A Twisty Crown: A Shabbos or Mildly Dressy Style

 This is a variation on what often gets called the dutch crown, spun together with one of those classics of Shabbos hair-braiding, what was called a twist, I think.  It's also featured on wrapunzel, along with a how-to video.  I just made two of them, and intertwined them, dutch crown style.  (It's easier if you've secured the end of at least one of the sides with a hair elastic first.)

 I noticed that while this worked really well for me, I tried it out on my sister-in-law, and her head is a bit larger than mine- and the two twists weren't quite long enough to work out well.  So if you have a large head, you may want to use longer scarves than I did.  I imagine that you could use two separate scarves (both rectangles, I guess), wrapped around a separate scarf, which would give you a little bit more length to play with, and a different look.  I think I've given myself a new idea to play with.

 I did this with one square Israeli scarf- the very thin cotton kind, and one fairly narrow rectangular scarf.  So it made for pretty thin twists- especially as the twisting brings them to their narrowest.  That might make this a nice way to use this style without adding too much height or bulk, if that's something you don't find flattering for yourself.

Here's a general how-to:
1. Tie your square scarf with the back corner tucked in.  Keep your tails available.
2. Tie your rectangular scarf over it, keeping the tails of the first scarf available.  For this exact style, don't leave any of the first scarf showing in front.  (But that might be a nice variation, especially if you have some more space before where you want the twists.  Since I tend to show a little hair in front, I have less space.)
3. Arrange your tails with one from each scarf over each shoulder, so you have them in pairs.
4. Take the tails on one side.  Twist them each to the right, and wrap them around each other to the left (or vice versa.)  Secure at the bottom with a hair elastic.
5. Repeat with the other side.
6. Take both twists, and criss-cross them over your head, weaving them together, and tucking in the ends.
7. Adjust your placement, or any other fidgeting that you like to do.

I like the way that this can bring in just a touch of another color, helping to bring together an outfit.   It's also a way of making some decorative use of what might otherwise be an underscarf being used to keep a slippery top scarf in place...  It stayed in place very nicely for me, and the ends didn't tend to come loose, either.
And here's a close-up of my results:

Haircut, Style, and Covering

I read this article a few days ago, and somehow, although it's explicitly about short haircuts, and eccentric haircuts, it felt like something worth sharing here.  Here's the general claim of the article:
"Hair doesn’t make anyone beautiful but anyone can make their hair beautiful by rocking the ever-loving everything out of it. Have the length of hair you want at any given moment".
And that's something that I think is totally part of the style message that I want to send (even if most of the article is about cutting your hair off, and my hair is now the longest that it's ever been, and I'm pretty crazy about that).  To apply it to my topic at hand, I really believe in this covering thing- but do it in the way that rocks your world (not a phrase I'd usually use ever).  

The phrase that caught my attention is "command of her own presence".  Making your own decisions is taking command of your own presence, it's owning what you do with your body.  And it takes courage to do that.  Especially when I wore a kippah much of the time, it took courage to be myself, and to let other people react to it however they were going to react.  I still have those moments, although they're fewer.  

In other words, "Sometimes, in cutting off this type of hair, you really achieve a wider, louder broadcast of your identity as it is and as you want it to be."  The head has this power to project identity.  A headshot is all we put on drivers' licenses and passports because it's enough to see our heads in order to see who we are.  So doing something authentic to yourself with your head is a really powerful way of signalling who you really are.  

In other words- go forth and be yourself.  It seemed like a message worth sharing.  

Looking for Input: Covering and Grey Hair

Dear Readers,
I recently read a post about styling grey hair, with a lot of thinking about whether or not to dye graying hair.  I was wondering if any of you had any input about how covering your hair impacts how you feel about or handle your graying or gray hair.

Comments or guest posts are welcome.  Comments can go here.  To guest-post, write me at mkosowsky @ gmail dot com