Historical Hair Care, Part Three, The Medieval Era

It is not known for sure how often people bathed in the Middle ages, though it seems to have been more frequent than the common stereotype: never. Certainly, washing was done with more regularity before the terrible outbreak of the plague and rumors that cleansing the body opened it up to illness. Nor is it known particularly how often men or women would have washed their hair.

As to how they did it, they did leave some indications, the Trotula, a series of texts composed in 12th Century Italy instructs thus:

“After leaving the bath, let her adorn her hair, and first of all let her wash it with a cleanser such as this. Take ashes of burnt vine, the chaff of barley nodes, and licorice wood (so that it may the more brightly shine), and sowbread… with this cleanser let the woman wash her head. After the washing, let her leave it to dry by itself, and her hair will be golden and shimmering…"

Historical Hair Care, Part Two, The Vikings

Depending on your sources, you can formulate two very different pictures of Viking hygiene. The two most famous written sources state as follows:

"(The Danes) …caused much trouble to the natives of the land; for they were wont, after the fashion of their country, to comb their hair every day, to bathe every Saturday, to change their garments often, and set off their persons by many frivolous devices. In this matter they laid siege to the virtue of the married woman, and persuaded the daughters even of the noble to be their concubines”.
-- John of Wallingford 

John of Wallingford was an English monk and chronicler who recorded the above in 1002, just after the massacre of St. Brice's Day.

Historical Hair Care, Part One, Introduction

Hygiene, in any given period of history can seem almost shrouded in mystery. It is one of those things we do every day and think little about. A modern person keeping a diary is hardly likely to record that they showered that morning with a commercial shampoo containing sodium lauryl sulfate and coco betaine followed by a conditioner containing mineral oil and ceteraral alcohol, for both of which they paid $2.99 at Rite Aid. Nor, I suspect, is any person throughout history likely to record the mundane and exacting details of such a necessity. So, it is really not until the big branding and marketing campaigns of the Victorian Era that we really get a clear picture of exactly what was used, how often, by whom, and how it was made. Though, of course, each person then, as now, was a unique individual with their own routine and preferences.

Our hair is something that, even with all of our modern conveniences like running water, hundreds of varieties of products, heat styling tools, and cheap, disposable combs, brushes, and accessories can sometimes feel like an impossible burden. There is that running joke that God gave us hair to teach us that we cannot control everything. Yet, throughout history, it has mostly been worn much longer than is currently fashionable and seems almost have always been a sign of wealth, luxury, and beauty. So, how did they manage it?

That is going to be the subject of this series, which I hope will be of interest to my readers and even put to good use by my fellow novelists. I will be focusing mainly on the periods I have studied for my books and even have a couple of experiments planned. So, please stay tuned for Part Two: The Vikings

Historical Hair Care, Part Two, The Vikings
Historical Hair Care, Part Three, The Medieval Era
Historical Hair Care, Part Four, The Renaissance
Historical Hair Care, Part Five, The Victorian Era
Historical Hair Care, Part Five, The Experiment

I'm Back!

So... it has been a while. A long while. What happened? Well, I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say real life kicked in and I let social media and the promotion of my novels fall by the wayside. Life has changed for me again, as ever it does, and I think I am finally in a good place to resurrect this blog and my writing career.

Some updates:

Imagery and Information Gaps

I am starting from scratch on Land of Battles. That's right, I am throwing out what I have written, opening a blank MS Word page and beginning again. After re-reading what I had produced over the last year, I realized that I had no other choice. The task is daunting and I'm disappointed in myself, but I am trying to stay positive and remember that this is a new chance to get the novel just right.

I have always used research as a way to inspire myself. The devil is in the details, as they say, and it is the small things, like reproductions of Viking shoes found on bog bodies that really pique my interest and create new ideas. My novels run like films through my mind, so it is important that my mentally imagery is perfect before I translate it to the page.

I have recently started a Pinterest board, linking myself to articles on Viking artifacts and research. There are some things I have read about before, but the visual of a reproduction is hugely helpful. On the other hand, some of this is completely new information to me and will be incorporated into the novel. So, if I start posting long blogs about bone combs or bronze age tattoos, don't be too surprised.

I will also be taking a different than planned approach to relationships between the characters in the new novel. They are in a new country and new positions, so their interactions are about to shift dramatically.

I am less than twenty pages into the new draft, but I can already tell that it is fresher and stronger than what I had before. Hopefully, a marathon session will come soon and I will be able to tell you that I am a quarter of the way done.

The Strong, Silent Type

One of the most popular archetypes in literature is the strong, silent type. This is usually a male character whose basic traits can transfer easily from genre to genre. The strong, silent type is easily found in romances, thrillers, mysteries, and horrors, and the list could go on to every type of fiction in the market. There is something inherently attractive about a character who does not need to explain himself, who meets every obstacle and plot twist in his path with a staid sense that he will overcome, and who does not fill endless pages with dialogue which fails in its attempt to charm.

Been a long, lonely time...

So… it’s been a while. I won’t bore you with all the details, but last year I got a job which has sucked the life out of me. Very early mornings, long hours, back-breaking work, split days off, and no ten minute breaks in sight left me sleeping on the couch by three o’clock some days and barely leaving the house to get groceries . I wanted to work on my novels. Deep down I have always felt that there would be a future to my writing career so I wanted to keep moving forward, but I still had other things to do.  As little as we may like it, bills have to be paid, beds have to be made, pets need taking care of, clothes need laundering, dishes need washing, and the list goes on forever.