Many people have asked me about Celtic hairstyles for both men and women. They want to know about everyday life and what they looked like.
Celtic Soap: The Romans noted that the Celts were very particular about bathing and grooming habits. They smelled very good, as we know, they washed their hands and face with soap in the morning and took a full bath with soap at night. Later they applied oil with aromatic herbs on their skin. There are clear descriptions in the Brehon Laws of when elite “security” warriors should bathe, just as the brats of foster children should be washed every other day. A brat was a sort of almost ritualistic cloak in belief. It is said that it is the Celts who introduced soap to the Romans who used the oil and chopsticks to previously scrape off their dirt.
Celtic hands: In Ireland, people in the hierarchy had to have well-groomed nails. Warriors were considered hierarchical and would be embarrassed if he kept his nails ragged. Women sometimes dye their nails crimson, as we see in the story of Deirdre, who states that dyeing her nails crimson refers to joyous occasions, and therefore she will no longer do so when some children die.
Celtic hair and makeup for the face and body: Celts sometimes had beards or mustaches or not, depending on tribe and position. Some soldiers and lower-class Celts had moustaches, often curled at the tips, but beardless in the medieval period. Beards were often forked: very few Irish works of art show a beard without forking and instead with a square cut at the bottom. Other beard styles show a single long beard on the chin, sometimes with a square cut at the bottom.
Prominent people were clean-shaven or had beards and mustaches. The mustache later became known to the aristocracy and was worn alone, which lasted until the medieval period. Diodorus of Sicily – “Nobles shave their cheeks, but let the mustache grow until it covers the mouth.” As said, there are several tribes, so it all depends on the area. Caesar noted that the Celts shaved their bodies except for their heads and upper lip.
In the myths we can see many things that they did, but one must read through many to find these gems. For example, berry juice is sometimes used for black eyebrows for ladies. Irish missionary monks were also known to paint or dye their eyelids black. The cheeks were reddened by a plant called ‘ruam’, it could be alder berries, but it is unknown. It is not clear if both men and women reddened their cheeks.
Celtic Hair was long according to Cesar and some other sources from the free classes and for both men and women – Irish artwork.
The warriors, on the other hand, (Roman sculpture of the ‘dying Gaul’ and the soldier from the Book of Kells), have hair that looks like a bowl, higher in the back and longer over the eyes. The cut is much like the ‘simplistic’ style worn by soldiers in late medieval Ireland. Warrior soldiers and lower class men wore a long mustache with no accompanying beard. One of the membership tests to join some of the elite warrior groups was that the candidate had to run through a forest, pursued by all the Fianna, without the branches letting go of a braid of his hair.
Sometimes on occasion, they wore their hair in multiple elaborate curls and braids which they adorned with feathers, gold balls, silver and bronze ribbons, thin flexible gold plates, or gold balls and other ornaments fastened in the hair. In the Tain Bo Culaigne, a beautiful woman has three braids of hair wrapped around her head, and her fourth one hangs down her back to her ankles. One of the tests to be a member of the Warrior class was that the candidate had to run through a forest, pursued by the entire Warrior band, without the branches releasing a braid from his hair.
The ancient Celts had a unique hairstyle that attracted the attention of many classical authors.
Diodorus of Sicily – says that the Celts were tall and muscular, with pale skin and blond hair that was artificially highlighted by washing them with lime water. Then they gather it from the forehead to the top of the head and to the nape of the neck… and thus the hair becomes so heavy and coarse that it looks like horse mane. It could be that they considered the Unicorn or Horse God as their Mother.
Irish texts refer to hair so long and stiff that it would have passed through an apple when it fell. The Irish hero god CuChulainn is described in this way, and it is added that his hair was of three colors, the darkest near the scalp and the lightest at the end. If it’s a Hound constellation we can see the fainter stars, or it could be the reference to the bleaching style they learned to do.
*Note: the Celts always took their children into other clans for study. The soap is not proven, but most say that it was the Celts who invented it or brought it to Europe.
The above information was obtained from descriptions of stories from Welsh and Irish mythology, both from classical and early Irish sources, as well as depictions in Irish artwork by various authors such as Joyce, Berresford, both Mathews and Markale.