Someone, at some point in human history, was the first person to cut hair. Maybe they didn't even cut it - maybe they they just broke it off by hand, and later had the idea of applying blades or sharp stones or whatever.
And then, someone was the first person to cut hair for aesthetic reasons (rather than just because it got in the way or "Hey, let's see what happens!"). And someone was the first person to figure out that if you cut it a certain way it will fall a certain way. Someone invented bangs. Someone invented layers.
Someone invented braiding. I don't know if they first did it with human hair or to make rope. The idea of weaving strands together so they'll stay put in a single, cohesive whole had never before occurred to any human being, but someone not only thought of it, but also figured out how to do it.
Someone invented the idea of tying or clipping hair back. It seems glaringly obvious, but someone must have been the first (even if it was just the first human being who also had their hair get in the way.) Someone figured out the idea of a hair tie. Someone figured out the idea of a hair clip. Someone figured out a bun, and someone figured out that if you stick a stick through a bun it will stay.
Someone invented shaving. They came up with the idea of scraping the sharp thing along the skin to remove all the hair rather than cutting the hair further from the skin or pulling it out at the root. Some came up with the paradigm-shifting idea that not having hair where hair naturally grows might be aesthetically superior to one's natural state. Someone came up with the idea that if you apply stinky gunk to body hair and press a piece of cloth on it and pull the cloth out, the hair will come out. Someone came up with the idea of inventing chemicals that would cause the hair to just fall out. Someone though of zapping the hair with electricity and with lasers.
Someone was the first to think of dyeing hair. Actually, someone was the first to think of dyeing anything. Before that, it never occurred to anyone that you could change the colour of stuff! Or maybe they stumbled upon it by accident - fell into a vat of blueberry soup or something.
Someone invented piercings. "So what I'm going to do is stick a sharp thing through your flesh to make a hole. Then you can put shiny things in the hole. It will be pretty!"
For that matter, someone invented jewellery. Someone was the first person to think that wearing shiny things is pretty, and everyone agreed!
Someone invented tattoos. Someone thought of the idea of drawing something on their body permanently, and someone figured out that if you stick ink in your skin with a needle it will do just that. Or maybe they didn't intend it to be permanent and it was all an accident! (Although that wouldn't explain why they were sticking ink-covered needles in skin in the first place.)
3 comments:
I love this. I would say that many people invented these things independently, because for a long time there was little contact among cultures. Various people all over the world wore jewelry, for example, people who never came into contact with each other. Of course one of them was technically first, but a whole bunch of people were first in their own worlds.
I'd love to know who first tried shaving, why, and what kind of tool they used. It must have hurt, and been dangerous!
I wonder if the shaving had something to do with how they scrape animal hides to prepare them to be used as leather?
Or maybe it's the other way around, and someone thought "It would be easier to prepare this leather if we shaved it first?"
Good connection! Preparing animal hides is an ancient technique. It wouldn't be a huge leap for someone who worked with leather to think about their own hide. (
There is a lot of information on what style of facial hair was acceptable or stylish in different periods, but I wonder at what point in history did shaving become a regular thing.
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