Wear a Headcover to Keep you Warm this Winter

Keeping your head covered is one way to beat Mr. Winter.

Let’s face it. The cold weather is here. And as much as we try to stay warm and cozy in our heated homes and cars, there is the inevitable going outside and bracing ourselves for that rush of cold air.

Keeping your head covered is one way to beat Mr. Winter. Try a warm winter cap and your feelings about the winter will definately change. You may find that you even start loving that morning chill!

 

Many women find berets extremely comfortable for winter. In addition to being a stylish headcover, slouchy berets can keep your warm. And if it gets really cold, you can pull the beret over your ears and stay nice and toasty!

 

For those of you who wear a pretied headscarf, a velour pretied bandana is a great option for the colder weather. The soft fabric looks great and this is an ideal headcover for indoors and out.

 

So no matter if you chose a pretied bandanna, a thicker headscarf,  a warm hat or knit beret, keeping your head covered will definitely keep you warm!

Focus on Headwraps: The Tignon

Tignon Head Wrap

In our last blogpost about head wraps, we related the story behind the African American Headwrap. We related how African American women took what was supposed to be a badge of dishonor, and turned it into a “badge of courage”. Well, if in the last blogpost we told you the end of the story, now we are going to go back in time and lay the groundwork for the Origins of the African American Headwrap.

In the 1700’s there were not many European women in New Orleans. As a result, many European men began to “marry” colored slave women. The prevalent custom was to free the children that resulted from these relationships. In addition to that, the custom was to free enslaved workers who excelled at their work. Gradually, this resulted in a growing population of free colored people. By the time of the Louisiana purchase in 1803 it is estimated that around 20% of the population of New Orleans were free Blacks. Well, the increasing assertiveness of the population of free blacks worried the then Spanish Governor of New Orleans, so in 1785 Governor Esteban Rodriguez Miro decreed that all colored women must wear “knotted headdresses”, the “Tignon”. However, as we related in our last post, colored woman defied the intention of the law and found ways to decorate their headscarves and turn them around into a fashion statement. In fact, many slave women wore scarves of such distinctive colors that a woman writing in 1863 to describe the colors of the scarves of the black woman on her plantation wrote that they “put one eyes out from a mile off”. And yes, the head scarf has endured and become a vibrant part of womens dress in the USA.

By: B. Levi

Headwraps to Beat the Heat

This past weekend was really hot. Like not just the hottest days of the year, but the hottest days in many years. I didn’t want to leave my air conditioned house. But I wasn’t going to let the heat intimidate me; I had errands to run, shopping to do. But I knew that it was going to be tough to look fresh. So when I went out, rather than show my humidity-suffering hair to the world, I wore a head scarf.

It was nice because I felt like I wasn’t trying to impress anyone with my do, and I looked good all the same. Head scarfs do a great job of soaking sweat and keeping you cool because they block the sun from hitting you. That’s why people wear headwraps in the desert. I didn’t even wear sunscreen. And I made a fashion statement about dealing with the heat.

It’s interesting that headwraps are so multi-functional. You can just as easily wear them to protect your head from the cold as you can the heat. And they’re great for dealing with your hair when you don’t want to deal with your hair. So the next time it’s a hundred degrees plus, think about a head scarf and your problems will be solved.