High gas prices have you pulling your hair out?
Let me take you back to a simpler time, when abundant crude oil and good hair went together. A time when the murky (Pennsylvania Crude Oil) and the quirky (the prophecies of Edgar Cayce) held out the prospect of a fuller head of shiny hair.
The oil fields of Pennsylvania saw the birth of the modern oil industry in the1860s. Easy-to-access, paraffin-based oil was seeping from rocks or was located a few feet below the surface, accessible via adapted water well drilling rigs and easily refined. And the primary refined product — in those heady days before the internal combustion engine drove the oil market and before Edison’s light bulb revolutionized nighttime illumination — was kerosene, which was used to light lamps around the world.
Beginning in 1863, tough-minded businessman John D. Rockefeller began to seize control of the Pennsylvania boom, squeezing out competitors and creating the Standard Oil behemoth. (Though broken up by Teddy Roosevelt’s anti-trust legislation in 1911 into 34 companies, the remnants of Standard Oil exist today, as whole or parts of Big Oil companies such as BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, and Marathon Oil.)
The other legacy of the Pennylvania oil boom? Hair care products.
American psychic Edgar Cayce gave more than 14,000 readings on more than 10,000 different topics. For 43 years of his adult life, Edgar Cayce demonstrated the ability to put himself into a self-induced sleep state by lying down on a couch, closing his eyes, and folding his hands over his stomach. He then gave trancelike “readings” on everything from dreams, religion, philosophy, psychic phenomena, and health.
Some of these readings were on the topic of scalp and hair care, and the unlikely revelation that Pennsylvania Crude Oil was the key to a healthy head. Why Pennsylvania Crude? Because, in part, it was viscous and paraffin-based, unlike the heavier bitumen-based, sulfur laden crudes in other parts of the US. Cayce even invented his own brand, called Crudeoleum. The hair rejuvenation he recommended included use of crude oil, Vaseline, and grain alcohol. Eventually the Crudoleum treatments replaced the grain alcohol with an olive oil-based shampoo to wash out the crude oil.
According to a study of 45 Crudeoleum users in 1972 only 4% reported complete hair restoration, while some 7% reported considerable hair restoration. About 18% reported moderate restoration. Some 42% reported little restoration, and 29% none.
So, if all else fails during this high-priced driving season and you need some relief for your aching, dishevelled head, you can always try a little crude oil derivative on your hair.
Who knows, maybe a little dab’ll do ya.
Lighting up a cigarette during the treament is not advised.
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