Reflections on Covering All of my Hair Every Day for Lent

It was the end of November 2022 that I wanted to start covering my head in some way for religious reasons, although I hadn't settled on how I wanted to do it. I started by wearing basic handkerchiefs, but I was curious to branch out and try other styles. Pretty soon I ordered a couple of pieces from the popular website Garlands for Grace, but unfortunately, these slipped off my head constantly and just wouldn't stay put. It was then that I began experimenting with turban-style wrapping. I ordered several scarves and watched tutorial videos to learn how to wrap them.

Before Lent with a simple Gardlands For Grace covering.

The first place I went in public with a turban-style wrap covering all of my hair was a grocery store. I remember walking up and down the aisles feeling like everyone was staring at me! Whether they actually were or not, I have no idea, but I certainly felt very self-conscious. I was sure everyone thought I was a religious extremist. However, the more I went out in public with my head covered, the more comfortable it became. It eventually became so natural that when I did catch people staring at me, I wondered, "Why does she keep looking at me?" And then, "Oh, yeah. Probably the headwrap, or maybe the seven kids." I received only two questions in public from strangers: one woman asked me if I was from Europe and another asked me if I was Jewish.

I worried about how my friends, family, neighbors, and people at church would react. I prepared myself to have hard conversations. However, this worry was completely unfounded because pretty much everyone simply said how much they liked it, and then it was never brought up or mentioned again. Literally, no one cared that I started covering my head. No one thought it was strange or expressed any kind of concern or negative reaction. Nobody said a word to me, not even my atheist brother. In my experience, people care far less about it than I had anticipated.

For the first few months, head covering was something I was doing experimentally. I wasn't sure if I was going to do it long-term or what style of wrap I would settle on. I still wasn't sure how I wanted to cover in the context of daily life. Do I want to use a small covering that is mostly symbolic but still allows for the exposure of my hair… or do I want to cover all my hair? Do I want to cover at home… or only outside the home? Do I want to use Western styles… or Eastern styles? Do I want to use long fabric that covers my neck and drapes over the shoulder… or do I want it up in a turban? I felt very unsure of how to go about covering.

This is how I had my head covered when a woman asked me if I was visiting from Europe.

As Lent approached, I decided to commit to covering all of my hair every day, even at home. This had two purposes: one was so that I could make an official commitment for a certain time-period and thus have an authentic experience of full-time covering. And the other reason was as an act of penance and humiliation in expiation for past sins of immodesty.

I had already been experimenting with head coverings and was enjoying them, yet the first week of Lent proved difficult. It was interesting how I immediately experienced a mental shift when it became mandatory and wasn't optional anymore.

That first week, I felt stupid and ashamed of my head coverings, and I felt sure that everyone thought I was stupid for wearing them. Within a few days, I already had a serious temptation to quit! I told myself, "Look, you said you would do this so you're going to do it." I felt a sense of peace once I decided to stay committed to my resolution. Plus, part of the reason I was doing it was as an act of penance, so it made sense that it would contain an element of suffering. The following week, I felt much more confident with my decision, and I was glad that I didn't give up.

Practically, it was not always easy to make head-wrapping part of my morning routine. When I got up and ready for the day, there were both pros and cons to having to wrap my hair. On the one hand, it was very nice to not have to fuss with or care about what my hair looked like. I simply brushed it, wrapped it, and went on with my day! However, sometimes wrapping wasn't easy (I'm still new to it) and I couldn't always get it right. Just as sometimes a woman feels frustration when she’s trying to style her hair, I sometimes felt frustration trying to "style" my wrap.

There were several positive things that I experienced: I didn't have to wash my hair as often, my hair was always up and out of the way (the baby couldn’t pull my hair!), I never had a bad hair day, and the wrap provided warmth and protection from the wind, much like a hat would.

But there were some negative things, too: sometimes I would not wrap correctly and I would get tension headaches (then I had to unwrap it and try again, more gently); sometimes I could not get a wrap the way I wanted and then I would experience a lot of frustration; some of the styles I tried slipped right off my head; there were styles I wanted tot try that involved more advanced wrapping techniques and I couldn't do them (I felt "stuck" with the basics); and I burned with self-consciousness when I was around strangers or non-Christians.

