Lemon Juice as Hair Dye

Nationality: Canadian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Toronto, Canada
Performance Date: 4/11/2019
Primary Language: English

Text

Informant (C): I don’t know if this is like, “folk” or whatever ’cause I think it really works, but like, before I started dyeing my hair with, like, real dye, I would put lemon juice in my hair in, like, streaks and then I’d go outside and sit in the sun and wait for my hair to get lighter. Like, I’d do the streaks to get highlights because I didn’t want to be totally blonde, but I wanted something other than just… brown. But like yeah, I’d always see a difference, I mean, it would take a few hours and like multiple lemons, but, like, I’d definitely be blonder afterwards, which was nice because I never actually had to buy hair dye or, like, get yelled at by my parents because it was “natural” or whatever. But after, like, sophomore year, I just stopped giving a shit and went to Hot Topic to actually dye my hair.

Context: The informant is a natural brunette, but frequently dyes her hair, typically red, but originally experimented with blonde highlights. This was a common practice around the school the informant and collector attended. The collecter herself also participated in this practice but didn’t see the same results as the informant.

Analysis: This “beauty hack” is a common belief among young, brunette women who are attempting to lighten their hair. Many online blogs and websites endorse the belief and recommend that those interested put lemon in their hair and sit out in the sun. The belief is that the acidity of the lemon reacts with the sun, creating a bleach-like effect. At the same time, lemon juice is viewed as less harmful than actual bleach and is “healthier” for the hair. This view makes sense, as lemon juice isn’t created in a lab like most artificial hair lightening products. This belief places an emphasis on the “natural” alternative to larger, corporate solutions to lightening hair. It’s a way of outsmarting the beauty companies and embracing a natural way of dyeing one’s hair, which gives the person who used lemon juice a unique story of how they achieved their beauty look. In a way, this practice creates an identity for those who do the practice as natural beauty experts who are savvy enough to avoid the corporate norm of beauty products.

Watermelon Seeds Make You Pregnant

Text:

Informant (C): Remember at Walton’s when we used to have watermelon and I refused to eat it and said I was allergic?

Collector (J): Yeah

C: I was never actually allergic and I actually really liked watermelon, but when I was at school some other dumbass kid told me that people got pregnant from eating watermelon seeds so I was crazy paranoid about like, being a child mother, and so I just avoided it like the plague because I didn’t want a kid.

J: Really?

C: Yeah, because, like, my mom was pregnant like my sister and the kid said “oh she probably ate watermelon” and I was like “what?” and they were like “well, like, she has a watermelon in her tummy” or whatever and my dumbass just fell for it. I thought that, like, if you swallowed the seed, you would grow a watermelon in your stomach and then the baby would form in the watermelon. Like now I know that’s ridiculous, but like it was believable as a kid because I didn’t know about sex. I guess that kid’s parents or someone told them that because they didn’t want to explain the whole “your mom and dad had sex” thing. But yeah, after I learned about sex I started eating watermelon again.

Context: C and J met at a summer camp (Walton’s). At the end of each camp session, there was a camp-wide barbeque where watermelon was served.

Analysis: Like the informant said, this belief likely started as a way to wholesomely tell kids how their mothers got pregnant. Instead of explaining puberty and sex, the narrative of having a woman swallow a watermelon seed is easier to explain to a child. It also makes physical sense, because a pregnancy belly does approximate the size of a small watermelon. The inside flesh of the watermelon also arguably could resemble human flesh, which is why it is so believable that a baby can be formed in it. There is also something to be said about the association of fruits and fertility, with the human and plant lifecycle often being associated with each other. The cyclical nature of life as both human and watermelon allow a further association to be made with the human gestation period. Overall, the idea that pregnant women are carrying watermelons and are pregnant because of watermelon seeds isn’t that far-fetched from the eyes of a child who has no knowledge of sex.

A Sleeper Receives Nothing But Dreams

Nationality: Canadian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Toronto, Canada
Performance Date: 4/11/2019
Primary Language: English

Text:

A sleeper receives nothing but dreams

Context: The informant learned this phrase from her mother, who was a Croatian refugee who fled to Canada. The informant likes this phrase because it encourages her to work hard to achieve her goals.

