December, 1917 
27 
POWDER ROOMS of YESTERDAY and TODAY 
From the Closet Where the Old-time Beauty Powdered Her Wig Has 
Come the Modern Dressing Room, a Chamber of Elegance and Luxury 
EMILY BURBANK 
Interiors by Grace Wood, Decorator 
T HE illustrations to the contrary, the 
powder rooms we refer to have much to 
do with war—not this war, to be sure, but the 
wars that drained England’s Exchequer and 
starved her poor in the 18th Century. For 
the end of the powder room in England was 
brought about by these very wars. 
The stress of the times, then as now, had 
caused the taxation of all luxuries and many 
necessities. Under the listed luxuries one had 
become so common as to be taken for granted 
by soldier, sailor and household domestic, as 
well as by officers, lords and ladies. This was 
the powdering of hair. 
The Powder Tax 
To quicken the memory of the reader on this 
subject, we quote from The Times (London) 
of March 25, 1795, just ten years, by the way, 
after the founding of that paper. “The Tax 
on Powdered Heads is calculated to produce 
£ 450,000 per annum, though 
the Minister has only calculated 
it at £ 200,000. Some Gentle¬ 
men are said to have made an 
offer to farm it at £ 400,000." 
Three months after this ap¬ 
peared, on June 12, 1795, there 
was printed the following: 
“The Powder Tax has already 
produced £ 300,000 to the Gov¬ 
ernment. The Duke of Devon¬ 
shire lias paid five and thirty 
guineas for his family. 
“This Powder Tax was an 
annual certificate to be taken 
out by every person wearing 
hair powder, price one guinea; 
every sort of composition of 
powder, worn as an article of 
dress, to be deemed within the 
meaning of the Act. 
“The Royal Family and their 
immediate Servants; Clergymen 
whose annual income is under 
£100; Subalterns, Non-com¬ 
missioned Officers and Privates 
of the Army, Militia, Marines 
and Fensible corps; Officers of 
the Navy under the rank of 
Commander or Voluntary Dis¬ 
senting Preachers in holy orders 
or pretended holy orders, whose 
annual means is under £100, 
are exempted. 
“Persons having more than 
two daughters unmarried to pay 
only for two.” 
Saving War Wheat 
Now the wheat from which 
hair powder was made was 
needed for food, and a war tax 
of a guinea was laid on each 
powdered head. The eventual 
result in England was the 
fashion of cropped hair, un- 
An old woodcut shoiv- 
ing how the wig was 
powdered. The mirrors 
above are polished steel 
used by Greek beauties 
(Below) A modern 
painted dressing table 
after an original in Wei¬ 
mar — a cross between 
Louis XV and XVI 
pow’dered. The advanced Whig Party wished 
to checkmate their political opponents and at 
the same time present a visible denial of the 
right to levy this tax. They were knowrn as 
the “Crops,” and the two parties nicknamed 
“The Guinea Pigs” and “The Pigs Without a 
Guinea.” 
It is recorded that the Duchess of North¬ 
umberland paid a single guinea for herself. 
“Powder is under interdiction for the rest of 
the family, though not from motives of dis¬ 
affection. Her Grace assigns a more justifi¬ 
able motive; namely, a scruple of contributing 
in any unnecessary way to the present scarcity” 
—that is, of wheat. 
Naturally, in a household of considerable 
importance there was constant powdering of 
wigs: first, for the family, always en evidence 
in the social whirl of that gay and artificial 
18th Century; then for the innumerable 
servants who also must be powdered. The 
necessity for powdering rooms 
is apparent, and so they came 
to be regular features of the best 
houses. 
In one English house known 
to the writer, the old powder 
room has been converted into a 
tiny dressing room. In this case 
one goes down a step to enter, 
ducking the head very low to 
escape the arch of the doorway. 
Once in, a six-foot man can 
stand erect. The servant in his 
“powdering gown” of cotton or 
linen stood inside the room, and 
the man or woman to be pow¬ 
dered stood back of the curtains, 
thrust his or her head through, 
and then held the curtains close 
about the neck to protect the 
clothes from the shower of pow¬ 
der which ensued. 
How the Wig Was Powdered 
A preliminary operation was 
to saturate the hair with bear’s 
grease, or lard and perfumed 
oils, to assure the adhesion of 
the powder. An Englishman of 
some three-score years tells me 
that he remembers seeing as a 
boy small powder shops in Lon¬ 
don; one at the entrance to the 
Temple and several near Lin¬ 
coln’s Inn Fields. To these 
shops the lawyers and judges 
sent their wigs to be powdered. 
Barbers and hairdressers had 
become expert at the art, and 
were eventually preferred to the 
amateur household servant with 
his perhaps hit-or-miss methods 
of performing this important 
duty. 
As for wigs, they are as old 
(Continued on page 82) 