As the weeks of Lent rolled on, I was confronted with ups and downs. Sometimes the headwraps were something I had to endure and suffer through, and other times they were really fun and a joy to wear. It was kind of curious to me how my feelings about the head covering seemed to change each week-- that was one reason I was glad I made a commitment to do it for all of Lent, because otherwise I surely would have given up when it got hard!

The other thing I was confronted with was my own vanity. I had not previously realized how vain I was. Before head covering, I never really liked my hair. It's long, thick, heavy and I don't really know how to style it well. It's always been a bit of a burden and annoyance to me, so covering it felt awesome at first! I no longer had to feel it's weight and it was a relief to not worry about how it looked. However, after weeks of covering my hair, one day I caught a glimpse of it in the mirror and I was taken aback. "My hair looks good!" I thought. I hadn't seen it in so long, it was almost like I forgot how pretty it can be. Instantly, I had a desire to not wrap my hair so that it could be seen by others. Of course, I continued wrapping it, but I thought, "what a shame I have to hide it." So, I discovered that there was not only a temptation to vanity in regard to "everyone thinks I'm weird for wearing a head covering," but there was another temptation to vanity in which I felt a desire for my hair to be seen. I understood what the Bible means when it says a woman's long hair is her glory.

Trying to learn new wrapping techniques

Here's another vain result I experienced: wrapping my hair made me look older and more matronly. I'm in my mid-30's and my beauty is beginning to fade as I enter a new stage of life. I no longer have the same vibrant, youthful beauty that I used to in my 20's. Aging is not an easy thing for a vain woman to accept, and it's even harder when her hair is covered. I look more youthful with my hair down. I look older when it is up and covered.

Covering my hair wasn't my only Lenten commitment-- I also committed to wearing only long skirts and long sleeves. Having my body fully covered in loose garments eliminated my figure (which is the point!), which also made me look older. My figure couldn't be seen. My hair couldn't be seen. My physical beauty was hidden from the world. I was surprised by how much I struggled with this, and how depressed it made me some days. I went back and forth constantly in my mind. Am I too plain? Do I look frumpy and unattractive? Am I making Christianity look bad? Should I try to look more lovely and appealing to look at?

A lot of these insecurities were squashed by my husband. When I asked him if he liked the headwraps he said, "I love them!" And he also likes the way I dress. Since my appearance is for my husband, and no one else, then as long as he is pleased with how I look, that is all that really matters. There is a certain kind of beauty in knowing that my looks are reserved for him alone and no other man gets to delight in them.

But still. Vanity rears its ugly head. I noticed that I got very frustrated and sad when I didn’t "look good."

There were many times I was tempted to believe "this doesn't matter," and "God doesn't care about this." There were times I would feel joy at matching my headwrap to my outfit and then feel badly because I was taking vain pleasure in something meant to be a symbol of humility. It's not easy to see the headwrap as a purely a functional piece; it’s easy to see it as a fashion accessory. Like shoes, they serve a specific, objective purpose that goes beyond fashion. The head-covering serves its purpose regardless of how it looks, and I should be wearing it for that purpose, not to look good. But I still found myself not wanting to wear it unless it looked good.

To sum it all up, I learned that I am vainer than I realized, that I care about how my appearance is perceived by others, and that I have maybe an unhealthy preoccupation with “looking good.” This has taught me an important lesson about myself. Previously, I was not aware of how much my self-worth is based on my appearance. Not just my hair, but also my clothes and my make-up. If my hair, clothes, and makeup are not beautiful, then I think I’m not beautiful. Who I am is very much bound up in the clothing and makeup that I cover myself with. This is a pretty disappointing realization to come to, and it’s also humiliating to expose my vanity on the internet, but here we are!

I didn’t anticipate how spiritually difficult it would be to start veiling on a daily basis. It requires more spiritual strength, zeal, and commitment to maintain as a daily practice than I thought it would. I think what I learned is that head covering, as a spiritual practice, is not something one can just “flip a switch” and start doing overnight (unless God supplies some serious supernatural graces!) It has been a true journey with unexpected difficulties (mostly mental/emotional) and has required determination to maintain. I think that if a woman has come to a point in her spiritual life where she feels a conviction to cover her head for religious reasons, she must be very strong and resolute in this conviction in order to persevere. She has to really know why she is doing this and be wholeheartedly dedicated. In my own experience, I had a lot of temptations to quit— the strongest of which was the temptation toward vanity.