Do you sleep with things on your Head?

 Loading ...

If this post doesn’t make you hungry, I’ll eat my hat!  The question is, which hat?  I actually only have a few, being a tichel kind of girl most of the time…. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll scare up one of these tasty toppers.

• Nacho hat - Imagine a sombrero made out of a hard taco shell.  Create a bowl-shaped depression on the crown, fill it with flavorful melted cheese, and presto, (more…)

Who likes to curl up with a good book?  If you do, read on.  If you don’t, this post might change your mind.  If you’re on this blog, it’s because you’re at least curious about hats and hair coverings and so on.  In that case, this booklist might interest you: each of these selections features hair covering in some way or another.  If you’ve read any of them (or have another suggestion!), leave a review in a comment!

• In High Places by Harry Turtledove.  A young French secular Jewish girl, who happens to be a time traveler, is sold to a slave caravan and dons a veil as a necessary disguise.
• Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah.  Set in Australia, a Muslim teenager decides to wear hijab full-time, and deals with a variety of reactions from friends and loved ones. (more…)

 Loading ...

One of the biggest challenges that hair-coverers face is what to wear to work.  You want to look professional, and you probably don’t want to stick out too much or attract unwanted attention – or at worst, hostility.  But you also don’t want to compromise your principles, comfort, or health by leaving your cover at home.    If you work in a more casual or religious-oriented environment, this may not have been a huge dilemma, but in a very businesslike workplace, or where you’re the only one who covers, this can be a really stressful decision.

(more…)

When giving gifts, whether for birthdays or weddings or holidays or because I feel like it, my personal style is to blend whimsy with practicality: I like to find something useful that also happens to be really cute.  So when I saw a whole bunch of my favorite headbands in Rite-Aid on Friday, I immediately bought a pack – and gave several to a friend at her bridal shower this weekend.  These particular headbands are perfect for wearing under tichels to help keep them in place, and I know that this friend has a fantastic collection of tichels waiting for after her big day.  (She’s Orthodox Jewish, and will be covering her hair once she’s married.) (more…)

Have you ever seen women working out with their hair down?  I’ve never understood how people can do that.  Doesn’t it get extra-messy?  Isn’t it annoying to have it flapping in your face as you run/bike/dance?  And don’t get me started on the ones I’ve seen wearing wigs on the treadmill!

When you’re exercising or playing sports, the last thing you want is your hair getting in the way.  It can even be unsafe; if vision is blocked or loose hair gets caught in equipment, you could get hurt.  The same problems can apply if you make the wrong choice of hair covering, not to mention that certain items can be ruined from sweat or frequent washing.   (more…)

If you’ve been blessed with a very full head of hair, or you wear dreadlocks, it can present some challenges.  We’ve talked about covering short hair; now here’s the flip-side.

The more you have to cover, the more cover you may need.  A typical tichel may seem more like a bandana if there’s a lot to fit under it.  Pashmina-style rectangles, snoods, or untied headbands are most likely to go all the way around your hairstyle.  If you want to buy a hat or fitted headband but are worried about how well it will fit over your big hair, measure around the widest part of your head and find a size that accounts for the space taken up by your hairstyle. (more…)

As much fun as it is to have a headcovering or hair accessory to go with every outfit, not that many of us have unlimited funds to blow on every cute hat or headband we see.  And for someone who is just starting out with covering her hair, the possibilities can be overwhelming.  So let’s talk about what constitutes your basic stash; what are the essential pieces that no hair-coverer can get by without?

The most obvious thing is your basic black, whether it be a tichel, pretied bandana, snood, beret, or headband.  As big an advocate as I am of wearing color (lots of it and bright!), black does in fact go with just about anything.   (more…)

We talk a lot about the best way to cover hair while at work, about how to seem fashionable and not stand out too much while doing so.  But have you ever seen a sign like this?

There are two big reasons why hair covering might be required in a workplace: cleanliness and safety.  Cleanliness is a big issue where food is being handled; no one wants to pull a hair out of their Twinkie, or filet mignon.  Did you know that there are beard covers for men as well?

And safety is a reason to cover in places where tools or machinery could catch hair; anyone who’s read about Victorian sweatshops has seen a horror story where some girl’s hair gets caught in a spinning machine or something and terrible results ensue.  Just as some people remove their wedding rings for safety reasons at work, some people cover their hair.  Hospital workers of various types often cover their hair; sometimes it’s required, and sometimes it’s just smarter or easier to do so. (more…)

We’ve done a few posts about washing and caring for your hair – but caring for your hairCOVERINGS is just as important!  If you don’t know what to do, you could end up ruining a favorite item.  Last summer, a bird pooped on my navy tichel with lurex stripes (yet another reason to love covering – at least it ended up on a tichel instead of my hair!).  Without thinking, I threw it into the regular laundry.  It came out shrunken, faded, and with broken lurex threads poking out all over the place.  Clearly, I need to be more careful with my washing methods.

