie Honora kind of
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: brought it back into fashion a little bit. So this
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: is like the og hair glitter, very very expensive hair glitter.
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  Speaker 3: Are you doing hair glitter?
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  Speaker 2: Not?
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  Speaker 3: I No, glitter is insidious. I mean, if it's around,
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  Speaker 3: you get it there on you.
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  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, we don't even want to mention it. It's
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  Speaker 1: like saying the quist's name thrice.
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  Speaker 2: I learned a really funny term recently. It's called divorce glitter.
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  Speaker 2: It's like something women who are going on dates in
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  Speaker 2: order to ward off married men who are lying to them,
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  Speaker 2: They wear glitter so that it gets on the men
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  Speaker 2: and then their wives will know that they've been stepping
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  Speaker 2: out on them.
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  Speaker 1: Well, first off, I am impressed, and secondly, that's really
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  Speaker 1: sad that you can't trust people.
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  Speaker 2: It is said, but divorce glitter, you gotta. It's a
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  Speaker 2: trap and you deserve it, you heal. But there's another
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  Speaker 2: In addition to the gold powder, there was like you know,
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  Speaker 2: that was only for the one percent of the one percent,
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  Speaker 2: as you mentioned, Ben, but for those in that lower
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  Speaker 2: echelon of society.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they weren't really rocking the gold powder.
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  Speaker 2: They were basically using a lie, right, more or less,
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  Speaker 2: with ash with vinegar and soap liquor. Isn't that basically
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  Speaker 2: lie to a degree? It's some it's it's something along
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: those lines. Yeah, ash and soap liquor.
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  Speaker 1: Imperium romatum, it was called right, it's uh, it's weird
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  Speaker 1: and it did have a bad smell and it did
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  Speaker 1: burn people's skin. Also, if you left it on your
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  Speaker 1: head too long, your hair would become brittle. It would
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  Speaker 1: start falling out or breaking when you touched it. So,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: of course, as we mentioned in the very first episode
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: of Ridiculous History, low these several years ago, wigs come
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: into play. The fancy version is the Peruke.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: Remember that episode.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: I do, But Ben, I have to ask you a question. Yeah,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: do you wear wigs?
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: No? Have you won wigs for costumes? Yes?
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: That's not actually George Washington in those videos.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Will you wear wigs? I don't think so.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's me.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: It may be, and I don't get to my last question,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: which is when will you wear wigs?
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Sorry? Oh no, what about you? What about you know?
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: I bet this is a delightful exchange between Elijah Wood
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: and the other dude from who played one of his
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Hobbit buddies. Apparently he the guy that was in Lost.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: He apparently was punking Elijah Wood because it was like
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: a phone only interview with a German journalist.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: And he's a talking to will you wear wigs? I
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: guess the ends it with when will you wear winks?
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: I hear you?
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: But you look great in that George Washington wig. Ben,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: you strike a dashing figure and wigs are really a
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: cool thing, and there's still very much around today as
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: a fashion statement, especially folks in the drag community and beyond.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, you can really say a lot with a wig.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Not to mention the theatrical aspect of.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: It, yeah.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And back in this time period, wiggs were especially I
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: don't want to be a jerk about it, but wigs
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: were for sex workers in some communities because they would
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: have these yellow haired wigs that would let prospective customers know, hey,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the store is open.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Lit wink wink, not non Yeah.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And that comes to us from Devin Hopp
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: writing for Birdie The Extraordinary History of Hair Color. People
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: liked blondes, dude, People liked blonde hair, especially in vettics.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: And it's interesting because we get obviously into some pretty
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: gnarly racist tropes when it comes to.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: Blonde hair, blue eyes, airyan kind of stuff.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: So it is interesting that this early on there is
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: this sort of obsession with those things, right.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. According to the Journal of the
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: American Academy of Dermatology, by the fifteen hundreds, female identifying
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: folks in vetics had a pensiont for bleaching their hair
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: in the sun, often wearing broad brimmed hats without a
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: crown when sitting out on their rooftop. Verandas I have
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: a question for you, nol broad brimmed hat without a crown,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: is that just like a visor that goes around.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I think it is, dude, which is interesting and I
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: gotta wonder too. I'd love to see some stats from
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: this era about skin cancer. I certainly don't think people
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: were wearing sunscreen right, right.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: We're still before neurology and we're before dermatology. So if
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: we fast forward a little bit further, it's the seventeenth
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: century in England and people are not as into blonde hair.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: They want to have dark hair. It's associated with youth.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: So women would make a a paste. See it called
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: a potion, but I think it's a paste elderberries and
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: red wine. You could also use radish extract to get
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: that red hair.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: Again, just a quick question.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: A poultice would be when you're starting to add more
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: solid materials like leaves.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: And sticks and stuff.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. Gosh, I'm still what
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: trying to remember what that temporary hair dye was in
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: gad zooks or a hot topic.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, we're gonna get to that. Well, it's not temporary.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: We're gonna get to the kind of I guess og
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: funky hair color. But there certainly I know what you're
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: talking about, and there was a temporary solution, you know,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: for folks that didn't want to go the full nine.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: But unfortunately, you know, for all the good intentions and
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: fashionistaeness of it all, if that's the word, this stuff
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: was still very, very toxic.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: One hundred percent.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: You know, people were not experts in lead either. We're
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: going to go to further fast forward, the chemically challenged
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: origins of modern hair dye. It's eighteen fifty six. Malaria
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: is very much in play. There's a thing called queenine quinine.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: How do you say it?
