Hair-raising pursuits

SIR: Nick Reynolds’s fascinating piece about death masks (January issue) recalled a vogue for making life masks when I was at school in the mid-1960s. We followed much the same process he describes, though being short of time and money we skipped the first layer of plaster and scrim. We applied melted wax to a well-greased face. Paper tubes were inserted in the nostrils to enable breathing. (It was only later that they were appropriated for mindaltering substances.)

In spite of a good science education, we failed to realise that paraffin wax from candles had a much higher melting point than the beeswax used by our mentor. Applying the molten wax was excruciatingly painful. Worse, it also melted the Vaseline on the hairline, welded itself into place and had to be snipped off. For weeks we looked like incompetently-tonsured monks. Sadly, though there are a few surreal and grainy photos, no life masks are known to have survived. Peter Cardy, Gosport, Hampshire