Dry, Odorless, Effective

Remember my Asian figure lamps from Neosho? Well, I searched high and low for the right shades, and the best I could come up with were a pair of black chandelier shades that, when clipped on the bulbs, were too high to cover the lamp sockets. So, I did some crafty improvising, and decided to glue black fringe around the inside rims of the lampshades. The fringe I purchased was a few inches long, so a trim was in order. Let me tell you, for someone who prides herself on being crafty, and is professionally trained in the art of haircutting, this proved to be more of a challenge than anticipated! I kept having to trim a little more here and there, until the fringe turned out a tiny bit shorter than I would have liked. In the end, I really like the effect. Sort of vintage Shanghai bordello.


I put the pair on either side of my vanity, which dates from the 1940s or 1950s, and was a wedding gift from my Mama. I've made quite a bit of progress on my bedroom, and after I get some pictures hung, I'll give you a tour. But decorating isn't what I want to tell you about today. Today's post is about my love of vintage beauty products, and a new friend who shares the same passion for old bottles, boxes, and jars.


Bob found Sweetheartville recently, and contacted me because he too loves and collects vintage beauty products and vintage hairdressing magazines. Believe me when I tell you that he is a Dollface of the highest order, so much so, that he sent me a big ol' box of vintage hair goodies in the mail. After I told him that I had dropped my darn Dippity-do jar and broken the lid, he sent me a new one, along with a bottle of Subdue Dandruff Shampoo.


That's not all he sent, though. That sweetheart mailed not one, but three vintage perms, each with its original components still inside the box! These are the first perms in my collection. This "Self" permanent dates from the days of big hair and white lipstick, and is just delightful with the poppy simplicity of its package design.


The "Chemtronic Life Pick-Up Permanent" is designed for touch ups to the bangs and neckline between regular perms, and is my favorite of the three with its shiny gold box.


Last, but not least, comes the "Pin Quick" Pin Curl Permanent from Richard Hudnut. It's weatherproof! Thank you so much, Bob!


I thought I'd share a few recent additions to my ever-growing collection. One of my very favorite pieces is this "EZ Hair Removing Glove" I picked up at a garage sale this spring for a quarter. It is unused and still with its original packaging, a lovely folded card featuring an elegant lady hand with nails manicured in the unpainted tip and half moon fashion of the 1930s, from which it dates. It was made by Helen Neushaefer, who appears to have been the creator of creme nail polish, although information on her is limited.



The hair removing glove is "dry" and "odorless" because it is essentially a loop of sandpaper designed to slip over four fingers. As for the "effective", I guess we'll never know. It certainly would aid in exfoliation. The fact that sanding ones leg whiskers off is a foreign concept to me (and, I would imagine, others), somehow leads me to believe that the results were less than desirable.


Another recent find is an addition to a collection I've shared before-my vintage powder compacts. Despite its battered appearance, this was an especially exciting find for me, since it is a commemorative souvenir of Oklahoma's semi centennial in 1957, the anniversary that spawned the Tulsarama! celebration during which Miss Belvedere was buried. Engraved on the image of our state is the phrase, "From tepees to towers."


The color scheme and Art Deco sleekness of this "Fonteel Toilet Powder" tin just kill me.


Another recent find was this glittery pink plastic 1950s curler hamper. How do I know that it's a "curler hamper" and not a candy dish, you ask?


Because it says so in gold letters on the lid!


I've added lots more photos of my collection to my Vintage Beauty Set on Flickr, so hop on over for a peek!

Here She Is, Miss Belvedere...

On Friday, Sugar Pea and I stood in a massive crowd in downtown Tulsa and watched history unfold--well, we caught tiny glimpses of it unfolding, anyway. A giant crane gingerly lifted the 1957 Plymouth Belvedere from the vault on the courthouse lawn amid cheers from native Tulsans and world travelers alike.


Then Miss Belvedere was pulled through the adoring crowd on a trailer, still dressed in her shroud and layers of protective wrappings.


That evening, as the world waited, Miss Belvedere finally made her debut after fifty years below ground. The Sweethearts watched as her wrappings were gently removed and the ravages of the last half century were revealed.

Here she is, Dollfaces, proudly displayed smack dab in the center of the classic car show organized in her honor. Despite the dirt and rust, spots of shiny chrome are still visible, as are signatures of several Tulsans, placed on her whitewalls just before she was lowered into her tomb.


Many of her much publicized contents were lost to time, but a few survived, including several cans of "The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous".


A few of the contents of a lady's purse were recovered, including two combs, a plastic compact, a tube of lipstick, a cigarette lighter, and the famous bottle of tranquilizers.


The really good news is that the contents of the steel time capsule buried with the car survived in perfect condition.




Had the years been kinder to Miss Belvedere, and had that special vault and those layers of Cosmoline done the job we all hoped they would do, this is how she would have looked on June 15, 2007.


This 1959 Cadillac Coupe DeVille made my midcentury heart race, and I'm not much of a car person, really. Those tail fins! Those rocket exhaust-like brake lights! The chrome! That beautiful aquamarine paint job!