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: I sometimes say quinine.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: I've heard it many different ways, though I don't think
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: there's I think it's totally dealer's choice. Still learning English
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: as brothers, we all are. But yeah, quinnying, we know,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: as you know. I think that's probably the little fun
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: fact people often drop about this.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: It is what makes tonic water taste the way it
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: does tonic.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: So yeah, your gin and tonic does have quiney in it,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: or at least it used to. But it is a
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: very important remedy for malaria, which was, like you said,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: wide rife at the time.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I love the phrase wide rife, So okay, it comes
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: from this substance, comes from the trees in southeast Asia.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: So it's a it's a real pickle to get this
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: stuff out and derive it and make it oh from
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the sourcer, right, yeah, yeah, you got it. So there's
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: this guy named William Henry Perkin. He is eighteen years old.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: He'll start.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a chem student, and he says, look, I
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: got to make some alternative to this substance so that
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: more people can have it. He was not successful in
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: making an anti malarial treatment, but he did accidentally create
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: another compound from coal tar, mauvine. It becomes the first
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: successful synthetic hair dye or dye is regular dye.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: He should have been on our list of well, I mean,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: we wouldn't happen for this discussion, but we did an
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: episode recently on accidental inventions, and this is certainly one
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: of the Like you said, derived from coldtar, this stuff
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: is actually called mauvine. It also was referred to as
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: analine purple. And it was marketed in a burst of
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: genius kind of to take this byproduct, this trash product.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: And sell it. Weave it into gold not gold powder.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: It was sold as the first mass produced, commercially available
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: synthetic hair dye.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, ed at the beginning, it was mostly used for
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: dyeing fabric, not hair, and Perkin.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Things were a little prim and proper during this, like
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: funky colors. We're kind of right out.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Killed me not to remember the name of that temporary
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: hair dye anyway, So our buddy Perkin, he is a kiddo,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: as you said, Noel, He has professors, and one of
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: his professors is a guy named doctor August Hoffman, and
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Hoffman looks at his student's invention and he creates a
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: color changing molecule called here we go.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: Max.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Parafinyl diaman.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: Is called.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you, para fenneline diamine para diamine Me.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what is it? Ballerina?
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: So okay, this is the foundation for most permanent hair
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: dyes today and today still yeah, thanks again to Birdie.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: Our source on this.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Uh nol, Can you introduce us to the first guy
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: who figured out how to make hair dye that we
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: got poisonous?
