Hair Glossary

Although famous for make-up, Max Factor's hair department created wigs for the entire motion picture industry at one poin. For the MGM production of Marie Antoinette in 1938, the Max Factor hair department supplied more than 900 wigs consisting of pure white human hair. In later times white wigs were made from Angora or refined yak hair. Max Factor only used virgin human white hair which posed multiple challenges. Max Factor only wanted white human hair that had never been touched by hair color or bleach of any kind. Factor searched far and wide and eventually found enough white human virgin hair in Europe in smaller towns away from large cities. In some areas women had to be paid in items other than money because money had no real value. Long white hair was the most costly of all. Wigmakers who handled it often wore sunglasses since handling it for long periods of time could cause a type of snow blindness.