From ancient times until today, individuals as well as societies invested much of their time and money into growing, taking care of and styling their hair. And hair continues to bear multiple meanings, both personal and public. Hair defined gender, social class and age; hair could also carry erotic, religious and magical significance.
An Egyptian family with four daughters.
Wigs were widely used in ancient Egypt, the great cosmetics center of the ancient world, where they played a major role in the daily routine. However, while elite men and women wore wigs, the non-elite wore their natural hair which was a reddish-brown, in contrast to the wigs’ jet black hair.
Priests shaved their heads to avoid lice, and to be associated with ritual purity. High-ranking priests wore wigs which indicated their status, or appeared with shaven heads in an aim to emphasize their priestly role. And like the priests, elite men shaved their hair or wore a wig. The prestigious hairstyle for such men was shoulder-length, as the elite women wore their hair longer, and did not hide their hair, even when wearing a wig. Though unlike the priests, the elites wore their wig in an aim to hide signs of ageing, baldness or graying hair. Overall, wigs indicated higher status and displayed the power and control of the elite on the hair of others.
As early as 10,000 BCE in Egypt, both men and women were using dyes and paints to colour the hair, skin and body. In addition to henna, there were many recipes and cures for various hair problems. The ‘caster oil book’ of the Erbers Papyrus mentions the castor oil fruit plant as promoting hair growth in women. There are also recipes for gray and white hair, hair disorders and much more.
The Ebers Papyrus itself offered twelve medical remedies to treat the hair. If you were looking to fight your graying hair, one recipe calls for the blood of a black cow, tortoise shell, and the neck of the gabgu-bird cooked in oil. In another recipe, blood of a black calf, cooked with oil and applied on the hair. In addition, you may use the turtle’s shell and the vertebrae of a bird, cooked in oil. You can also take a donkey’s hoof and cook it with a female dog’s vagina, as well as a grip of salt and glue. Or black snake fat and manure worms, cooked in oil and applied several times. And if none of that was available, you could take a look at other hair coloring preparations or treatments involving the horn of a faw, the balls of crabsand, and the womb of a gabgu-bird with the egg as well. As another example, hair restorer prepared for the queen Schesch contained equal quantities of data blossoms, the heel of an Abyssinian greyhound, and asses’ hooves, boiled in oil. However, if you wished to maintain thick, dark, luscious locks, you just needed to mix the blood of a black ox with oil and apply it to the hair. It would be possible to mention even more exciting Egyptian recipes, however nowadays, we really do have better options.
The hairdresser Henut styles the hair of queen Nefru, ca. 2000 BC, Deir el-Bahari.
Ancient Greece was composed of hundreds of independent city-states where communities were separated geographically, like a network of communities with a common religion and language. With that being said, hair was a powerful symbol of growth associated with moisture and wetness (being the preconditions for any sort of growth). In fact, hair is an appropriate offering to kourotrophic deities, such as Apollo, Artemis, and the river gods correlated with the growth and maturation of children and adolescents.
In accordance with the complexity of society, hair was an essential means of communicating a person’s identity. Hair texture, from loose waves to tight curls, formed a distinctive characteristic of Greek identity which, in turn, was strongly contrasted with portrayals of non-Greeks. Similar to other ancient cultures, Greek hairstyles reflected how people recognized one another and their place within society. Hair rituals – i.e. growing and cutting for dedication, both sides of the act to honor a god – for youths in Greek society were complex and multi-layered because they needed to account for family status, gender, age, social class, transition points, and cult practices as well as associations with certain clubs and organizations, etc.
Despite the hair’s role as a reflection of societal norms, at the same time, hair served as a symbol of rebellion and challenged social norms to reflect activism and political statements.
