Anti-Macassar

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Here is today's word, as in The Word of the Day:

anti-macassar (n.)

also antimacassar, 1848, from anti- + macassar oil, supposedly imported from the district of Macassar on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, which was commercially advertised from 1809 as a men's hair tonic "infallible in promoting an abundant growth and in maintaining the early hue and lustre of the HAIR to the extent of human life" [1830]. The cloth was laid to protect chair and sofa fabric from men leaning their oily heads back against it.

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Macassar oil

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A young man in Herne Bay, Kent, England, around 1903 to 1914, showing hair groomed with Macassar oil

Macassar oil is a compounded oil used primarily by Western European men throughout the 1800s and early 1900s as a hair conditioner to groom and style the hair.^[1]

It was popularised by Alexander Rowland (1747–1823), a celebrated London barber. It was then not uncommon for barbers to make their own hair preparations, and around 1783 Rowland began offering Rowland's Macassar Oil. Within two decades it had become hugely popular, and was aggressively advertised with extravagant claims of its effectiveness, becoming one of the first nationally advertised products.^{[citation needed]}

The words Macassar Oil were registered as a trademark by A. Rowland & Sons in 1888. Rowland's son (also named Alexander) later stated that a relative living in the island of Celebes in the Dutch East Indies had helped in procurement of the basic ingredient.^{[citation needed]}

Macassar oil is often made with vegetable oils, such as coconut, palm or Kusum oil,^[2] combined with fragrant oils such as ylang-ylang.^[3]

Macassar oil was so named because it was reputed to have been manufactured from ingredients purchased in the port of Makassar in the Dutch East Indies.^[4] The poet Byron facetiously called it "thine incomparable oil, Macassar" in the first canto of Don Juan,^[5] and Lewis Carroll also mentions "Rowland's Macassar Oil" in the poem "Haddocks' Eyes" from Through the Looking-Glass.^[6]

Illustration by Thomas Rowlandson from around 1814 making fun of the false claim in some advertisements that Macassar oil would stimulate hair growth on balding men

Due to the tendency for the oil to transfer from the user's hair to the back of his chair, the antimacassar was developed. This is a small cloth (crocheted, embroidered or mass-produced), placed over the back of a chair to protect the upholstery.^[7]