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“I was a hair coloring model for Lapinal in 1958 and 59 in Chicago!”
When I received this email, it had the title “Lapinal”… but I opened it right away, because I knew it only meant one thing and my curiosity was immediately piqued.
You see, Lapinal hair color (now known as Redken) was one of the few hair color companies in the 1950s. advertised its pastel color line during this little known hair color is different.
I shared about Lapinal’s pastel colors in both my YouTube video Whispers of Pastel: A Hidden Gem of 1950s Hairstyle and in this blog post Pastel Hair Craze of the 1950s and How To Do It Today.
And luckily, a former model named Marsha found the post online and emailed me to tell her story.
Marsha’s modeling story
Marsha wrote to me first“I was reminiscing about my college days with my daughter and the conversation came up to my pink hair! I was a model for Lapinal hair coloring in 1958 and 59 in Chicago! How fun to find your website and all the info!! I had green hair too with clothes to match.”
Yes… I immediately answered him! “Oh! Please tell me if you have any pictures of this modeling? Or when you had pink hair? My audience would love to see these.”
If you watched my video, then you know that finding evidence of these unusual hues is difficult, because most print media at the time was black and white. Marsha sent me the pictures she had and they were just that… black and white pictures.
So I went back to using the power of AI to colorize the photos she posted like I did in my YouTube video using black and white hair magazine photos for pastel hair.
Bringing the B&W Past to Color
Of the photos she posted, she explained, “My hair was green in all of these except for the headshot where it was pink.” Her email also included changing her hair color toned and green was a mint color.
“A flapper dress from the 20’s was blue and so were 2 other dresses.”
“The dress with the cummerbund was a beautiful soft green polished cotton – the cummerbund was a soft pink and dark green.
And His Final Thoughts On His Days Back Then…
He shared more about his college years in Chicago in his email.
“Thanks for bringing back the good memories. Chicago in the late 50’s was great..The dorm I stayed in when I was in college overlooked Oak St. Beach on Lake Shore Drive-one fine spring day my girlfriend and I looked out and saw a couple of handsome boys walking on the beach-We said, “Let’s go check them out.” and I took a film camera as a “prop” and married one of them a few months later and that was 65 years ago and we are still together.
Thanks Marsha for this amazing inside look at the story of pastel hair in the 1950s!
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