Analysis: “A sleeper receives nothing but dreams” encourages individuals to actively participate in achieving their goals rather than simply dreaming about them or “sleeping.” This is how the informant interpreted the proverb, as her mother would tell it to her at times when she was not actively participating in extra-curricular activities in high school or was not doing her homework. In this sense, “sleeping” is any activity deemed to be a leisure activity or not actively pursuing an end-goal. At the same time, however, this could be interpreted as a positive thing for sleepers, as dreams are something necessary to achieve success in the first place.

 

Ghost stories at Christian camp (Dolly)

INFORMANT: OOH girl I got a ghost story. You’ve probably heard it. I feel like everyone’s heard it.

 

ME: What is it?

 

INFORMANT: The Dolly story.

 

ME: Oh my god yes I have heard it! Tell me your version.

 

INFORMANT: Okay so according to the story there was once this little girl who went to the carnival and played some carnival games. They were those carnival games where you can like win stuff, ya know? So anyway this little brat played the game and lost and pitched a fit, so the carnival guy gave her this beat ass doll that only had two fingers and I guess she was like “whatever it’s cute” and took it home and named it Dolly. So she started noticing that her doll kept ending up in different places than the places she would leave it, and she asked her parents if they had been moving her doll around and they said no. The one time she came home and Dolly had not only moved but also had a knife in her hand. I guess she was an idiot or something because she didn’t think this was weird and kept the doll. Then one day her mom went missing and no one knew where she went. The girl went to the doll for comfort and noticed that it had gained a finger. The next day, while she was at school, her dad went missing. Once again, Dolly had gained a finger. The next day she came home from school early and walked in and found Dolly standing over the house keeper with a bloody knife. When she took the knife from Dolly she noticed that she had gained another finger. This was the moment when she realized that Dolly gained a finger every time she killed someone and that her parents weren’t missing. They were killed by Dolly.

 

Background

The informant learned this ghost story at Christian camp from one of her friends. She said that they often exchanged ghost stories right before going to sleep for fun, even though it was really scary. This story was her favorite one to tell because she thought it was so creepy. She also thinks that this story is the reason she now has a strange fear of dolls.

 

Context

The informant is a college student at the university and grew up in Dallas, Texas.

 

Thoughts

The idea that a doll could be possessed is a common theme in folklore. This perversion of something that typically symbolizes childhood is exceptionally scary in nature because childhood is suppose to be comforting. It’s scary to think that even the things we might turn to for comfort could also be evil. This type of scary story can also be seen in horror stories about haunted houses or evil stepmothers. It is terrifying to think that the things that should keep us safe could actually be the things putting us in danger. If you can’t turn to your childhood toy, your house, or your mother for comfort, then what can you do? Additionally, because the girl received the cursed doll after she misbehaved, it could have also been a way to scare children into behaving correctly and encourage them to not act so spoiled.

 

Salt Over the Shoulder: Faeries or Demon?

Nationality: American
Age: 59
Occupation: Writer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 10, 2019
Primary Language: English

Piece:

KE: “If salt spills, you pick up a little pinch of it and throw it over your left shoulder. It’s for the faeries because you don’t want to make them mad you spilled the salt so you are giving them some. But there’s another meaning I know where there’s a Demon behind you and you are throwing salt in his face.”

Context:

The informant grew up knowing the faerie version from her mother, since she was little. Someone else told her the demon version when they saw the informant throw salt over her shoulder in college.

Analysis:

This is a simple practice that takes on two wildly different meanings. The faerie version gives the person the chance to “share” the spilled salt, whereas the demon version requires the person protect themselves after making a mistake. It makes sense that a parent might tell their child the faerie version, if they were even aware of the two different versions. As the informant’s mother comes from a Wales and Irish lineage, I wonder if the faerie version stems from there, or pure chance as to which version the informant’s mother learned first. This practice goes back to the idea of the world needing to be in balance– so if salt spills, you need to correct it by using the salt for a purpose, either sharing with faeries or protecting against demons. In the faerie version, a child might be encouraged to spill salt in order to feed the faeries, whereas the demon version makes spilling salt a punishable offense.