Early hair dryers looked like terrifying sci-fi experiments

By Chris Wild from Mashable

1928-1948 Early hair dryers – Settle in, you’ll be here awhile.

Before the invention of hair dryers, women and men would often attach hoses to the exhaust ends of vacuum cleaners to blow-dry their hair.
In 1890, French stylist Alexandre-Ferdinand Godefroy devised a contraption combining a seat with a hood connected to a gas stove. A client would sit underneath the hood while a hand crank blew hot air from the stove over her hair.
Godefroy’s hair hood dryer was widely copied and iterated upon, and became a staple of hair salons. Variants included features such as articulable nozzles and heated coils in lieu of a single helmet.

The first patent for a handheld hair dryer was granted in 1911. Early portable dryers had a few problems, though — they were heavy, produced air barely warmer than room temperature, and had an irritating habit of electrocuting users.
Salon hair dryers remained the best option until the 1970s, when handheld dryers had advanced in aesthetics, power and safety enough to be a viable alternative.

IMAGES:

1928
A woman sits under a chrome-plated hair dryer.
IMAGE: KEYSTONE-FRANCE/GETTY IMAGES

c. 1928
IMAGE: CORBIS

1929
A stylist uses a freestanding dryer to blow dry a client’s hair with controlled precision at the Hairdressing Fair of Fashion in London.
IMAGE: PUTTNAM /TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

1929
IMAGE: PUTTNAM /TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
I think that the most important thing a woman can have — next to talent, of course — is her hairdresser.
JOAN CRAWFORD

Nov. 5, 1930
A woman tries a new hair drying machine at the Hairdressing Fashion Fair in London.
IMAGE: POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES

1930
IMAGE: IMAGNO/AUSTRIAN ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES

1930
A woman demonstrates a hair-steaming apparatus at the Hairdressing Exhibition in London.
IMAGE: IMAGNO/AUSTRIAN ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES

Sept. 22, 1932
A woman tries out a Supreme Pedestal hairdryer at the Hairdressing Exhibition in London.
IMAGE: MILLER/TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

1933
A hair salon in Moscow, Russia.
IMAGE: EMIL STRASSBERG/ULLSTEIN BILD/GETTY IMAGES

1937
A hair salon in Cannes, France.
IMAGE: IMAGNO/AUSTRIAN ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES

1947
Marjorie McWeeney dries her hair with her son Mark at a hair dresser in New York.
IMAGE: NINA LEEN/TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES

1948
A woman uses a heat lamp and hairdryer made of hot glass.
IMAGE: RALPH ROYLE/PIX INC./THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

c. 1935
A beautician attaches the tubes and pads of a hair treatment machine to a man’s scalp as he reads a paper.

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