Barry's Tricopherous

Attention all would-be Circassian Beauties and anyone else interested in very long, luxuriant hair: Barry's Tricephorous is exactly the thing you need.

At Hair Raising Stories you can see a Barry's Tricopherous bottle and read a bit about the history of this hair tonic, which was first marketed 1842 (although according to the ad it was around as early as 1801), by Alexander Barry of New York. It was mostly alcohol, with a bit of castor oil, Spanish fly and aromatic oils added.

In "Miss Lucinda," a story by Rose Terry Cooke that appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1887, we learn that the story's heroine was devoted to this preparation:

...Tricopherous was essential to her well-being; indeed, she often said she would rather give up coffee than Tricopherous, for her hair as black and wiry and curly, and caps she abhorred, so that of a winter's day her head presented the most irrelevant and volatile aspect, each particular hair taking a twist on its own responsibility, and improvising a wild halo about her unsaintly face, unless subdued into propriety by the aforesaid fluid.

This is just what the German children's-book character Struwwelpeter, pictured on the right, needed. Hair problem solved! (Now he just needs a good manicure.)

Ad with woman from Science Monthly (1887) courtesy of Google Books.