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Vintage hair dryers at auction

Posted in Kitchen, and Style

My earliest recollection of using a hair dryer was in college. I have this image of myself and other women sitting in a long room with the plastic hoods on our heads, waiting patiently and impatiently for our hair to dry.

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So when I came across two metal contraptions that resembled hair dryers at auctions recently, I was curious. They were nothing like the dryers I had seen before. In fact, one sorta looked like a hair dryer, but the other one did not.

Using its black handle, you apparently held the dryer  toward your head, much like you’d hold a gun (or the dryers we use today), and the hot air would blow out of the opening at the long end of the spout. On one side the motor was covered; on the other it was exposed through slits. 

This dryer was like some of the others I came across in my research of vintage hair dryers. I wasn’t able to determine its age, but I did learn that the first hand-held dryers appeared in 1920. The hair dryer itself was invented in the 19th century by a Frenchman named Alexandre F. Godefoy for his salon. In the 1930s, hood dryers became popular in salons, but didn’t make it into homes until the 1950s, when they became more manageable. Take a look at this thing from 1900. It’s right out of an early horror movie.

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We’ve all seen and used many incarnations of the hair dryer, from the ones I recalled from college – big and heavy and hard to maneuver – to the contemporary ones – plastic versions of the hand-held one I found at auction.

As for the second would-be dryer, I walked past it several times trying to figure out what it was before I finally stopped to examine it. It was somewhat square in shape, with openings on the side and front. It could easily have been a heater, but I think not. My auction buddy and I tried to guess what it was.

“It’s a hair dryer,” one of the male auction-goers said. It didn’t look like a hair dryer to me. But since I had no answer, I figured his would suffice. I would like to know for sure what it is.

Does it look familiar to you?

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2 Comments

  1. vittorio
    vittorio

    Hello, I am an Italian hairdresser. In my collection I have this same hair dryer. Was used as an air diffuser to dry your hair, like what you find in swimming pools, but was applied to the nozzle also a kind of bag that was used to dry the hair with curlers.
    ciao
    vittorio

    March 17, 2010
    |Reply
    • sherry
      sherry

      Thank you. It’s good to know how it was used. These discoveries are always so fascinating.

      Sherry

      March 17, 2010
      |Reply

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