Take a look at the late 5th century BC, where the youth with higher status in Athens wore their hair in the Spartan style as a rebellion against their parents’ generation and the ongoing Peloponnesian war. While Athenians wore their hair short, Spartans wore their hair long. Hair functioned as a symbol of maturity and the responsibilities that came with it. At the age of twelve, boys’ heads would be shaved, and around the age of twenty, stepping into manhood, they grew their hair long. Long hair was linked directly with the qualities desired in a Spartan male. Consequently, Spartan warriors grew their hair long and groomed before battle. Because if you’re gonna die, at least die pretty.
The ritual of cutting hair is symbol of the transition into adulthood – “coming of age” – that is to be found in many forms in ancient Greek society. During the Doric Period, a young bride would cut her hair on the day of her wedding as a symbol of submission to her husband. Should she be unfaithful to her husband, he will shave her head and turn her into a social outcast. Prior to marriage, Delian girls and boys cut their hair, in honor of Hyperborean maidens who died at Delos, and laid it on their tombs. In Sparta, brides shaved their heads and wore men’s costumes as part of the ceremony. In contrast, the Athenian brides would cut their hair before the wedding and offer it to the goddess Artemis or Athena. They washed and bound their hair up for the wedding and afterwards wore a crown or stephane and a special wedding veil, until they were introduced to the groom.
In ancient times, veils were important for many Greeks – the covering of a woman signified boundaries and limited sexual access to her body. On the other hand, Greek maidens often revealed more hair and wore it long as a sexually appealing feature.
The girls who were ready for marriage were transformed into women. It was considered a transition from child into a wife, and a transition from virginity, represented by the goddess Artemis, into heterosexuality, reflected by the goddess Aphrodite. There was a correlation between marriage and death in the ritual of cutting of the hair, as it was performed at weddings and at funerals and sacrifices alike.
Coloring hair was common, however natural hair was as socially important. Loss of hair and early baldness was an issue which came with the implication of various health problems. It is also worth noting that only female slaves wore their hair short. Free women had long hair, but could only wear it loose while they remained single, and as the Greeks considered a low forehead to be beautiful, bangs were softly draped to minimize the forehead. Generally it can be said that in the ancient Greece, men and women wore their hair more softly, the opposite of what we’ve seen in Egypt.
The Greek philosophers wrote on balance – heat and cold, moisture and dryness – and linked the growth of head hair to the abundance of moisture in this part of the body. This is consistent with the general contrast between wet and dry in Greek thought, the living perceived as “wet” and the dead as “dry”. Nevertheless, hair loss was not only a health concern, but was (prematurely and subsequently) strongly connected to the loss of power and authority.
This common thread of importance concerning hair and its loss is evidenced also in Imperial Rome.
Hair (including body hair) was an important means of expressing identity, and often signified the measure of a person’s Romanitas. Hairstyles were worn and changed often and through those hairstyles the Romans were able to demonstrate belonging to specific religious sects, ethnic groups, social classes, age groups and categories of sexuality.
The physical appearance of the hair itself differed from female and male. Just to provide a glimpse, in the Flavian period of the late 1st century AD, most men had trimmed hair, short on the crown, while women’s styles landed on the opposite extreme, wearing dramatic curls. During the decades that followed, a simple straight haircut with forehead bangs was popular with Trajanic men, while women wore towering locks. From the mid-2nd to the early 3rd century CE, the trend reversed. As a rule of thumb, however, men and women looked different; Roman women had longer hair than their male counterparts and did not wear their hair short or unstyled, as that was considered un-Roman, even barbaric.
Bust of a Flavian Woman (profile and back view), late 1st century A.D., Roman. Marble. The J. Paul Getty Museum.
There was a vast difference in the hairstyling for pre-adolescent girls, usually long hair falling loosely onto the back, compared to that for sexually mature women, who kept their long hair wrapped, tied, and braided. Despite increased hair exposure in the later periods, the veil – associated with modesty, purity, status and religion – was an essential part of Roman women’s dress during the Republican period and had become a key element by the late Roman period. Hence, Roman authors of that time period complained about the loss of the veil, equating it to the loss of social norms.
