ask-the-marshall.What did women use as hairspray years ago? Miss Kitty’s hair was always in place.

Joe Pence
Via the Internet

Shampoo didn’t come into use until the 1920s, and soap was hard on a woman’s hair so they seldom washed their tresses. In the real West if a woman’s hair looked like she’d been using hairspray, it’s because it was oily and dirty. Of course, Miss Kitty lived in the mythical West—Hollywood—where horses didn’t poop in the streets, heroes never reloaded their six-guns during battle and when Roy Rogers jumped out of a second-story window, landing on Trigger’s back, he sang “Happy Trails” instead of “Cannonball Yodel.”

Marshall Trimble is Arizona’s official historian. His books include The Arizona Trilogy and Law of the Gun.

If you have a question, write:

Ask the Marshall

PO Box 8008, Cave Creek, AZ 85327

or e-mail him at marshall.trimble@sccmail.maricopa.edu


 

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