20 Bizarre Beauty Gadgets Women Used Before Modern Salons

In 1918, M. Trilety, a mail-order “face specialist” based in Binghamton, New York, started selling the Trados Model 25 to self-conscious women, years before nose surgery became common. The device consisted of bent brass plates and leather straps that pressed on the bridge of the nose and both nostrils, with fine screws you could tighten every day. Thirty minutes a day would permanently remold the nose’s cartilage, Trilety promised. Doctors said it wouldn’t work, since cartilage that has stopped growing in adults doesn’t bend with pressure and stay that way.

In 1937, Isabella Gilbert of Rochester, New York, invented the “Dimple Maker” after being inspired by dimpled child stars like Shirley Temple. Her gadget was a spring-loaded wire frame that was hooked around the ears and jawline, pressing two blunt metal knobs into the wearer’s cheeks. According to the American Medical Association (AMA), “real” dimples are caused by a split in the cheek muscle rather than by a dent on the surface of the skin, and they cautioned that the device could end up damaging the tissue instead.

The Tricho System was developed by Dr. Albert C. Geyser, a medical doctor, in the early 1920s as an X-ray machine to remove unwanted facial hair. By 1925, the machine was operating in more than 75 beauty parlors. A client would sit in front of a large wooden cabinet containing the X-ray tube and receive about 20 brief exposures. The unwanted hair would fall out painlessly, and the results appeared successful. But the parlor operators had no training in radiation safety, and in the following 10 to 20 years, thousands of women would develop skin damage and fatal cancers due to their exposure.

In 1932, Hollywood makeup innovator Max Factor introduced the Beauty Micrometer. It was a rigid metal headband with adjustable arms designed to quantify asymmetries under movie cameras. The operator adjusted metal bands around the subject’s face by turning small set screws and recording her facial proportions to the nearest thousandth of an inch. Factor believed that a perfect face would have a nose and forehead of equal length and equally spaced eyes. No beauty parlor possessed one. Today, only one remains in existence.

In 1928, Elizabeth Arden, a prominent cosmetic manufacturer, introduced the Vienna Youth Mask, created with Dr. Franz Nagelschmidt, a Viennese doctor. The mask, made of molded rubber, was lined with heating coils and metal foil electrodes that were wired up to a high-frequency generator, which was used for actual electrotherapy treatments. Instead of causing any shocks, however, the current generated deep heat under the skin, called “diathermy.” Arden claimed that using it for ten minutes would cause your facial fat to melt, and your lines to disappear. Not the sort of thing that can happen just by getting warm.

When Marie and Pierre Curie uncovered radium, Radior began manufacturing what they called “Radior Toilet Requisites” circa 1915, and they were introduced in the US in 1918. The Under-Chin Pad consisted of a strap made of fabric that would buckle around the wearer’s head and keep a pad lined with radium ore under her chin while she slept. The company claimed its radioactive energy would melt away unwanted double chins and stimulate cell growth. Testing at the time confirmed the pads did indeed contain low-level radiation, though it wasn’t yet clear how bad it would be to spend your nights in contact with them.

Mrs. D.M. Ackerman, of Hollywood, California, introduced the “Glamour Bonnet” in 1941, a clear plastic airtight helmet with a sealed neck that closed tightly around the patron. An electric pump drew air out to decrease the pressure within the helmet. Mrs. Ackerman said the loss of pressure caused blood to rush into the skin’s tiny blood vessels, giving the face a pink glow. Air valves were regulated so oxygen could still enter during the treatment. While the machine was pumping away, the customer could sit there and read a magazine through the clear hood.

The German hairdresser Karl Nessler, also known as Charles Nestle, showed the first electric perm machine in London in October 1906. Weighing around 20 pounds, the device hung from the ceiling and supported roughly a dozen brass curlers that were heated by electricity. Clients’ hair was treated with a chemical paste, wound onto the tubes, and left to steam away for as long as six hours. As Nessler worked on refining the technology, he burned off his wife Katharina’s hair on two occasions and burned her scalp before obtaining a patent for the device in 1909.

Made in France during the 1930s by Star Devices, the Massosein attached molded glass cups to a bathroom faucet via a rubber hose. Running cold water through the cups generated suction and pressure against the breasts. French advertising for the device, sold directly as a bust-improving hydromassage machine, claimed that the cold water would help tissue and muscle fibers lift and expand the bust. There was no scientific proof to back this claim.

Based on the same high-frequency Tesla coil technology of early electrotherapy, the Violet Ray was widely used in salons and homes between about 1910 and 1935. A Bakelite handle wired to a coil generator generated up to 50,000 volts at a very low amperage, and different glass tube attachments ionized the gas in them to make them glow purple when brushed against skin. The machines were advertised as cures for acne, wrinkles, and hair loss until they were banned by the Food and Drug Administration for fraudulent medical claims.