With so much emphasis on hair, baldness and hair loss was a large issue that concerned both men and women, as they were most often associated with slavery. Slaves were shaved by their owners to mark them as property, making scars from labor and fetters. For this reason, wigs became increasingly popular, as they helped with disguising baldness. During the Roman period, bald men and women were mocked and humiliated on a regular basis, regardless of their social status.
Generally speaking, since the Hellenistic period, artificial waves and hair piled up on the crown (so that the neck was left revealed) was particularly preferred. Wigs were sold in the market at the temple of Hercules in Rome, where the most popular wig color was blonde. Darker hair was sometimes important from as far as India, and wigs were imported from different corners of the ancient world. This trade represented Rome’s dominance.
Much like in other cultures, the Romans had many remedies for hair loss. Pliny the Elder suggested using the ashes of burnt sheep’s dung, with oil of cyprus and honey; or else the hoof of a mule of either sex, burnt to ashes and mixed with oil of myrtle. Another author, Varro, mentioned mouse dung (which he called “muscerda”) and the heads of flies, freshly applied, first rubbing the affected area with a fig-leaf. Some recommended the blood of flies, while others the ashes of burnt flies kneaded up with a woman’s milk and cabbage – or, in some instances, with honey only.
Nonetheless, hair loss wasn’t always viewed in a negative light, particularly not during the Roman Republic. Hair loss as a part of the natural aging process symbolized wisdom and experience, dignitas, gravitas and auctoritas. And yet, the positive connotations of hair loss as an aging sign, emphasized the negative view of premature hair loss. Even Caesar disguised his hair loss and tried everything in his power to reverse it. From growing his thinning mane long in the back and brushing it over his scalp, to home remedies consisting of ground-up mice, horse teeth and bear grease – which, by the way, was recommended to him by his lover Cleopatra. When all these attempts did not bear any fruit, he covered his scalp with a laurel wreath.
Coin, the Roman Republic, Laureate head of Julius Caesar
Social status was one of the main forms of identity expressed through hair. A complicated coiffure implied professional help had been sought out, particularly from the ornatrices, slaves specialized in hairdressing, although many had to settle for an ordinary slave. The work as an ornatrix could open doors and help those slaves climb high in the social rank. The professional ornatrix worked her way up, from assistant to senior stylist. That of course lives the gap for male critiques. Many did not like the fact that slaves could actually get rich and climb high socially just from dressing hair.
In addition, Roman authors associated the cost of hair products and the ornaments worn in the hair as the result of the personal immoderation that, in their eyes, was typical of women. On top of that, the female hairdresser stepped into an occupational role which was traditionally reserved for males – shaving and cutting men’s hair. Authors described different scenes of women attacking their hairdressers in an aim to stress the bad behavior and values of the women who owned ornatrices. Just as women would tear off the hair and clothes of their slaves when they’d made a mistake, others would beat their hairdressers for similar reasons. Among the stories recounted, you can find complaints about an old barber who became a rich man, and jokes about a self-employed female barber who might have been a prostitute by night.
Mosaic of Matrone at his toilet. National Museum of Bardo.
Olive oil, as well as other oils, is useful for smoothing hair and preventing frizz, holding hair in place, giving it sheen, keeping it healthy and stimulating growth. Perfumed oil is mentioned as a hair product used by men and women alike. Similarly as in ancient Egypt, henna was frequently used to make hair softer and thicker, and also for dying purposes. Expensive hairpins and hair ornaments with gold, silver, pearls, and jewels were worn by women. Hair care products, such as curling irons, combs, brushes, parting devices and mirrors, and coloring or styling products such as dyes, oils and perfumes, were in use by both sexes.
Hair coloring for men and women was commonly practiced and widespread among several social classes. The color palette varied from black to blonde, which was popular among citizens with darker skin. The dying process included water, milk, oil, vinegar or sour wine, as well as dying masks blended with wax that were left on the hair overnight. The coloring solvent could have different components as lead, iron, aluminium, clay, earthworm ashes or leeches in sour wine. Herbal products were used, among them cypress leaves, vetch, nuts, been pots, myrtle, acacia, mulberry, blackberry, elderberry or lavender and ashes from various plants.
