Why do women wear expensive sheitels?

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  • #618027
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    Women spend a thousand dollars to wear other people’s hair on their heads! Why? For the same price, they could buy a scarf and a 3d printer, a scarf and a good sofa, a hat and 50 ice cream sandwich makers, a hat, a scarf, and a couple of scooters, or a hat and a couple glockenspiels or a xylophone.

    #1163706
    Ex-CTLawyer
    Participant

    To quote Mrs CTL…..

    You can wear Polyester and schvitz or natural fibers and be cool.

    If you want a wig, you want the comfort of Human hair.

    A stay at home housefrau might wear a scarf on her head, but women who also have a profession outside the immediate frum neighborhood are not going to walk around with a rag on their heads. The few times Mrs CTL wore a scarf (granted it was an expensive one), she could hear colleagues whispering and questioning whether she was undergoing chemo and had cancer.

    #1163707
    Joseph
    Participant

    To attract men.

    #1163708

    Because a scooter or a 3d printer would look really strange on their heads.

    #1163709
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    CTLawyer – per your description it sounds like your wife does not share your social tact. That attitude is highly insulting.

    (unless that last paragraph was no longer a quote from her and was your words)

    #1163710
    Ex-CTLawyer
    Participant

    Syag………

    The last paragraph contained an opinion (Hausfrau) of my late mother who was a very proper German-Jewish-American lady, always wearing hat and gloves when she left the house.

    The observation about hearing Chemo comments when wearing a headscarf was related to me by my wife.

    #1163711
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    it wasn’t the word housefrau or the chemo comment, it was everything in between…

    #1163712
    golfer
    Participant

    With you, Syag.

    #1163713

    It’s a highly personal choice. Some women wear sheitels for professional reasons, others because they don’t like how they look in scarves and hats, others because their mothers always wore sheitels and it never occurred to them to wear anything else…etc etc.

    Real human hair sheitels are of course going to be expensive (and synthetic ones do NOT look good or wear well). You can get one for under a thousand dollars, especially if you buy secondhand. But if you want a more expensive one and you have the money, I don’t see anything wrong with it.

    #1163714
    ywcomment2
    Participant

    As a non-sheitel hair covering woman, I’ve wondered the question of the opening poster many times. Basically, I think most frum people do most things just because that’s the way their community does it. It is hard to be different. That said, I personally would rather spend our family’s money (what little there is of it) on other things. I have heard many times over the years that imitating hair, looking to score a ten with men other than your husband, and trying to fit into a goyishe appearance are each negative in their own way. The only support I have heard for the sheitel that makes any sense to me is that good soldiers in ths army wear the uniform. Even then many good soldiers opt for a quite modest, less attractive, synthetic and shorter sheitel (priced closer to filling the tank of their 15-seater than a new refrigerator).

    #1163715
    bentzion
    Participant

    Pretty dumb question in my opinion! Women look very pretty and super attractive in stunnning Sheitlech!!! Whether it’s tzniusidig is a different conversation, but that’s not what you asked.

    #1163716
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    It’s gross to wear someone else’s hair. Do you wear other people’s toenails?

    #1163717
    Ex-CTLawyer
    Participant

    Syag….from Hausfrau to rag on head were the sentiments of my late mother, who disapproved of such in public. Not the German way

    #1163718
    Ex-CTLawyer
    Participant

    RebYidd23…………

    Mrs. CTL has one sheitel that was made from our 28 year old daughter’s hair when she cut off 30″ of growth.

    All it cost to be made into a wig by a local stylist was a couple of hundred dollars.

    Our daughters all wore long straight hair that reached below their waists when they were single. When they would get summer cuts of 10-12″ of yearly growth it would be donated to Lock for Love (for cancer victims). When the 28 year old decided she was too old for this look (about 5 years ago when she finished grad school and was to be married) she presented her mother with the cut hair as a loving gift.

    #1163719
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    CT – maybe you are missing the point. That’s very nice that your mother felt a need to wear gloves when leaving the house, calling it a rag is rude, to put it nicely. too nicely.

    Although I find you do emphasize your economic status quite frequently in your comments, I have never found any of them insulting as this one was.

    #1163720
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    Maybe a better way to express it would have been, “…and as my late mother rudely phrased it…”

    #1163721
    apushatayid
    Participant

    Why is it any different than asking why people drive a $75,000 mercedes when they can get around town just as efficiently in a $20,000 chevy. the answers to the sheitel question are probably just as varied as the answer to the car question.

    #1163722
    Ex-CTLawyer
    Participant

    Syag……….I would never violate the commandment of honoring a mother by saying she was rude. I would be amenable to calling it blunt.

    #1163723
    huju
    Participant

    Joseph: Are you saying attractive sheitels are inconsistent with tznius? I think you are right.

    #1163724
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    If attractive sheitels are a problem, ugly sheitels are not the solution.

    #1163725
    2scents
    Participant

    non attractive does not mean ugly. there is an in between something that does not attract yet is nice and decent.

