The Crimping Iron

Electric hair crimping of some kind has existed since the 1920s....

....and the first crimping irons appeared shortly after the first portable electric curling iron wands in the early 1970s.

But the Somebody-Just-Dumped-A-Bowl-Of-Top-Ramen-Noodles-On-My-Head look didn't become all the rage until the late 1980s.

They were popular from 1984 until 1992. But it wasn't until 1987 when pop star Taylor Dayne turned crimped hair into a national epidemic.

You probably knew some chicks (and even a few dudes) with crimped hair. Photo: Back To The '90s

The crimping iron, by frying your hair, added poofy volume to it. Tease it out and you had something like this.

Next to the can of Ultimate Hold Aqua-Net hairspray to shellac your 'do with, they were staples of anyone with big hair in the late 1980s.

I shellacked my hair with enough of this crap in my big hair days to collapse a mile of ozone. And Mother Nature is starting to get back at me for it.....

Your '80s Bathroom

Rula Lenska

Back in 1979, Alberto VO5 hair products made several American TV commercials with "superstar" Rula Lenska.


There was just one problem. While Rula Lenska was famous as a TV, film and stage actress in the UK, in America she was known as "that woman on the hair spray commercials nobody's ever heard of."

Glass Grapes

Next to rain lamps, glass grapes were ubiquitous in '70s living rooms....

"Let's Dance/The Safety Dance Medley" Marilyn McCoo (1983)

Rain Lamps

Just before New Years, I tossed up this subject to those in my Facebook circle, just to see if anyone noticed. Many did. So whilst preparing my list of beautifully overlooked subjects I need to cover (I'll wait until my nausea is over before I get around to "twerking" and "The Harlem Shake"), I put this on top.

They're called Rain Lamps. Some called them "swag lamps", but swags are these:

...and they weren't "oil lamps" Which look like these:

Rain lamps were popular in the late '60s and early '70s. They were kind of a lava light for your parents.

They almost always had some kind of Venus sculpture in them, surrounded by plastic foliage (although some had a clock or even a cabin in them.) They worked by using a pump that ran rain lamp oil (which was pretty much mineral oil - any other kind of oil will gum up the pump) over several strands of taut 30-40 lb fishing line to create a slow motion effect of rain. The oil also had to be changed and the lamp and pump cleaned every year or the oil gets rancid. For lighting, you used low wattage soft light of any colour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlmgbTgyZGo

You can find them on eBay. But prepare to fork out a lot of money for one in really nice condition. However restoring one takes time and work, but it isn't rocket science.



  

Fake Snow

Aluminum Christmas Trees

Aluminum Christmas trees were a fad that lasted from 1955 to 1965. First appearing in department store windows, they quickly became a "must have" item for suburban housewives.

You couldn't use ordinary string lights with these trees. The sides of the "needles" of these trees were often like razor blades and could cut into the wire insulation, causing a dangerous electrical short. And since string lights come in green or white wires, it would be the equivalent of wearing a strapless gown with a bra that isn't.

You used a colour wheel, a spinning light was used which shined light in red, green, blue and gold onto the reflective tree. They only looked good in a very low light area.

 
The downfall of the aluminum Christmas tree came after A Charlie Brown Christmas Special, where Lucy tells Charlie Brown to buy an aluminum Christmas tree ("Maybe painted pink!") It became a symbol of the commercialization of Christmas and fell out of favour with the public.

However, they've been making a nostalgic comeback in recent years....

Christmas With Conniff - The Ray Conniff Singers (1959)

This album always brings visions of aluminum Christmas trees and this music blasting out of console stereos like these.

The Ray Conniff Singers were essentially the vocal relief between the Mantovani and 101 Strings instrumentals in the Name-That-Tune world of your typical "Beautiful Music" FM radio stations of the '60s and '70s. They were known for making "safe" covers of pop songs your parents could like.


This included disco.


They actually continued until the '80s.

 

Disco Noel

("Disco Dance Step Lesson Enclosed!")

From The History's Dumpster Bookshelf......

More here ........

The Disco Duck

In the end.....nobody was spared.

"Disco Duck" Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots (1976)

"Disco Duck" Paul Vincent (1976, French Version)

"Silly Love Songs" Irwin The Disco Duck & The Wibble-Wabble Singers And Orchestra (1977)

"Macho Duck" Donald Duck (1979)