Lady's Dressing Table

Dressing table essentials have been collectible as far back as the Victorian era and through the 1950's.  These collectibles are still sought after items today.  I have bought and sold these items for years and this is a few items that I have kept.  When ladies wore their hair up, they often wore beautiful hair ornaments and combs.  I have also displayed some old hair pins as well.  In the background in the top picture, you can also see a bedside water decanter that I purchased in an antiques shop several years ago.  The lid comes off and becomes the glass.  Hat pins are also a fun collectible and I have pictured a container of them.  Powder boxes, perfume bottles,  and hand mirror sets are frequently sought after as well.   The second picture down shows an old "hair receiver".  During the Victorian era, hair receivers were a fixture on the dressing table of most fashionable ladies.  They were created to hold hair that was removed from hairbrushes after vigorous brushing, and they look a lot like vanity jars or powder jars, but with the distinctive feature of having a finger sized opening hole in the center of the lid.  The comb would be run through the hairbrush bristles and the accumulated hair would be coiled around a finger and then inserted into the opening of the hair receiver.  The uses for the collected hair was varied, but most frequently it was used in the creation of "Ratts".  These were sheer hair nets that were stuffed full of the hair and then sewn shut.  Most ladies of the day wore the "big" hairstyles so ratts provided a stuffing to enhance the height of these hairstyles.  Other uses for the hair were also stuffing for pin cushions or cushions and pillows.