So What Exactly is a Tichel Anyways?

I have been asked this so many times...

It's getting to the point where I am used to hearing it when I leave the house. I am often asked what my "head thing" is called and why I wear it. And since I've never fully explained it here, I figured I'd write a post about it too!

To answer the burning question of what my "head thing" is called, it is a tichel. A tichel is a headcovering worn by married Jewish women. So that would obviously state that I am a married Jewish woman. I have been married for 10 years now but I have only been wrapping for 2 years. 

Honestly, I didn't want to start wrapping. I loved being able to wear my hair in beautiful ways. I am a natural redhead and because of that, I have embraced the fact that my hair always made me stand out. And I was afraid that when I started wrapping, I would be lost in the shadows. 

I started wrapping because it was the best thing to do since I was married. I needed to make an outward statement to show I was a married Jewish woman. But when I started wrapping, I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I really needed to be shown ways to wrap since I had never done it before. 

I started watching YouTube videos and that really helped me out a lot. Once I figured out just how to wrap, then I started looking for great places to buy tichels.

- The first place I used was Amazon. Amazon has a lot of great pretied tichels that are wonderful for beginners. You simply slide it on and go. No tying required!

- After I thought I was ready to move on, then I started looking for actual places to buy scarves which can be tied as tichels. But that's when I realized that before you can wear a regular tichel, you're going to need the "undergarments". And by undergarments, I am meaning a volumizer and anti-slip headband. These can be bought together in one item since they are often sewed together. These two things are crucial to making your tichel stay on. Without them, it will slip off during the day. 

-Some of my favorite places to buy tichels are Modli and Amazon. On Amazon, you can search for either a tichel or a scarf. For tying a scarf as a tichel, you'll need to watch some YouTube videos to learn how it's done first. It took me months to get it just right.

Now that I've been wrapping for 2 years, I have added some headbands and even pins to my tichels daily to make them more me. I also like to leave the tichel tails down because it makes me feel like it's hair on my shoulders too. But everyone has their own preference.

I hope this has helped to shed some light on what a tichel is and why I wrap my hair daily. And there are lots of women who wrap not just for religious reasons, but for medical reasons or personal reasons as well. I even had one woman tell me she wanted to wrap because she thought it looked pretty. If you want to start wrapping your hair, be my guest! It can be a creative outlet to express yourself too.

So whatever your reason, wrapping can be a fun journey for anyone!