For washing out all those wonderful ingredients from the hair, sapo, a Gallic / Germanic product was used – which, among other functions, fulfilled the role of today’s soap. Sapo contained animal fat mixed with ashes mainly from beech and hornbeam. Pliny the Elder, whose writings chronicle life in the 1st century A.D., describes soap as ‘an invention of the Gauls’. The word sapo, Latin for soap, was likely borrowed from an early Germanic language and is a cognate with Latin sebum – as the soap was manufactured from “tallow” and ashes. He also mentions its use in the treatment of scrofulous sores, as well as among the Gauls as a dye to redden hair, which the men in Germania were more likely to use than women.
The way that the hair was styled was a reflection of the social contract’s fulfillment. Additionally, there was a clear and direct connection between one’s physical appearance and one’s character & morals. Not obeying the norms of physical appearance was considered an aim to exceed the character & morals of the desired norm.
Arriving int0 the Byzantine period and early Christianity, there is much more use of veils and other hair coverings. Byzantine women, both married and unmarried, used head coverings as objects to protect their modesty, honor and dignity. Early Christian authors wrote and criticized women, both married and unmarried, and urged them to cover their heads not only at prayer, but as a general rule of dress. Covering the head during prayer was considered to be the moral choice – “fully armed” in faith. Moreover, covering the head of young girls helped control sexual passions at puberty and later on. Some saw the covering of the female head as a part of natural law & order.
Women working in a field (Radle, 2019, fig. 6)
Maidenhair, ladanum, wine, olive oil were mentioned in the works of Oribasiu, Aetius, Paul of Aegina, and Theophanes Chryssobalantes. Alexander of Tralles, who was one of the most eminent physicians in the Byzantine empire, believed that the causes of hair falling out were numerous, i.e. lack of supply of nutritious substances to the hairs, dense or few pores. He suggested baths and a dietetic regime, a planned and structured eating pattern, that is followed with the intention of improving nutrition to address certain health conditions.
He prohibited salt or heavy foods, as well as excess wine or sex. He also suggests numerous recipes for dying hair. For darkening the hair, acacia, nuts of the cypress tree, alum, flowers of copper, and iron filings in equal quantities sprinkled for a day with the urine of a boy, all used on the hair for 3 days – and just so you know, Alexander confirmed that he had used this recipe successfully(!?). For those who were looking for rapid blond dye, an overnight recipe which is rubbed into the scalp at night, including the sediment of wine, with all the fatty substances remaining in bathwater, mixed until a waxy consistency is reached. Et voilà, your hair is blond!
Baptistery wall painting, a procession of women in veils.
Both men and women of the Indu Valley grew long hair – black, luxurious, curly and silky were considered characteristics of beauty. Different hair styles changed according to age, sex, hierarchy, status, origin, traditions and customs followed by the family and their origin. As part of the bathing routine, men would rub oil into their hair. Men and women applied beeswax and ointments to their hair and used herbal shampoos, and soapnut, which helped with removing lice.
The use of shampoo and other hair care products is deeply rooted in the culture; a pot containing residues of amla, shikakai and soapnut was found to date back to 2750-2500 B.C. Shikakai was used to clean hair, prevent dandruff and promote hair growth; amla oil to treat hair and scalp problems; hibiscus to clean the hair and acts as a conditioner, stimulating thicker hair growth and preventing hair loss, as well as premature graying and scalp disorders. Other than mentioned above, arappu was another product which has been used to cleanse the hair.
Fresco from Ajanta, a scene from Mahajanaka Jataka. Ajanta Cave. 5th century C.E.
The Äyurvedic tradition of healing was developed in India and has been practiced for more than 3000 years.
