I was wondering if anyone knew how the Celts limed their hair? Not the the style but how they made the stuff. I've tried searching for it or any modern recreation attempts but haven't found anything and was wondering if anyone on here has heard of someone who knows or if they know themselves. Thanks in Advance!

The same way they made lime for plaster? Crush limestone and burn.

Diodorus Siculus is the only ancient source for this and he says:-
"
The Gauls are tall of body with rippling muscles and white of skin and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so for they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which nature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in limewater and they pull it back from the forehead to the nape of the neck, with the result that their appearance is like that of Satyrs and Pans since the treatment of their hair makes it so heavy and coarse that it differs in no respect from the mane of horses".


You can only imagine that they used slaked quicklime (so, roasted limestone, crushed and then mixed with water) which had been allowed to cool down (as mixing quicklime and water causes the mixture to heat up to over 150 degrees c.)

It'd need to be fairly dilute, so that it thickened and bleached the hair rather than just rotted it.

Be REALLY careful, or you could end up bald with a burned scalp. It's possible that what was used was *chalk*, not lime. Much safer.

Good luck!

Matthew

Slaked lime isn't as harmful to the skin but you'd still want to keep it away from your eyes.

Thanks for the replies guys. and down worry I'm gonna be careful about this. The last things I want is to be 19 and bald.

I was ready to go for this after reading this thread myself, but when I looked up slaked lime/limewater, the MSDS listed contact as a 3 out of 4 (or fairly severe) in terms of damage to the body (i.e. skin and eyes, etc...) on contact. Blistering, burning and scarring are frequently mentioned.

Chalk was also listed on someone's reply--would this have the same effect? I'm assuming the limewater dries out and stiffens the hair, but chalk is fairly non-reactive: would it do the same thing, or just become mineralized buildup in the hair? Over a longer period of time, this MIGHT work, but I have doubts about the results being as drastic as "a horse's mane"