Elizabethan Hair

At the end of the 16th Century in England, the hairstyles of the middle and upper classes had become quite elaborate.  Led by their fashion-conscious queen, the ladies of England padded, curled, dyed, and ornamented their hair.  Though blonde was the fashionable colour for other countries (a trend that continues today - more hair dyes are in blond shades than any other), the English women of the era were loyal to Elizabeth, and flame-red hair was the most popular colour for women.  The unreliability and harshness of hair dyes (most were extremely poisonous) also meant that there was a thriving business in wigs and hair pieces for women unsatisfied with their own hair. Elizabeth herself seems to have favoured curled hair, sometimes padded with "rats" - pads made of hair, shaped to help create the high styles that exemplified the time.  They are called rats because they're roughly shaped like a rat - pointed on one end (the nose), high and rounded on the other (the haunches of the rat).  Though she wore wigs in her later years, Elizabeth continued to wear the high curled style until her death.  The softer close to the head hairstyles of the Stuart Age can be seen as a direct reaction to the time-intensive and stylized hair of the 16th Century. To create the style, the hair from the ears back was pulled into a neat coiled bun (sometimes braided or padded to give it more bulk), and the hair from the ears forward was styled.  The bun may have been sewn into place with ribbons or thread.  Certainly the tortoise-shell pins of the Victorian era and the bobby pins of the early 20th Century were not known.  Securing the hair by sewing it into place is not as awkward as it sounds; in fact, the bun is more secure and comfortable when sewn in, as there are no pins to slip or dig into the scalp.  My theory is that once sewn into place, the bun could be left in for several days.  There would be no problem sleeping in the bun because most Elizabethans slept sitting propped up by pillows, as they feared "wet humors in the lungs". Many women, even the ones with elaborate hairstyles, would have worn coifs to cover most of their head.  The women of the Elizabethan Court, and those attending evening parties and balls, could wear their hair uncovered, but it would always be secured into some sort of bun.  However, no woman, from noble to peasant, would have gone outside without some kind of headcovering, most often a coif. The two styles we will cover in this class are the smooth padded style and the curly unpadded "frizzed" style.  The padded style works best for women with shoulder length or longer hair and bangs, and the frizzed style works for women with shorter bangs.