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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;daveydempsey, post: 4341160, member: 22&quot;]Two more silver lidded jars from the latest clearance.</p><p><br /></p><p>I first thought they might be missing from my Victorian vanity case posted earlier, but both are different patterns, not monogrammed and dated 1922 and 1923.</p><p><br /></p><p>I then had to find out what they were., the oblong one I don&#039;t know but the round one I thought might be an inkwell.</p><p><br /></p><p>Imagine my surprise when I discovered it is a hair receiver.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]358578[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Dating from Victorian times through the early 1950s, hair receivers were a fixture on the dressing tables of most fashionable ladies. They were designed to hold hair that was removed from hairbrushes after vigorous brushing, and they resemble vanity jars or powder jars, but with the distinctive feature of having a finger sized opening hole in the centre of the lid.&nbsp; The comb would be run through the bristles of the hairbrush and the resultant hair accumulation would be coiled around a finger and then inserted into the opening of the hair receiver.</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>The uses of the hair was varied, but most frequently it was used in the creation of RATTS (aka rats) These were sheer hair nets that were stuffed full of the collected hair and then sewn shut. The ladies’ hairstyles of that time were fashionable buns and other &quot;big hair&quot; arrangements. So ratts provided a &quot;stuffing&quot; to enhance these hairstyles!</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>In addition to this use for the hair kept in hair receivers, ladies also used the collected hair for a variety of other things, including as stuffing in pin cushions, for which the oiled and scented hair of that time was well suited, as it lubricated the pins, making them easier to use. Small other cushions and pillows were also frequently stuffed with hair instead of feathers.</b>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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