By Jean Malcolm.pdf

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extracted text: air, which the romantic Jl and specialized vision of the poet may see as any thing from ‘burning gold’ to ‘a flock of goats,’ has always been to the more realistic feminine mind her chief beauty concern. Not that the male of the spe cies is immune: for long the problem of baldness exercised the ingenuity of herbalists, who urged the use of white maiden hair, which "stays the shedding or falling of the hair, and caus es it to grow thick, fair and well coloured; for which pur pose boil it in wine, putting Panorama some smallage seed thereto, and afterwards some oil." Nowadays, however, hair care need not start in the herb gar den; there are quicker routes to good grooming. The first es sential is a good cut. There is no head of hair, however diffi cult or obstinate, that cannot be controlled by clever cutting and shaping. Few women, even if they have the courage, have the skill or knowledge neces sary to do-it-themselves — and most of them have the sense not to try. The maintenance side, however—washing, condi tioning, setting—is well within their scope. The shops offer such an array of bottles, jars, tubes, bubbles, sachets and, lat est recruit to the cosmetic coun ter, ‘shampoo leaves’—described by one authority as the most useful leaves since the Garden of Eden—that the only diffi culty is selection. A recent cos metics survey by the research department of a national wo men’s weekly indicans a defi nite trend of preference for li quid and lotion shampoos (some brands of which use ‘Teepol * as a base). Sales of these kinds of shampoo accounted for twothirds of the consumption of 1957 as compared with half in 1955. But, whatever her choice, the customer rarely gives any thought to the elaborate pro cesses and production lines that make it possible for her to have Noi so varied a selection.A visit to the Middlesex factory of one of the biggest manufacturers of hair preparations soon puts an end to the casual assump tion that ‘there’s nothing to it.’ Z) lthough at this factory J * some of the production is still manual, a great proportion is highly mechanized, and the process from empty jar to car ton ready for dispatch is a fas cinating operation, as full of color and rhythm as a Disney film. The empty jar or bottle is put on a machine that clears it of any speck of dust. From there it passes along the belt to the second stage, where the contents are injected from an overhead complex of pipelines running from the mixing room to the benches. Once filled, the containers, now amber, green or white, pass along to where a rotating hod ejects a lid on each. An adjacent machine im prints the threads on the lid and screws it on in one opera tion. Labelling comes next; and from there the bottle passes along the belt, to be inserted into its cardboard container, and finally comes off the belt in the cartons, which are trans ported in bulk by conveyors into the adjacent store. From empty jar to carton, the process takes some 40 feet of bench and is tended by about 16 operatives. Except for 1958 85 the handling of heavy weights, it is carried out entirely by women, and where the mechan ization is alternated with man ual operations, it is fascinat ing to watch the dexterous wrist and hand movements of the white-coated girls, the precision and speed with which they dis patch the little jars on their journey of whisk them off the belt into the containers. Perhaps the most astonish ing feature to an outsider is the scale of production. Of one preparation manufactured in this factory, 120 jars are com pleted every minute, while 110 tons of products are dispatched daily from the storeroom. Some idea of the quantities involved ■can be obtained by a visit to the mixing-room, where slabs of raw materials, like giant pav ing-stones, anj 45-gallon drums of perfume wait to be used. he other side of the picture, the minute and scrupulous attention to quality, can be seen in the laboratories. There one meet, an impressive array of precision instruments — balan ces, rotating-cup viscometers, and photometers to check the dispersion of the drops in emul sions. On the walls hang charts on which are plotted the results of the intricate series of tests — 19 in all on one product — carried out at various stages of the manufacture. There are three kinds of lab oratory on the premises; the Pure Research Laboratory, where basic work is done on essential oils and other ingre dients used; the Formulation Laboratory, which handles the composition and improvement of formulae and the examina tion and analysis of foreign and other products; and the Quality Control Laboratory, where the elaborate system of testing is carried out at all stages from raw materials to finished products. Through the laboratory win dows, on the flat roof opposite, can be seen glass-fronted ‘sun traps’ which, with the incuba^ tors in the laboratory, are used for testing the products under shop-window, display and stor age conditions such as they may expect to meet. On new preparations, of course, the lab oratories work in close colla boration, and it may take any thing from 18 months to 5 years to bring the new product from the idea stage to the shop counter. J n addition to laboratory-con1 trolled experiments, each product is under constant test in normal conditions of usage. For this purpose, the firm has a large source of human ‘gui nea-pigs’ on the factory floor — and a most attractive glossy head selection it is, too. Volun teers from the girls who work in the factory are used to test Panorama existing and new products, and tucked away in the more rest ful corners of the building are experimental salons where they have their hair cut, then washed, set and treated with the pro ducts. If this seems, to readers who have to fit in their hair, appointments on a crowded Sat urday, to be the height of ease and luxury, it may be a con solation to know that, once a volunteer is accepted, she has to give up her freedom of choice as regards styling, cut and preparations, and she must on no account go ‘outside’ to arrange for a private hairdress ing appointment. From other sections of the factory, which handle the fill ing and processing of the newer containers — the sachet and ‘leaf’ forms — there may em erge at any time a white-clad girl with her arms full of gailycolored ‘sachets’ of polyvinyl chloride. This petroleum pro duct is widely used in the pack aging of shampoos: at this fac tory 16 miles are used each week in producing one kind of sachet alone. For all the carnival effect — the gay colors, the scent, the music-while-you-work, the pre dominance of pretty, wellgroomed girls — this is a high ly-geared modern industry, streamlined, efficient and com petitive, which turns out, in fantastic quantity and at a rea sonable price, the products that bring hair glamour within the reach and the beauty budget of every woman. Christmas Lines Mother: “No, Dad, don’t be too hard on Junior for failing, in college. When they gave him his books last fall he thought they were a gift and didrtt open them until Christmas.” * * Sue: “I believe my husband is the most generous man in the world” Lou: “How come?” Sue: “I gave him a dozen neckties for Christ mas and he took them right down and gave them to the Salvation Army" November 1958 87
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