In 1875, Detroit, Michigan, inventor Helen M. Rowley patented a mask made of thick, rigid vulcanized rubber, and sold it under the name Madam Rowley as the “Toilet Mask” or “Face Glove.” The mask was to be worn three nights a week while sleeping, trapping body heat and perspiration against the skin, with salves or bleaching creams sometimes applied underneath, too. The intent was that the accumulated perspiration would soften the skin and remove freckles, for the fashionable complexion at the time was very pale. The mask itself was just heavy and airless rubber, though, offering no real benefits for the discomfort it caused.

In the United States during the 1890s, “Prof.” Mack, a title he gave himself, sold a Chin Reducer and Beautifier, an elastic- and leather-strapped harness with padded rollers that went under the chin. By pulling on two hand cords, the user would roll the wheels up and down his or her throat. According to Mack’s instructions, this process would stimulate blood flow and help tighten a sagging chin, a look that was prized under the high collars of the era. This external rolling, however, had no chance of reaching the underlying fat.

On September 18, 1888, the French-born hairstylist Alexandre-Ferdinand Godefroy patented a “Hair-Dressing Device” that he used at his salon in St. Louis, Missouri. The device was a metal bonnet that hung above an armchair and was attached via pipes to the exhaust of a gas stove. A crank-operated fan blew warm air into the bonnet, over the head of a seated client. A valve allowed built-up steam to escape so it would not scald her scalp. The gas-powered contraption reduced the time required to dry long Victorian hair.

Haircuts became more popular in the 1920s, as many women opted for a bob. Bobbed hair needed to be washed and styled more often than longer hair did, yet the salon hood dryer was still bolted to the floor, while the first hand-held electric hair dryers were too heavy and likely to short-circuit. Canister vacuum cleaners came with an exhaust port on the back where you could attach the flexible hose. A 1924 book for women showed how to attach a toaster element to the hose to heat up the air.

Early in the 20th century, E. Marguerite Lindley, who was a physical culture teacher and author, not a doctor, popularized a facial pore vacuum. It consisted of a tiny glass cup connected to a small rubber bulb. By squeezing and releasing the bulb against your skin, you’d create a light suction that would pull oil and dirt out of your pores and bring blood to the surface, causing a nice pink flush that faded quickly. Because it was powered by your hands, it was considerably less aggressive than pulling out a blackhead with your fingernail.

In 1880, a man who called himself “Dr.” George Augustus Scott, though he had no medical education, put up for sale on both sides of the Atlantic a product called Dr. Scott’s Electric Hair Brush (London/New York), which was supposed to alleviate baldness, dandruff, and headaches by running electric current through the scalp. The brush contained no battery, no wires, no electricity, nothing of the sort. Instead, he hid permanently magnetized steel rods inside the handle, and packed a pocket compass with every brush so buyers could watch the needle twitch and think electricity was doing its thing.

In the early 1930s, an Italian dermatologist named Dr. M. Matarasso popularized the use of a carbon dioxide “snow” device for removing freckles. The apparatus was used to compress the gas into pencil-sized applicators that were intensely cold at the tip. A technician touched the end of the applicator to each freckle on a client’s face for three seconds, which caused the affected skin to blister and peel away within a week. During the process, the woman’s eyes were sealed with rubber plugs, and she kept a breathing tube in her mouth the entire time.

During the 1930s and 1940s, motorized “Beat-Massage” machines were installed at beauty salons and fitness centers. These large floor-standing frames contained an electric motor that turned wooden beads, metal cylinders, or leather straps, and clients would stand or sit next to the roller head as it beat and pounded their thighs, hips, and butt cheeks. The beat-massage machines promised that the beating action broke up fat cells and treated cellulite without exercise, although no amount of mechanical beating could achieve that.

The Ice Cap mask was constructed in 1931 by Max Factor, the creator of the Beauty Micrometer. The mask consisted of a fabric and rubber harness studded with small cubes of plain frozen water, made solid in the studio’s freezers, which Factor strapped to the cheeks of puffy actresses between takes to cool them down while keeping their makeup intact underneath. In the late 1940s, Factor rebranded the Ice Cap mask as Hangover Heaven and offered it to everyday consumers.

Charles W. Stickel and William E. McDonell of Rochester, New York, were awarded a patent in 1923 for the Kurlash, the first mechanical eyelash curler to actually sell. Its design consisted of scissor-like handles and a curved metal clamp lined with rubber pads. The user squeezed his or her upper lashes inside the device for up to ten minutes per eye. Early customers called it the “bear trap” because it looked so scary. Within a year, the price fell from as much as $5.00 to just $1.00, and its basic shape remains the same as those found in any drugstore today.

This content was created with the help of AI.