1940’s Hairstyles – Change your color and become a star!
For some famous actresses of the 1930s ad 1940s, changing their hair color could turn them in to stars. For others it wasn’t such a good idea, even if the role supposedly demanded it.
Our roving time traveling beauty columnist Carolyn Van Wycks reports from 1940.
1940’s Hollywood Girls let color go to their heads!
HEADS are coming out from under their hats more than ever this season. Coiffure styles this year of 1940 are simpler, with looser waves. But now, as it was ten years ago, coloring your hair is very much in again and Hollywood stars are taking the lead. For some, the act of dying their hair could change their fortunes considerably!
If you haven’t though that question of color can make all the difference in the world to a girls career, just consider the case of Joan Bennett, who changed overnight from a little blonde ingenue into a sophisticated smouldering brunette. Actresses have always known how important the color of one’s hair can be – not only for characterization, but for personality. As you horizons broaden and your experiences deepen in significance, your outlook changes, your temperament takes on a different tinge.
Rita Hayworth – Bad hair Dye – red to blonde ???
Unfortunately, nature takes little outward cognizance of these changes. The mousey little girl with drab tresses may turn into a flaming personality almost overnight, but does her hair turn Titian? The baby-faced blonde of school days may develop into a mature, sophisticated woman, but does she assume a raven hue?
As with makeup – hair color stamps a girls personality.
We change our makeup as our personalities change. The flamboyant high-school girl softens her shades of rouge and lipstick as she settles down to a more serene life. The quiet little scholar learns to use cosmetics with a free but expert hand as she adapts herself to her first job! They aren’t actresses, but they are every bit as much aware that their makeup stamps their personalities.
Then why shouldn’t they change the color of their hair as well? After all tints and hair rinses are cosmetics too, and every woman ( particularly at heartbreak age, when those telltale grey hair appear) should feel free to avail herself of the dramatic color ranges on offer!
Olivia DeHavilland – Bad Hair Dye.
For Hollywood’s most glamorous, hair color changes are often demanded for their role. Some of these changes, as in dear Ms Bennetts case have stuck; for others they are truly horrendous and best forgotten, as with Olivia DeHavilland’s brief encounter with blonde.
“There are few girls,” observes Ginger Rogers, who has had to change the color of her hair at different phases of her career ( though we all agree that her flaming red is the most becoming to her) and, most recently, for her poignant role in “The Primrose Path, ” who can afford to pass up the opportunity offered by at least a special rinse after every shampoo. No matter how glorious the color of hair may have been originally, there are so many factors – too much indoor work or outdoor pollution – that dim the radiance! I still follow my mothers advice of brushing my hair out every night for half an hour to keep it clean between shampoos!”
So, the next time you quibble that ” you don’t have a studio hairdresser at your elbow” – just picture our Ginger vigorously brushing out her hair every evening!
This was so much fun to read. I wish people still talked like this. It makes my heart yearn for a time in which I have never lived (outside of my own personal mindscape).