Older- ish ladies, what did you do before flat/straightening irons came around?

I was a child of the 70’s. I had the very straight, long blonde hair, parted in the middle that every other teenager had back then, so a straightening iron wasn’t needed.

Take sections of hair, pull them tight and run the heated round barrel iron down the length of what you hold on to. This worked well on sleek bobs as well as massive amounts of ass length hair. I love the big ole paddle flat irons of the past decade though :D

My hair was very long. In order to straighten it I did one of two things. I would actually iron it or I would roll it with empty orange juice cans. ... good grief!

@MrsNash I’ve heard of that, except with soda cans! I’m assuming that’s how you ladies got such nice volume back then?

My sister actually had me iron her long blonde hair on the ironing board. Every one said she looked like Peggy Lipton on the Mod Squad.

http://www.fluther.com/users/essieness/

That’s right. it provided crazy volume. O.j. cans were easier than soda cans because you could actually remove the top and bottom of the can and therefore use bobby pins to keep them in place.

I just realized Im“older-ish :-(

@Judi I ignored that “older-ish” comment, because I don’t think I am!

Judi, my sister and I ironed our hair on an ironing board too. Thing was, our hair was so darn straight to begin with, we didn’t have to, but, it was the thing to do.
I also remember the cans….

Another “older-ish” lady…...

My mother said they used to actually iron their hair. I don’t know why that sounds so much more worse for your hair than a straightening iron…basically the same thing.

I heard people used two flat, heated rocks and put their hair in between them back in the day.

My hair was (and still is) bone straight so I never did anything. However, my friends used their mother’s clothing iron and the ironing board and actually ironed their hair.

I grew up in an era when curly hair was all the rage. Mom wrapped long thin rags around strands of our hair and in the morning it was all curly.

@YARNLADY ; my mom used to give me “rag curls” every once in a while too! I loved them. It was grade school in the 60’s so I was probably the only kid in school in rag curls.

We ironed our hair or just “set” it in really huge rollers or juice cans too.
I remember the smell of ironed hair… awful!!

My mom used to perm my dead straight hair agh!