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: That'd be cool. Let's figure that one out.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Eugene Shuller nineteen o seven, a French chemist who did
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: invent the first non toxic. I love that term, like
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: they used to print it on stuff all the time.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, non toxic like it used to be on
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: like magic markers. You know, I wonder if that term
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: has fallen out of favor, because it's sort of like
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: everything should be assumed at this point to be non toxic.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: But I guess that's not true.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: It's it's like when you go to a gas station
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: in the U s assign unlet a gas, or you
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: drive by a school and it says drug free school zone. Well,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: where's the cool zone, Where's the cool school? Yeah, exactly
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: too cool for school.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Was French chemists Eugene Shuller who did invent the first
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: non toxic hair dye in the sense that it wasn't
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: lead based, so it was a synthetic hair dye had
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: a range of subtle hues, which in the Victorian era
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: was key because they weren't trying to go hog wild
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: and tissi and snooky themselves, like we're going to get
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: to it a bit. The idea of using synthetic hair to, however,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: was not particularly well known and it hadn't achieved popularity
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: among French women yet, so he was going to have
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: to kind of spread the word if he wanted to
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: capitalize on this development.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Yo, man, he is exactly like Edward Burnett. He is,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: he is pushing the problem then shows up to solve.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So he starts a company called this is the
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: real name in English, the French company of Inoffensive hair Dyes.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: That is, it is so inoffensive man.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Which Benign later translates to or changes.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: To laoreal loreal, which I'm not sure that does that. Actually, No,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: it's a homonym, right for a popular hair style which
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: is orial at the time, a play on words of
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: oriole and halo. So it is a made up word,
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: but it just boy, does this sound fancy and French?
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Doesn't that he kind of was onto something already, right.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: You know, we're from the United States. We speak English,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: we're still learning it candidly. But I would say that
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: anytime we see a word with an apostrophe in there,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: you know, and a nice string of vowels, we automatically
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: go oh, fancy, oh hoggin DAWs.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: Indeed, which is also a totally BS word. It is
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: made with all those It just looks proper.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: I don't even think of Germans as like being particularly
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: up on ice cream, which is an odd choice, and
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: I think of that more as maybe like a French
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: thing as well.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Dude, just soft note the Austrians. I never want to
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: go back to Austria again.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: But the time they do, how did they hurt you?
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Well, well, unrelated outside of the scope of this cowgo.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Those guys love ice cream, Yeah, I had weirdly into it.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: I had some really good ice cream in Berlin as well.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of the place, but when
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I grew up in Germany, one thing I remember and
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I'll never.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Forget is this thing called spaghetti ice which is yeah, yeah,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: I think we talked about it before. It's like ice
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: cream that looks like spaghetti noodles, and then it's got
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: covered in strawberry sauce that looks like Mariner.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: It's super weird. Yeah, it's a texture thing. It's interesting.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: So here we are.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: We just gave you the quick skinny on the giant Laoreal.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: It is worth over two hundred and thirty eight billion
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: US dollars today.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Which is I believe rivaling, if not a little surpassing,
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: the number we mentioned the top for the entire hair
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: dye industry, which was two hundred and no twenty three billion.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: That's for hair dye alone.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Loreal has its little Myts, Little Glove, Myts and all
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: kinds of stuff right and owns subsidiaries and spinoff brands
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: and all of that as well.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: And they all all the success began with that hair
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: dye innovation kind of how you know, Nintendo started as
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: a playing card and bicycle company.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: Pivoted with the times.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: They pivoted with the times, nol and look, now we're
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: outside of World War what we see that there is
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: finally suffrage for women in some countries. There are more
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: employment opportunities, there are options for birth control. So people
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: are feeling like they're more recognized as people, they have
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: more agency to express themselves. And this is where we
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: see the flapper movement leaning into hair dye as an expression, right,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: a statement. So you know, now you don't have to
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: be scared of having bright red hair or platinum blonde hair.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: For sure, and while not toxic, you know, poisonous let's
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: just say, I mean certainly would be if you ingested it.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: But these still did contain irritants that would, like you said, Ben,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: could fry out your scalp, frizz out your hair, do
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: long term damage to it, things like oxidizing and alkalizing
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: agents such as hydrogen peroxide an ammonia and hydrogen peroxide,
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: of course, is something that we still hear about today
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: as part of some of these hair but as we know,
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: folks are often willing to suffer for fashion and roll
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: the dice in order to look cool, to look fashionable. However,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: it wasn't until nineteen thirty that the actress Gene Harlow
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: popularized probably one of the most gnarly and damaging processes
