BY KIRK STARRATT

The Advertiser

NovaNewsNow.com

It’s a unique exhibit that offers a glimpse into the history of cosmetology and its instruction here in Kings County.

The Kings County Museum in Kentville is currently showing “The Science of Beauty”, an exhibit provided to the museum by former Kingstec Cosmetology Instructor Eleanor Rogers of New Minas. She taught the course at Kingstec Vocational School from 1968-88, before the incorporation of the Nova Scotia Community College system.

She said many of the artifacts on display were donated to her over the years from customers who used to visit the school. For example, she has the Clairol Super Zap, the first hand-held blow dryer in Nova Scotia.

There are old-fashioned waving and curling irons that were heated in stoves or with kerosene lamps and a Marcelling iron. Rogers said you had to know your stuff to be effective with the Marcelling iron.

The collection of artifacts, mostly dating from the 1920s and 1930s, includes old hair dye, hair tonic, straight razors and shaving cream brushes, electric shavers and clipper oil and much more. Rogers said clippers used to be operated manually.

There are large and small hair clamps, wigs and manikin heads. Rogers is particularly proud of an old store display of hairnets made from human hair dating from the 1920s. Princess Pat Hair Nets retailed for 10 cents each. Marie Bickerton of Canning, who used to operate a general store with her husband, gave the display to her. They found it in the store’s attic when they were cleaning it out in the late 1980s.

Wanted to collect fun items

Rogers said she became interested in collecting cosmetology artifacts when she was a teenager. She was interested in cosmetology and the fact it was evolving so quickly. “I wanted to collect fun items,” she said. Rogers wanted people to know what cosmetology was like back then. “Really every aspect of cosmetology has evolved.”

Rogers is proud that a number of her former students have dropped in to see the display and she received many positive comments about it when she was guest speaker at a recent Kings Historical Society meeting.

Rogers is proud also of the success several of her former students have enjoyed, many right here in Kings County. For example, one student from her first class of 1968-70 is still in business locally and another former student has a business in Berwick that just celebrated its 30th anniversary.

“All around Kentville, in different salons, are graduates of Kingstec Vocational,” she said, pointing out that the old vocational school was very successful in putting out productive graduates who became very successful in their chosen professions.

Their salon at the school was open 195 days a year and the students would serve over 1,000 clients in this period. When the students graduated, they were ready to write provincial exams to become licensed. They would work for two years with the general license then apply for their Master Hairdressing License if they so wished. Rogers is still a licensed Master Hairdresser Instructor.