Styling Wigs For Orthodox Jewish Women | Hair Me Out | Refinery29

-A sheitel macher is a person who washes styles sells basically everything wig related for Orthodox Jewish women., And if you love the way you look in your wig, that's going to make you want to cover your hair. Even more. Hey, my name is Tallie and I'm a wig stylist for Orthodox Jewish women. In Judaism. A woman covers her hair because once she marries her hair becomes private for her husband.. Now, modesty in Judaism is referred to as privacy. The special things in our life. We like to keep private. And our hair being that it makes up so much of who we are as women. That is something special that we are setting aside for our husbands.. Before I got married, I actually really anticipated wearing a wig.. You know my hair was frizzy and I'm like how awesome would it be to wake up every day and have a good hair day? I was really struggling with how to make them look right more, like me., I felt very lost and I didn't feel myself.. I just had moved to L.A. and I was looking for something to keep me busy.. My husband suggested. Why don't you start washing and styling wigs, and so I did. And from there I started experimenting with color. And from color. I started selling wigs and it kind of just took off from there.. The name of my brand is TNT. Wigs., We are a full-service salon.. We offer wig purchases, wig repairs, color cuts.. We basically do it all., Because this is such a personal journey. So many women can keep this mitzvah in so many different ways.. There'S women who wear scarves., There's women that will wear wigs and not show any hair.. Some women will take out a little bit of hair. And my job is to meet you wherever you're at.. It'S important for women to feel beautiful and confident in their wigs, because that's one of the only ways that they're going to want to continue doing this mitzvah. And nowhere in the Torah does it say that a woman can't look beautiful. We're supposed to be beautiful. In Terms of covering your hair - it's not about if they know if it's a wig or not.. The only important factor here is that you know you are covering your hair.. These are all 100 % human hair wigs.. We have multiple suppliers in China where we get our wigs from, and you can basically do anything you want to these wigs -- anything you would do to regular hair.. Here we have a silk-top wig, where there's an actual scalp already built into the wig. They're very durable., Not as delicate as the lace-top wigs.. This is a lace-top wig.. It is an ear-to-ear lace and what we did in here was we added her a strip of velvet in order to keep this wig on her head., Because if you compare it to the silk, the silk has a front comb, whereas the lace does not.. So if you take a look at the scalp, there's different things that we can do to make the lace look even more realistic.. I always do like suggesting that my clients line their lace, but we do have different colors and fabrics of lining that you can choose. From. And then I do like to match up the lining based off their skin tone.. Here we have a band fall.. It is meant to be worn with headbands caps, hats. Okay.. So let me show you what a band fall looks like., So the headband is meant to cover that front seam.. If you wanted to wear it like a turban, wear it like that. A lot of my clients that work in like hospitals, teachers, they usually gravitate toward the band fall because it's just easier., They don't have hair in their face.. A wig in this salon ranges anywhere from, I would say, eight hundred to like three thousand -- based off length and sometimes based off color. A wig should last, I would say: if you take care of it, I would give it a good five years.. What does it mean that a wig is kosher? Years ago? It was said women were giving their hair up for idol worship and that that hair was being used to make wigs. In Judaism. We are not allowed to use anything that was once used for idol worship.. These are kosher wigs that have not been used for idol worship., So today we're going to be seeing Chana.. She is a long-time client of mine and she actually has a few pieces from our line. She's going to be coming in today for a new wig consult and we're going to walk you through it. -Hi -What's up -How. Are you -I'm, good. -Show me what you got. -I just happen to love a natural wig.? I am surrounded by all sorts of people and I don't necessarily want it to be like oh she's wearing a wig.. I do want it to look very natural, not that I would be embarrassed by it at all.. I love that I cover my hair and I have so much fun with it., But for me it does need to look natural., There's, definitely community. We'll all come to the salon.. We love love to try on wigs together., We'll talk about it.. You don't feel like you're necessarily alone, and you guys just give each other ideas and really have fun with it.. It becomes something -- instead of like. Oh, we have to do this --. It becomes like oh my gosh., How cool we can do. This. -You haven't taken out hair from this. Yet -No we haven't. -But, it's so glam., Maybe we'll just take out hair from the sides. -And leave the back. -Exactly. So that you have your fullness in the back, but from the sides we could take out wefts. Just so that --, because not many people have a ton of hair around their face. -It's fuller, and I like also that it's a little longer than what I normally wear. -Once. I do all of that here, we'll send it for color. Once we get it back from color, we'll cut the lace, because that has to be the last., Because she's going to --, you know she's going to work on the wig and we don't want to stretch Out the lace. -Okay. -So, the last last thing we'll do is cut the lace., We'll really get to work on it and we'll finish up the rest.. This is a lace-top wig that is wefted.. A weft is a row of hair --, a row of hair that we can sew into a wig and they kind of go all the way around sewn in by rows. Chana came in --. She wanted some work done to a few of her wigs. Okay.. So this wig, we are removing some wefts from the sides so that she can still have fullness, but just so much fullness around her face. And I'm going to stop at the seam right in the center right in the middle of the back of the wig.. I'M going to show you., And here you see, the weft starts to come undone. And I'm just going to tack it down where I cut, so that the weft doesn't continue to unravel. Okay. And that's basically how it will look all the way down and essentially make It less heavy around her face. Once we get all the work done in-house that --, it needs to go for color to the colorist, and so we probably have a finished product in about two to three weeks. -This mitzvah. I really hold it dear to me, and I really believe in it.. I think that you know in your marriage, when you have a few things that are really private and that's something. That'S just for you and your husband. I think that that really creates a stronger bond. There -- it's such a shock, sometimes for people to see religious people that are also you know, somebody fashionable., And so I think it's important for people to realize just like that, there's so much more to people than What meets the eye. -Wigs are so popular right now that everybody wants in on it., It's really a place for you to kind of let loose. Once you let loose and you're cool with the idea that hey I'm, covering my hair, I might as well have fun With it anything can happen,