What I began to wonder was, why did forward-looking style die after the 60s? I realize these gas guzzlers were from a time when America was on top of the world. We thought gas would always be 24 cents a gallon, especially in Tulsa, The Oil Capital of the World in those days. And even if it wasn't, hell, we'd all be flying around in plutonium powered personal jets with colonies on the moon at the turn of the 21st Century. That was part of the reason Miss Belvedere was buried for us to exhume now. "The Greatest Generation" thought maybe we'd like to know exactly what those "automobiles" their grandchildren would read about in electronic textbooks had looked like up close. That's why they included gas, oil and a spare tire with the Plymouth--the folks in 2007 would need those accessories to take the relic for a spin, if there were still such antiquated things as roads. Everyone was looking forward, and the sky was the limit. It seems we've lost that spirit of progress now. Oh, I know science and medicine make great leaps every day, and really, who among us would go back to a time before women were free to control their own destinies and make their own decisions regarding family, finance and career? Before The Pill. Before a cure for Polio. Before equal rights for all. Before prevalent air conditioning, for god's sake. Though I appreciate the timeless design and many of the values of the 1930s through the early 1960s, and fairly ache with nostalgia for a time twenty five years before my birth, I'm not one of those who look back at the middle of the 20th Century with rose colored glasses and see only poodle skirts and apple pie. There were problems, lots of them. Life could be hard. There was crime and ugliness, even then. But for all the progress we've made, it seems we've lost something, too, not just in the area of design, but in the pride we had in ourselves, our homes, our communities, not only as Americans, but as citizens of a world on the brink of utopia, always one atom away from perfection. At some point we stopped looking forward. We became cynical and selfish and began the move from "us" to "me".


As I stood in that cheering crowd while that rusted old car was being lifted from the ground, and later as those failed wrappings were removed, I was more stirred than I had imagined I would be. I felt the pain and disappointment of all that hope and hard work and those best laid plans that, in the end, were a gamble that didn't pay off. I could feel the pride and confidence with which she was buried that day, fifty years ago, the fragility of human efforts, and the speed with which Mother Nature could reclaim it all, given enough time. Many of the folks responsible for this unprecedented time capsule have long since passed on, and those little girls photographed on the car's hood in 1957 are now grandmothers. There is a lesson to be learned from Miss Belvedere, I think. Though she didn't survive the passage of time as she was intended to, something of the spirit of hope for the future of Tulsa, Oklahoma, of the United States, and of the world remains, if only we can find a way to recapture it.

Dampened Spirits in Tulsa

Well, Dollfaces, if you haven't already heard, there's bad news on the Tulsarama front. Here I am standing on top of the Plymouth's vault a couple of weeks ago.


And here is what was resting underneath my feet.

On Wednesday the vault was opened to assess the basic condition of its contents and rule out the possibility of any hazardous materials, and what officials found was devastating, effectively dashing any hopes that the Plymouth may have survived in showroom condition. Dirt and water filled the Belvedere's tomb up to the car's fenders, with evidence that the vault may have been completely filled at some point in the last fifty years. It remains to be seen if the water and rustproofing measures (layers of special wrappings) taken in 1957 did their job. Sugar Pea and I, along with the rest of the world, will find out tonight.

Tulsarama!

At this point, those of you who aren't already acquainted with me in real life at least know me well enough to be aware of my love for most anything midcentury, so you know how thrilled I'd be if there was some sort of time capsule buried right in my backyard that contained a little slice of everyday life in the late 50s. You also know I'd be beside myself with excitement if contained in, say, a vault under the courthouse lawn, there was a brand new 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe stuffed with goodies from that same year. And if (let's just imagine here for a minute) they were going to unearth this buried treasure in two weeks for all to see, and Charles Phoenix was coming to town to behold the sight, well, you know I'd be practically tinkling myself in anticipation.



It was all part of "Tulsarama!", T-Town's celebration of Oklahoma's semi-centennial. At that time, it was decided that a time capsule should be buried for the Tulsans of 2007 to open as part of the state's 100th anniversary festivities. In 1957 Tulsa had more cars per capita than any other city in America, besides Los Angeles. The idea to bury a Plymouth, apparently, came about as a way to outdo Oklahoma City's time capsule. (Take that, OKC!) "Suddenly it's 1960" was Plymouth's advertising slogan for its daring new style of automobile in 1957. The Tulsarama! committee played on this slogan with their own catch phrase, "Suddenly it's 2007". The person (or that person's next of kin) to come closest in 1957 to guessing what Tulsa's population would be fifty years in the future would be the lucky winner of the car and a trust fund now valued at $700. The official population estimate is 382,457.

Included with the car were ten gallons of gasoline and five quarts of Tulsa oil, just in case the scientifically superior citizens of 2007 had moved beyond petroleum to more advanced forms of energy. In addition, placed in the car's glove box were the contents of a woman's purse including:

fourteen bobby pins

a ladies' compact plastic rain cap

combs

a tube of lipstick

a pack of gum

facial tissues

$2.73 in bills and coins

a pack of cigarettes with matches

an unpaid parking ticket

and, my favorite, a bottle of tranquilizers.

I'll be there for the unearthing (well, as close as I can get, anyway) and the big reveal later that night. I want Sugar Pea to be present for a unique moment in Tulsa's, and the world's, history. Perhaps Charles and I will pop a few Mother's Little Helpers and crack open a Schlitz to celebrate 100 years of statehood. Won't you join us?