It is an herbal medicine system deeply rooted in the philosophy of healthy living and proper balance in our physiological and psychological being. Many remedies have been indicated for hair growth, prevention of hair loss and premature graying, such as hair dyes and fragrant hair rinses and fumigants. Äyurvedic medicinal practice also prescribes hair tonics for luxurious hair growth, anti-lice medicine and remedies for baldness. It is interesting to note that there was even a society of hairdressers who were employed in the royal palace.
Black hair symbolized youth and hair dye was in common use. It was often perfumed with aromatic substances, but the scents also came from the ingredients used in the hair dye. The Bower Manuscript contained recipes of hair dyes which consisted mainly of metals, herbs and minerals. Since the 4th or 5th centuries, henna was widely in use both as a hair dye and in the art of mehandi, the ritual of applying henna to feet and hands, especially before Hindu weddings.
Hair took a major part in human lives, and since hair was so significant, baldness and scalp disorders concerned people across time, place and cultures.
Over the years, a very wide range of plant, animal and other materials have been tested and tried in attempt to cure it. Balding men and women have been mocked for centuries and treatments used by the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans, amongst others, were not very efficacious. With that, we do know that faulty dietary habits, lifestyle and stressful living, inappropriate nutrition or other exasperating factors, lead to depletion of the hair root’s functionality.
Since the ancient eras, people have been styling, dying and using herbs for cleaning, beautifying, and maintaining a healthier scalp and for hair growth. Plenty of shampoos are to be found nowadays, but due to the synthetic surfactants which are added to their formulas for foaming and cleansing, their regular use could lead to dryness, hair loss, and irritation to the scalp. On the other hand, herbal shampoos that have been used in the past as well as today cleanse the scalp and the hair and are much more eco- friendly.
Historically, hair was not only a means of personal expression but also a marker of social status, gender, and religious significance. In ancient Egypt, haircare included the use of wigs and natural oils, with elaborate rituals enacted to signify social hierarchies and life stages. Ingredients like castor oil and henna were common, and haircare remedies often involved complex mixtures of natural and animal-derived products.
Modern haircare has embraced the advancements in technology and the understanding of hair science, while still valuing natural ingredients. Today’s products are designed for specific hair issues such as frizz, damage and color protection, with innovations like heat protectants and sulfate-free shampoos. While natural oils like argan and coconut remain popular, their formulations are now enhanced for better efficacy. Cultural practices in haircare continue to be diverse and are still prominent. Äyurvedic traditions from India, using herbs and oils, remain influential, while Korean beauty trends focus on scalp health with products like scalp scrubs and hydrating serums. This blend of traditional and modern approaches highlights the ongoing evolution of haircare practices, reflecting both ancient rituals and contemporary innovations.
As a brand that embodies the blend of tradition and modernity, Abhati emphasizes a holistic approach to beauty and integrates sustainable practices with advanced technologies. The brand’s products combine Indian botanical traditions with Swiss scientific formulations, resulting in effective and environmentally friendly skincare and haircare products. The ingredients used are largely wild-harvested botanicals, cold-pressed oils, and whole plant extracts, avoiding harmful chemicals like parabens, silicones, and mineral oils. Focusing on both hair and scalp health the brand creates products that offer a sensorial experience through their unique textures & fragrances.
This Korean beauty brand is known for its commitment to organic ingredients and traditional practices that incorporate the use of fermentation to enhance the efficacy and absorption of its products. Whamisa’s haircare line is tailored to different hair and scalp needs. Seeking sustainable and high-quality haircare solutions, the brand offers unique benefits with products that are not only effective but also formulated to be gentle and environmentally conscious.
Two key products in their hair care range are the Organic Seeds Hair Scalp Tonic, a leave-in toner that cleanses the scalp, roots, and hair using over 96% organic ingredients – with key components like barley seed extract and rice extract, seed ferment filtrates from oat & sesame. As well as the Organic Seeds Shampoo for Oily Scalp, featuring peppermint oil and menthol, fermented mung beans and barley.
Tags: Hair Care, history
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