Historical Cosmo Girls

[Eva Elisabeth]

That is my favorite, too. ("What your friends may not be telling you" applies as well to "Is this color/outfit becoming to me?" and all these questions.)

As for "Brunettes - Why They're better" - since one colleague of mine makes sure I won't ever miss the latest stupid-blue-eyed-blondes joke (but most are really funny), I once confronted him (to no avail) with the "blondes-will-die-out" hoax ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2284783.stm ) that occasionally reappeares. (Usually people begin to cherish what - they fear - they are going to lose, but he pictured me in a sort of Brave-New-World Savage Reservation).

However, this hoax was indeed first published in the following 1865 article* approving of recent Parisian fashion changes favoring the blonde look dates rumors concerning the extinction of the blondes:

"GOLDEN HAIR

Not long ago, the admirers of blue eyes and fair hair were disgusted by certain wise men announcing that the blonde was becoming rapidly extinct, failing to hold her own even in her native North. Let them take heart and rejoice, and laugh to scorn the evil prophecies of Darwinian doctrinaires. Fashion, in Paris, has determined to thwart the disciples of the new school, and set natural selection at defiance, and the fiat has gone forth that the blonde is the true type of beauty, and golden your only hair. Amber-colored locks are literally worth their weight in gold, and all the hair-markets of Europe are being ransacked to enable Parisian belles to witch mankind with beauty not their own, except by right of purchase."

(*"The Flag of Our Union", Aug.26, 1865)