After seeing the news reports on the women and children being removed from the YFZ compound I’m wondering about the women’s hairstyles. I get the long hair (women not cutting their hair is common in a lot of conservative/religious circles), but what I don’t get is the high front. How is that done (some of them are really high)? Doesn’t that take work? Some sort of hair product? Filler? Wouldn’t that kind of work on your hair imply vanity? Why does it seem to be very Mormon (Mormon fundamentalist offshoot sects, not mainstream Mormon)? Are there historic precedents?
I see a lot of this among Pentecostal and Mennonite women. I think it’s just a way to give a little softer, more flattering look than having your hair skinned straight back in a pony tail. I mean, geez, that’s a style that makes even Kate Winslet look bad!
The married FLDS women are supposed to wear their hair up and contained. The finger waves at the temple (side of head, not big freakin’ building) were a particular turn-on of Rulon Jeffs, father of Warren Jeffs and “prophet” before him. They got kinda built into the expected uniform. The poofy thing at the front is a face-framing thing, as mentioned above. It’s almost impossible to do on one’s own hair. Much easier to maintain as a hairstyle if there are, ahem, several other women around to help. There are several ways of achieving this pouf, but plastic combs are the most likely.
The women in my faith also have long hair, but with much greater variety of styles (including down). I’ve known lots of women who can do this high front thing themselves (myself included, though I don’t do it --it’s like a big-hair eighties thing – way out of style if you care about style, though these women obviously are not allowed to care about style) and a lot of women I know DO wear it straight back with a chignon at the nape of the neck. Or maybe something like this or this or this.
From the little I’ve read, these “churches” strike me as sex cults rather than genuine churches. It doesn’t surprise me that the women would have to style their hair to please the purient desires of their rapists. I think religion was just used as an instrument of psychological coercion.
I absolutely agree. I also think it’s a way for men to amass dozens or scores of children they might not be able to have otherwise. And having a lot of kids must make them feel “manly.” It’s sick!
The conservative hair and dress of these offshoot groups of Mormons are very uncharacteristic of regular Mormons, who are very much into hairstyling, makeup, and flashy dress, including pants, IME.
Well, the cash doesn’t hurt. Those braids are done at my Ren Faire (although I don’t think by that woman; she doesn’t look familiar) and the ones like those photos *start *around $60 and can be done in about 30 minutes by an experienced braider.
I need to start working Ren Faires. When I had long hair, I could do more than half of those on myself. Unfortunately, many of the prettiest ones make one look like a Mormon fundamentalist outside of a Ren Faire.
Psst. This summer, I will introduce you to Ray. He does the braids at a better price than the three ladies. He did this for me this past summer and it lasted all weekend.
It’s not that hard to do. I get a little bit of that puff when I have my hair pulled back in a barrette, and that’s all natural. It gets a little bit more extreme if the barrette scoots forward on my head. The taller styles probably have some backcombing going on, but I don’t think any of the women have pads/rolls/rats in their hair, which in my experience leave a pretty distinctive shape at the sides where the rat ends. Women in the 1940s got pretty large rolls without rats, using only pincurls and backcombing and some setting lotion.
So, to sum up, rats aren’t required, but they can be used. Backcombing is likely, and it might involve sleeping in curlers or pincurls to help provide volume. They probably use a lot of hair spray.
“Rat” - that’s the word I was trying to think of! (the closest I got was “snood” but I knew that wasn’t right.)
I assumed by looking at the volume of some of them, a rat would have to be involved, but after some comments here I guess it mostly takes patience and long bangs.
I find it interesting (and indicative of the male domination of this sect) that unlike the Mennonite or Amish, the men don’t also wear styles that separate them from modern society (from what I’ve seen in pictures of Warren Jeffs). The women, however, are tagged by both their clothes and their hair.
This is also an interesting point. Because of the insularity of the the group, one man’s preference can become the dominate/preferred style for all the women years after he’s gone.