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: to date, the bleaching of the hair.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Gene Harlow the first Platinum Blonde, and we have
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: to go to Howard Hughes, who was the manager of
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Gene Harlow at the time. So they are working on
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: a rom com a romantic comedy called Platinum Blonde. And
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: for this Howard Hughes, in classic soulless producer fashion, says,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: we need something that really pops, and so uh he
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: goes deep into uh figuring out how to make her
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: the blondest of blonde. After Platinum Blonde the film releases,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Hughes is, Uh, he's kind of up his own butt
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: about this. He's very arrogant and proud of it.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: So he's a bit of an oddball that Howard Hughes saying,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: if anyone's ever seen the Aviator, he had his hands
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: in a lot of different stuff.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: And his fingernails were long. He hated, he hated nail clippers.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Piano or the milk jugs or something like that.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: The guy was troubled and near the end, it is
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: definitely a bad downwards spir for old Howard Hughes. At
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: the time, he is a Hollywood magnate man of Mogul, Aviator,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: et cetera. And we do need to point out that
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: what the medium in which this hair dye needed or
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: this hair coloring needed to pop was black and white.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: It had a certain contrast that lent itself.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: To the way black and white film looked, and that
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: differentiated her from like, you know, the average sort of
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: more mop water blonde, as Wren describes it in her
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: incredible outline brief Howard Hughes, Actually you can also add
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: to his list of accomplishments kind of a.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Hair dye an entrepreneur.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: I guess he was working on mixing up the right
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: combo to get that look that they were trying to
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: She Yeah, it was definitely yelling at the people who
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: knew what they were doing.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: That's true. Back, that's a good point I'm giving Howard
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: Waits so much sort of a you know, sort of
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: a ep. He was delegating harshly.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: It was delegated aggressive.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: But where do they land, Ben, It's a really odd
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: concoction of materials.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they make this mix of hydrogen peroxide, sodium hypochlorite, bleach, ammonia,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: and essentially laundry soap. And after platinum blonde releases, Hughes
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: is so into this effect. He offers ten thousand US
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: dollars to anyone who can replicate the look of platinum
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: blonde gene Harlow. And we have to do an inflation calculator.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: Maybe it booop.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Ten thousand dollars at that time is roughly two hundred
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: and seven thousand dollars in twenty twenty five money.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: And he wasn't not expecting to have to pay that
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: money out. No, wonder what that bizarro list of ingredients
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: that you rattled off, including what was it then, lux
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: laundry flakes.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, the last word in laudry soap.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: This is super bad for our hapless gene Harlowe. It's
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: so toxic that later researchers think it may have this
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: treatment for her hair may have contributed to her death
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: from kidney failure at We are sorry to report folks
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the young age of twenty six.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Was she a drinker too? I'm not trying to victim Lamy.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: I'm just wondering if there are any exacerbating it seems
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: like everybody was in those days.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: What is it for kidneys? Right? I know alcohol is
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: bad for the.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: List, it's bad for liver. You're right, I don't know.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: There could be alcohol.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: Alcohol can basically take out age.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: It ain't good for kid Kidney's are purifiers as well.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: It's not great. We're saying kidneys make water not poisonous
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: to humans. That's it.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, kidneys are the little filters that you can't change.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Out right exactly. Yeah, So that is sad rip Gene
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Marlow for sure. However, Howard Hughes's influence carried on into
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: probably the blonde bombshell that most people think of, Marilyn
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Marilyn Monroe, Marrion Monroe.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, from earlier and now we fast forward once more.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: This is how we're wrapping up the episode. It's nineteen fifty.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: There's a guy named Lawrence Gelb. He's got a wife
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: named Jing Claire. They create the first single step hair
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: dye that can lighten your hair without also destroying your
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: head and possibly your kidneys.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Man, Man, you were delivering that with such intensity, I
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: was sure they were gonna pull off some sort of heists.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: But they sort of did though, a heist of young
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: women's money. The couple's company, Claire All, you might have
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: heard still around today, and in fact, our research associate
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Wren is a real booster of that brand, uses that
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: brand of hair dye, and it's not a shame to
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: admit it, she says. Their flagship product was called Miss
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Claire All Color Bath and became a huge hit with
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: housewives because it could kind of boost their natural hues
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: hair colors without being too obvious and making it look
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: like they were trying too hard. So it really was
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: more of like a an enhancement than a total makeover, right.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I'm doing that because I don't love
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: the name.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: I get the history the color bath.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just I don't know, man, Miss Claire All
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Color Bath is whatever worked for the time.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Sure it did, And of course Toren's point, Claire All
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: very much still around, So who are we.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: To cast dispersion?
