Messenger of the Lord

Harm From Wearing Wigs

In the October 1871 issue of the Health Reformer, ⁷⁶ Ellen White wrote of “hurtful indulgences” that militate against the highest interests and happiness of women. Among these “indulgences” she included wigs that, “covering the base of the brain, heat and excite the spinal nerves centering in the brain.” As a result of “following this deforming fashion,” she said, “many have lost their reason, and become hopelessly insane.” MOL 495.5

In the context of today’s comfortable wigs, critics tend to ridicule this statement. But Mrs. White was referring to an entirely different product. The wigs she described were “monstrous bunches of curled hair, cotton, seagrass, wool, Spanish moss, and other multitudinous abominations.” ⁷⁷ One woman said that her chignon generated “an unnatural degree of heat in the back part of the head” and produced “a distracting headache just as long as it was worn.” MOL 495.6

Another Health Reformer article (quoting from the Marshall Statesman and the Springfield Republican) described the perils of wearing “jute switches” wigs made from dark, fibrous bark. Apparently these switches were often infested with “jute bugs,” small insects that burrowed under the scalp. One woman reported that her head became raw, and her hair began to fall out. Her entire scalp “was perforated with the burrowing parasites.” “The lady ... is represented as nearly crazy from the terrible suffering, and from the prospect of the horrible death which physicians do not seem able to avert.” ⁷⁸ MOL 495.7

With reports such as this in the public press, it is easy to understand why Ellen White would warn women against the possible dangers of wearing wigs and trying to “keep pace with changing fashion, merely to create a sensation.” ⁷⁹ MOL 495.8