Bare Chested?

[Apázlinemjó]

Yeah pig crease will do the job also quite nicely and should be available for most celts. Would be interesting to hear someone more knowledgeable about what they used.

I already asked this and Ludens gave me some infos. Now I googled a bit and found the same thing everywhere (These pages are nowhere compared to professional papers and studies, but it's interensting that each of them say the same, sadly they don't give primal sources).

http://www.kernunnos.com/culture/warriors/index.html
http://ancienthistory.suite101.com/a...ay_celtic_life
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...3223118AA9s2x5
http://www.warandpeacegames.com.au/s...categoryId=147
http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/page.php?p=10088
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/celts/factfile/clothes.shtml

They all say that this blonde spiky hair style was made by lime, now since I'm not a native English-speaker, do they mean the fruit? Because that would be pretty much impossible in my opinion, I can't believe that this fruit was such a common sight in Europe (except the Mediterranean region maybe). Or does it mean the "whitewash", anyway, I would like to hear your opinions.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Lime may also refer to a kind of glue/gel. Think lime wire.

[MisterFred]

–noun
1.
Also called burnt lime, calcium oxide, caustic lime, calx, quicklime. a white or grayish-white, odorless, lumpy, very slightly water-soluble solid, CaO, that when combined with water forms calcium hydroxide (slaked lime), obtained from calcium carbonate, limestone, or oyster shells: used chiefly in mortars, plasters, and cements, in bleaching powder, and in the manufacture of steel, paper, glass, and various chemicals of calcium.
2.
a calcium compound for improving crops grown in soils deficient in lime.

I imagine the hair got pretty spiky. Which might have been pretty darn scary - its like some anime character coming at you screaming obscenities in a foreign language.

[Apázlinemjó]

–noun
1.
Also called burnt lime, calcium oxide, caustic lime, calx, quicklime. a white or grayish-white, odorless, lumpy, very slightly water-soluble solid, CaO, that when combined with water forms calcium hydroxide (slaked lime), obtained from calcium carbonate, limestone, or oyster shells: used chiefly in mortars, plasters, and cements, in bleaching powder, and in the manufacture of steel, paper, glass, and various chemicals of calcium.

That's what I found in the dictionary as "whitewash" or what.

Edit: But I can understand how it could made your hair spiky (which remained spiky in the heat of the battle too probably). Though I guess it didn't do anything good to the hair.

[MisterFred]

Well, we don't know if it was pure lime applied, or a lime-mud combination or something like that. I also didn't previously know lime was used as a bleaching agent. Makes me even more impressed with the team's representation. I thought the white-ish hair was just a style choice. :)

[Tellos Athenaios]

I imagine the hair got pretty spiky. Which might have been pretty darn scary - its like some anime character coming at you screaming obscenities in a foreign language.

(Half) naked, and wielding nasty pointy things to cause you pain and suffering.

[Tuuvi]

Come to think of it Punks used to use Knox gelatin to spike their hair, and Knox gelatin can be used as hide glue (I think they're basically the same thing). So maybe the Celts used lime to bleach their hair and hide glue to spike it.

[antisocialmunky]

I would be curious if you could stab someone to death with your hair at that point.

[Glewas]

They all say that this blonde spiky hair style was made by lime, now since I'm not a native English-speaker, do they mean the fruit? Because that would be pretty much impossible in my opinion, I can't believe that this fruit was such a common sight in Europe (except the Mediterranean region maybe). Or does it mean the "whitewash", anyway, I would like to hear your opinions.

I have always had this in my mind when I hear/read that the stereotypical Celt was blonde. I can't really say I know the distribution of hair color back in Celtic lands at this time period, but I just don't think blonde was anymore prevalent or moreso than dark hair. In regards to the spikes, I have heard the spiked styling was to emulate that of a horse's mane or boar's hair.

Also... I seem to remember the Irish hero Cuchulainn's hair was dark at the root then changed to red then blonde as it reached the tip - I thought that may be the case of one who had spiked/bleached his hair and it had started to grow out...

[Apázlinemjó]

I have always had this in my mind when I hear/read that the stereotypical Celt was blonde. I can't really say I know the distribution of hair color back in Celtic lands at this time period, but I just don't think blonde was anymore prevalent or moreso than dark hair. In regards to the spikes, I have heard the spiked styling was to emulate that of a horse's mane or boar's hair.

Also... I seem to remember the Irish hero Cuchulainn's hair was dark at the root then changed to red then blonde as it reached the tip - I thought that may be the case of one who had spiked/bleached his hair and it had started to grow out...

Yeah I read on one of the sites that they wanted to emulate the horse's mane. I don't think the blonde was more prevalent than darker hairs either, that would be definitely strange.

Good point on Cuchulainn, that might be the reason of his hair colours. Like in nowadays if you colour your hair once and don't repeat the process it will eventually grow out.

Well, we don't know if it was pure lime applied, or a lime-mud combination or something like that.

I'm not a chemist, so I don't have knowledge in that. What I know, that even if the lime is mixed with something else, like mud or water, it still causes skin irritation and dangerous if you inhale it, or if it gets into your eyes.

[WinsingtonIII]

I really doubt it would have been pure quicklime, that probably would have burned the hair right off. Also, mixing it with water is a bit dangerous. When quicklime comes in contact with water, it reacts and the temperature goes up to something ridiculous like 150 degrees Celsius. At least, that's what it says here, when the author talks about the use of quicklime in Greek fire (it may have been the ignition mechanism). Of course, they could probably just wait until after the mixture had cooled off and then place it in their hair.

I don't know, but personally this is not the sort of thing I would want to put in my hair...