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: I think another great point Red makes here is that
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: women at the time, in post World War two had
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: experienced a greater degree of agency in US society, and
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: then people in power try to pull the rug from
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: beneath them. So the idea here becomes a concept of
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: self expression and retaining one's agency. Now you don't have
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: to go to a specialist an expert. You can you
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: can mess with your hair in your own house. Still
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: haired eye is not a mainstream beauty product at this point,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: and advertising companies pull another Bernets, just like our French
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: buddy who created loreal, and they try to normalize this,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: and they say, look, you know, nobody can tell if
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: you're actually using this. There's a nineteen fifty six clareal
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Ad that just says does she or doesn't she?
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: Which is she or won't she?
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Bothers nice, which is bothersome nole because it reminds me
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: of maybe it's makeup. Maybe it's Mabeline exactly yeah, or no,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: well maybe she's born with it.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: They may have evolved it, but that's the that's the
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: the intent behind it.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: You got it, you got it, And we see the
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: results over time. In the nineteen fifties, something like less
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: than ten percent of women in the US eye their hair,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: or something between you know, four and seven percent. By
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: the seventies, that figure has risen to a little north
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: of forty percent.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: So by twenty fifteen, an estimated seventy percent of American
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: women we're using hair dye, according to CNN Women and Men. Now,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: of course it is you know, all bets are off.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: There's all kinds of new techniques and you know, gradient
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: dye jobs and multi colored things, split dye.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, like, it's so cool.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: My kid is a huge fan and changes their hair
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: every couple of weeks, and I am here for it.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: And this is in no small part thanks to Titian Snooky.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: We're getting to them Bellamo. That was my first exposure
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: to kind of punk rock hair color. I actually was
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: known to have some funky hair colors when I was
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: a little youthful upstart myself. These were two punk sisters
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: which use that in the positive turn.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: They weren't saying.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: Punk kids from the rocks, and they founded a company
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: called Manic Panic.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: That's the one man. It's not temporary, it's highly permanent.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: No I'm thinking of a different thing that but manic panic.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Yeahic panic is the big one.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Tish Snooky's Manic Panic is how it's still branded today.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: They started this creative hair color line back in nineteen
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: seventy seven.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: Mm hmm. Yeah. And this is.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Hair is fashion, right. This is not meant to impersonate
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: a natural hair color. This is to say I have
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: chosen bright blue or something like that.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: And we have to note again the first thing we
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: said at the top, your body is your own. You know,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: your choices are your own, and that's a very important thing.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: So don't let people bully you about it, you know,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: embrace your impirans. If you choose to dye your hair,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: at least you won't get lead poisoning, now.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: That's for sure.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: And I did want to say I remember very distinctly
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: growing up, at least one of the schools that I
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: went to, it was not allowed to have funky colored hair.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: It was very much for boten, which is kind of
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: interesting we think back on it now it doesn't seem
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: to be the case, at least to the school that
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: my kid goes to. But that was a form of
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: kind of shutting down a form of creative expression because
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: I can't think.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: But what are they going to say? It's distracting, Like,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: give me a break.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: It just seems to me to be a way of
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: keeping the drones in line.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and everybody's childhood is unique. Every person is unique.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: We hope that you found this episode as fascinating as
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: we did. We are not beauticians, We are not a
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: cosmetologist nor hair dressers, but we are big fans of
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: ridiculous history. We hope you are as well. Big big
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: thanks to everyone for tuning in. Big thanks to our
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: super producer, mister Max Williams, as well as our research
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: associate for this, the legendary Wren.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Indeed, this is a really fun one, and we actually
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: have a bunch of tangents and trivia that we're not
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: going to get to today that we are absolutely gonna
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: snip out and put in a upcoming kind of compilation
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: episode that I'm very excited to get to. Huge thanks
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: to Chris Frasciotis and needs Cheff codes here in Spirit
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: not the strickle on the quiz storin Jay Bahama Sjacob's
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: the Puzzler.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Big big thanks to our rude dudes over ridiculous crime
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: who recently made an appearance on the Puzzler. So no spoilers,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: not going to tell you the answers to the puzzles
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Bahamas poses, but you should tune in. It is a
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: treat as always to the hear suit and non here
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: suit alike. Thanks for joining us, you know, send us
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: your weirdest haircuts. Have you seen that subreddit beat me
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: here Max, just my shit up?
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: I don't know about that one. Check it out, check
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: it out, see you next step folks.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,