The veil is a great leveller.
The veil is a great leveller of women and their looks. If you are aged over twenty and under fifty-five years old you pretty much look the same age in a chaddar, or large head and shoulder, sometimes even body, -covering. Everyone gets flat, dull hair under a scarf all day. Hair slightly greasy at the front from constantly readjusting the scarf as it slides down the back of your head as you are talking to some Mullah!! No woman has a neck, let alone collar bone. The veil becomes like a large, material hair extension sitting on top of your head - sometimes for practicality and ease it goes behind your ears. Not an attractive look, especially if your ears stick out anyway, but sometimes they just need to breathe or you want that bit of chaddar brushing the side of your face to get off!!
In summer its actually less of a hassle than you might imagine. Everyone sweats, sorry we are talking about women here, I meant perspires, or even glows, in summer. And to be honest the chaddar has many uses; to gently dab the beads of sweat from a glistening forehead or round the back of the neck on the hair line: to wipe the remains of oil from your hands after a bowl of turnip soup: to wipe the dirt and dust from yourself getting in and out of cars: not mine, but I've seen it done - it can be used by others too - I've seen husbands wipe their hands on it and children their noses.
Glamourous city women like to go for the flimsy netting type which sits up on their raised barnets - that's a look they love; enormously airy, up-lifted, hairsprayed behives. Maybe its from the days when they wore no veil in the 70's when such things were still in fashion and though we have turned a century the novelty of showing some of your barnet is still new and the ideas for how to style it have not developed, like so many other aspects of this place.
You know what, I wonder if its not unhealthy for hair to be so covered day in and day out? Protection from the sun and its rays is a good thing according to hair technicians, but evidence of so many national ladies and the sight of their hair uncovered (and mine for that matter), makes me believe that hair doesn't like it. Their hair is often listless, dull and thin. And its not because they don't have Pantene, I've seen it in the bazaar...or maybe its because they do have access to Pantene, which one hair technician told me was the worst product on the market (she wasn't talking about the bazaar market here mind.)
Is it all another ploy of our other sex - to not only hide our crowning glory from the impure gaze of others, but to actually limit its appeal?
Its all about the hair (and the shoes but that's for another time). To have your hair open, as they say, or down and freeflowing, is a no no. Only to be done in a place of safety and propriety such as your father's house or your husband's house and again only if the male company only consists of those to whom you are related, closely. And God forbid you ever leave the house with wet hair! A sure sign that you are up for it or have just had it! What to do then, if you have no electricty, in the winter when nothing will dry, or you just never considered packing a bloody hair dryer for this place!!
In summer its actually less of a hassle than you might imagine. Everyone sweats, sorry we are talking about women here, I meant perspires, or even glows, in summer. And to be honest the chaddar has many uses; to gently dab the beads of sweat from a glistening forehead or round the back of the neck on the hair line: to wipe the remains of oil from your hands after a bowl of turnip soup: to wipe the dirt and dust from yourself getting in and out of cars: not mine, but I've seen it done - it can be used by others too - I've seen husbands wipe their hands on it and children their noses.
Glamourous city women like to go for the flimsy netting type which sits up on their raised barnets - that's a look they love; enormously airy, up-lifted, hairsprayed behives. Maybe its from the days when they wore no veil in the 70's when such things were still in fashion and though we have turned a century the novelty of showing some of your barnet is still new and the ideas for how to style it have not developed, like so many other aspects of this place.
You know what, I wonder if its not unhealthy for hair to be so covered day in and day out? Protection from the sun and its rays is a good thing according to hair technicians, but evidence of so many national ladies and the sight of their hair uncovered (and mine for that matter), makes me believe that hair doesn't like it. Their hair is often listless, dull and thin. And its not because they don't have Pantene, I've seen it in the bazaar...or maybe its because they do have access to Pantene, which one hair technician told me was the worst product on the market (she wasn't talking about the bazaar market here mind.)
Is it all another ploy of our other sex - to not only hide our crowning glory from the impure gaze of others, but to actually limit its appeal?
Its all about the hair (and the shoes but that's for another time). To have your hair open, as they say, or down and freeflowing, is a no no. Only to be done in a place of safety and propriety such as your father's house or your husband's house and again only if the male company only consists of those to whom you are related, closely. And God forbid you ever leave the house with wet hair! A sure sign that you are up for it or have just had it! What to do then, if you have no electricty, in the winter when nothing will dry, or you just never considered packing a bloody hair dryer for this place!!
posted by Kate Bowen at 3:44 pm
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