Note 192 — Chapter XIII · MEN'S DRESS.

Some few had the courage to wear their own hair, and here is a hairdresser's advertisement on the subject:[192] 'Next door to the Golden Bell in St. Bride's Lane Fleet Street, Liveth Lydia Beecroft, who Cutteth and Curleth Ladies, Gentlemen's, and Childrens Hair; and selleth a fine Pomatum, which is mixt with Ingredients of her own making, that if the Hair be never so Thin, it makes it grow Thick; if Short, it makes it grow Long: If any Gentlemens or Childrens Hair be never so Lank, she makes it Curle in a little time like a Periwig. She waits on Ladies, if desir'd, on Tuesdays and Fridays; the other Days of the Week, she is to be spoken with at Home.' So that we see the 'Professors' of those days were very similar to their congeners of ours, and had invaluable nostrums—'prepared only by,' etc. Bear's grease used to be imported from Russia; but a spurious kind was also sold, made out of dog's, or goat's, fat, or rancid hog's lard. There were common, hard, black, and brown pomatums, to say nothing of powders and liquids for thickening the hair, principally made of burdock root and small beer, and a powder for cleansing the hair, made with cassia wood and white vitriol.