How often you wash your headgear is up to you.   (more…)

Short-haired people sometime get short shrift.  So much of the information about hair styling out there only applies to shoulder-length or longer hair.  But as little as there may be about styling short hair, there’s even less advice on how to cover it.

Think about it.  If you have long hair and want to cover it all, you need to tie it up and tuck it in.  So items like pretied bandanas and snoods are designed with that in mind.  Many tichel-tying methods assume that you have a bun of hair to anchor the style.  But if your hair is short, you lose that anchor, and you don’t need extra hair-room in your covers.  Some women choose short hair styles specifically because it allows them to cover their hair differently.

So, whether you have a pixie or a bob, or are considering cutting your hair, check out the tips below.   (more…)

You’ve seen Muslim women with veils on before, but have you ever paid attention to the different kinds that they wear?  You may know a couple of terms like hijab or burqa, but do you really know what they mean?  Here’s some info about Muslim headcovering styles. 

First of all, veiling and other modesty measures were common in the Middle East and Central Asia before Islam developed; ancient Persian, Turk, Greek, Byzantine, and other women dressed in the prototypes of styles that are still worn today.  This is why you will see Muslim women in Afghanistan wearing one thing, women in Saudi Arabia wearing another, and women in Morocco wearing yet another style of clothing and veil. 

The term “hijab” refers to both a style of covering, and to the concept of covering for modesty in general.  People from different areas will have different ideas on how much to cover, or how.  Just as there are lots of ways to tie a tichel, there are lots of ways to wear hijab.  (more…)

Did you ever wonder why chemotherapy treatment for cancer often results in hair loss?

Basically, cancer cells grow really fast.  In order to kill them, or stop them from spreading, drugs need to inhibit cell growth.  So while chemo is running around your body killing off anything that grows too quickly, your hair will get caught in the crossfire.  Hair loss tends to begin within one to three weeks after treatment begins, and can continue to happen for several weeks after it ends.   (more…)

The basic life-cycle of a hair is that it grows about half an inch per month for 2 to 6 years, rests for a while, then falls out.  At any given time, about 85% of your hair is growing and 15% is resting.  Baldness is when hair falls out, but nothing grows in its place.

Female pattern baldness isn’t exactly like the male version.  Instead of the classic receding hairline, women tend to lose hair from the top of their heads – a center parting becomes gradually wider.  And they rarely lose as much as men; women experience general thinning, but they still have hair.  It is caused by changes in the level of certain hormones.

How do you know that your hair loss is a result of female pattern baldness?   (more…)

Alopecia – the medical term for hair loss – can occur for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes it is hereditary, or caused by an autoimmune disorder, and cannot be controlled.  But sometimes hair things as a result of other issues, such as stress and nutrition, in which case, there are several things you can do to deal with it.

• Protein and iron are essential when it comes to having healthy hair.  If you’re lacking either, or are otherwise messing around with your diet (eating nothing but grapefruit for a week?), then hair loss can result. (more…)

I’m planning ahead.  Snow is expected in my neck of the woods by Tuesday, which I’m hoping will translate into a Wednesday snow day.  That means I have two days to buy a sled and make sure my family has everything we need to stay warm.  And when it comes to warm headgear, no one beats the Russians.

You know those fur-lined hats with the earflaps that are getting more popular every year?  The style is known as the ushanka (plural: ushanky). (more…)

Experts have agreed that the hottest color in the new year will be one they dubbed “honeysuckle,” a bright, warm pinky-red shade.  The Pantone Color Institute, which sets trends for the fashion and home industries, chose it for its liveliness, saying that it “lights a fire to the senses.”  They also describe it as hopeful, and I agree that it is definitely an upbeat hue.

The experts who chose it suggest pairing it with white rather than black, and predict that honeysuckle will appear in materials with complimentary colors like blues, greens, and oranges (more…)

Are your tichels taking over your bedroom?  Do you have headbands draped over your bedposts?  Are you at your wit’s end trying to find the blue belt with the silver buckle underneath the mess in your closet?

Managing your haircovering stash can be a big job, especially if you have as many pieces as I do.  I have four different locations where I keep different types of doohickeys stored.  There are a few problems to consider when you’re trying to put stuff away: you want things to be accessible, organized, and neat.  One storage solution might not work for every type of haircovering that you use.   Here are a few ideas for keeping your gear under control – I’d love to hear your ideas as well.

• Boxes: I have one small box overflowing with stretchy headbands on top of my dresser. (more…)

Under the shade of a leafy vine in the occupied West Bank village of Lobban al-Gharbia, three Palestinian women are sitting, knitting and nattering. From the minaret of the next-door mosque, the call to prayer rings out as their fast-moving fingers click the needles at a rapid rhythm.
Continue reading the main story

Slowly forming in their laps are three small, round, white pieces of crocheted cloth.

These three Palestinian Muslim women are making one of the most obvious symbols of Jewishness and Judaism – the kippa.

Kippot (as they are known in the plural) are the small domed skullcaps that many Jewish men wear on their heads. Kippa literally means “dome”. (more…)