Elizabethan Hair Quote

"To make the hair yellow as golde. Take the rine or scrapings of Rubarbe, and stiepe it in white wine, or in cleere lie; and after you have washed your head with it, you shall weatte your hairs with a Spoonge or some other cloth, and let them drie by the fire, or in the sunne; after this weatte them and drie them againe."

Giovanni Ruscelli (Alessio), The secretes of reverende maister Alexis of Piemount, 1568

During the Elizabethan times, it was common practice for women to dye their hair, using methods that would be unheard of nowadays. These methods were both time consuming and extremely damaging to the hair, but show what great lengths women went to for their images. Appearance was everything, much like today, although the dedication that went into emulating one particular style and one particular look was remarkable. The above quote is from 1568, when Queen Elizabeth was at the beginning of her reign, and her hair was most likely much fairer than it was towards the end, when she would intensify the red in it. I find this interesting, because it shows her influence on beauty and fashion right from the beginning. 

  

During Seema's lesson, we had to get into groups and create a look based on their quote. I was in a group with Danika and Leonie, and Danika had the same quote as I had which is the one above. She drew a design that we had to try and recreate. She wanted the hair to resemble the fire mentioned in the quote and drew hair that was brushed upwards.

To recreate her design, I used red hair extensions that I cut up and stuck to the paper. I used card board cut into triangles to create a base and then a gold ribbon to hide where the hair was stuck to the paper, and also to add an Elizabethan touch to the design.

This task was quite challenging for me, as I didn't know quite what to expect, but it was a really good exercise for our final assessments, where we would be taking instructions from our partners to create their final design.

Here is what my collage looked like: