The Arts of Beauty/Chapter 26

A great many compounds, which are of a character most destructive to the hair, are sold in the shape of hair-dyes, against which ladies cannot be too frequently warned. These, for the most part, are composed of such things as poisonous mineral acids, nitrate and oxide of silver, caustic alkalies, lime, litharge and arsenic. The way these color the hair is simply by burning it, and they are very liable to produce a discase of the hair which increases ten-fold the speed of growing grey. One patent hair-dye was proved on analysis, to be a preparation of hydrophosphuret of ammonia, a most filthy ingredient, which, besides its villainous smell, would cause immediate suffocation if inhaled by the lungs. All these patent compounds rot the hair, if they do no greater mischief.

An old physician and chemist at Lisbon gave a charming Parisian lady of my acquaintance, whose hair was turning grey, on one side of her head after a severe sickness, a recipe for a hair dye which proved to be of astonishing efficacy in coloring the faded hair a beautiful and natural black. The following is the recipe for making it.

Dissolve the gallic acid in the tincture of sesqui-chloride of iron, and then add the acetic acid. Before using this preparation, the hair should be thoroughly washed with soap and water. A great and desirable peculiarity of this dye, is that it can be so applied as to color the hair either black or the lighter shade of brown. If black is the color desired, the preparation should be applied while the hair is moist, and for brown it should not be used till the hair is perfectly dry. The way to apply the compound is to dip the points of a fine tooth comb into it until the interstices are filled with the fluid, then gently draw the comb through the hair, commencing at the roots, till the dye has perceptably taken effect. When the hair is entirely dry, oil and brush it as usual.