What was the hair used for that women put into the hair receivers?

-- Laurie Mansour (dreamcatcher farm@yahoo.com), April 01, 1999

Answers

We've had fun with this one, Laurie. My mother-in-law, a spritely 86, says her grandmother, who had the familiar long hair of the late Victorian era, used her hair receiver not for hair but for hair pins, both the simple metal ones and the dressier ivory examples as well. She specifically remembers being allowed, as a child, to select one or two of grandma's fancy hairpins to use on very special occasions. Even in the time of woven hair pictures and the like, it doesn't seem that a hair receiver would have held enough hair to make a difference, and a lock snipped for a locket probably was cut especially for the occasion. At least, that's the consensus here.

-- Charles Gardiner (cgard@rclink.net), April 06, 1999.

I've heard that the hair was used to make additional small hairpieces to make hair seem fuller. The hair was attached to pins or combs and then added when styling hair. These small hairpieces had a name, but I can't remember it.

-- a ifko (aifko@smcga.com), April 27, 1999.

My grandmother, who died in 1966 at age 86 said that the hair used from the hair receiver was used in a pincushion. The oils from the hair make the sewing needle slide throught the fabric easier.

-- Becky Lloyd (frankly.scarlet@att.net), October 19, 1999.