Hair Glossary

The bouffant hairdo holds a special place in hair history. The former First Lady of the United States, Jackie Kennedy, started a hairstyle trend by popularizing the bouffant style in the early 1960s. Although the style looked great on the First Lady, it required a lot of prep time with various styling tools such as heavy lacquered hairsprays, teasing combs and gigantic hair rollers. To achieve the perfect bouffant many women started sleeping on juice can hair rollers and would wrap their heavily teased heads in toilet paper to maintain the shape. The existence of bouffant hairdos actually can be traced back to the 1950s, A popular Life magazine issue wrote a profile about a version of the bouffant hairstyle which was a style worn by aristocratic Europeans.

The bouffant style lost its popularity right after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The "big hair" style became forever linked to the Days of Camelot in the US White House and the high fashion hairstyles and clothing of one of the most glamour American First Ladies.