    #1163726
    charliehall
    Participant

    “women who also have a profession outside the immediate frum neighborhood are not going to walk around with a rag on their heads”

    My wife does.

    #1163727
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    Attractive– having beneficial qualities or features that induce someone to accept what is being offered

    #1163728
    Git Meshige
    Participant

    Why do men wear expensive Borsalinos and Shtreimels ? For much less they can wear a cap or a cheap straw hat. They actually would not look as strange as a women with a scooter and a printer on their heads

    #1163729

    Scarves can be beautiful and elegant, while sheitels of any length can be perfectly tzanua (and not “gross” in any way).

    I find the judgmental comments from (mostly male) posters to be way out of line.

    #1163730
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    If you buy a scarf and a glockenspiel, you wear the scarf and play the glockenspiel, obviously. Same with a hat and a xylophone.

    #1163731
    2scents
    Participant

    Rebyid, Google has other definitions for the word attractive, but I believe the more accurate description

    Would be provocative.

    No one is saying women should dress ugly, only normal. Of course everyone’s normal is different, but provocative looking sheitls are a problem.

    #1163732
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    CTL-I would never expect or desire you to be disrespectful. But no, blunt would give the comment validity, which would be wrong.

    #1163733
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    Attractive does not mean provocative. unattractive means unpleasant or ugly. And if frum Jewish married women dress provocatively, the sheitel is not the problem.

    #1163735
    I. M. Shluffin
    Participant

    Just accept that you will never understand women.

    #1163736
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    I don’t understand humans in general.

    #1163738

    Rebyidd: What do dragons wear?

    #1163739
    CopyMachine
    Participant

    I think the answer is very obvious:

    Women like to look good, and they are allowed to look good, al pi Torah.

    That being said, however, there is a fine line between “good” and “not tznuisdig.”

    The yetzor hara is so strong in our generation! But the truth is, even a scarf wearing woman can look inappropriate at times, while even a woman wearing a custom-made $10,000 sheitel can wear it in an appropriate cut and style. I don’t think there can be a blanket statement made about headcoverings. Each person has to evaluate their own self, community, and goals. And of course, follow their Rav.

    As for me, I don’t understand the human hair thing for many reasons… But most people don’t have my sensitivity in this area.

    I can’t imagine why someone would want to wear hair that was cut off of dead body! (Most sheitelech come from cadavers.)

    And then, that begs the question: Doesn’t cadaver hair cause a problem for Kohanim???

    #1163740
    Joseph
    Participant

    Women Kohanim?

    #1163741
    CopyMachine
    Participant

    Kohanim in the same room as women. *gasp* It actually does happen, believe it or not…

    #1163742
    Sparkly
    Member

    because they need to cover their hair so they want to do it in a way that they can look nice at the same time.

    #1163743
    yehudayona
    Participant

    Most sheitelach come from cadavers? Sorry, I find this hard to believe. It’s obviously a one-shot deal, while a living human can produce hair year after year. I’m guessing that in most cultures, cutting off the hair of a dead person in order to sell it would be taboo.

    #1163744
    Mammele
    Participant

    CM: your assertion that most human hair for wigs comes from cadavers is dead wrong, pardon the pun.

    #1163745
    apushatayid
    Participant

    The mechaber rules like the Rashba that hair is considered part of the body regarding the issur of having hanaa from a corpse (the rambam rules it is not but the sa follows the strict opinion of rashba). Based on this psak in shulchan aruch I highly doubt frum sheitel machers would use hair from cadavers (hopefully someone has asked after all these years!!!). It is true though that cadavers are used to produce wigs in the non jewish world.

    #1163746

    I saw a Jewish woman today come into a Yiddish Grocery store looking like one of Bob Barker’s show prize girls from the old Game show “The price is right”. Long blonde hair, and the most highest platform high heels you can get.

    I wanted so much to walk up to her and ask her “when you got dressed this morning, and thought to put these on….what were you thinking…I mean WHY? “. You look terrible i wanted to tell her.

    But i didnt.

    #1163747
    apushatayid
    Participant

    Good thing you didn’t.

    #1163748
    Joseph
    Participant

    You should have spoken up, arwsf.

    #1163749
    YesOrNo
    Participant

    If you don’t know somebody it is probably not a good idea to go over to them and reprimand them regarding their method of hair covering.

    #1163750
    Joseph
    Participant

    Tochacha is an obligation.

    #1163751
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    not your kind – not that kind

    #1163752
    Joseph
    Participant

    arwsf’s kind.

    #1163753
    apushatayid
    Participant

    Call her rebbetzin. Telling someone “you look terrible” is not tochacha. It might be onaas devarim. Call her Rebbetzin, let her deal with it.

    #1163754
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    Maybe she spent an hour deciding what to wear between this and something even worse. Maybe she decided to take a positive step by not wearing that something worse, and if you tell her this is bad, she will feel like she’s accomplished nothing.

    #1163755
    Joseph
    Participant

    Maybe she spent an hour debating between eating out at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse or cooking pork. So you shouldn’t provide tochacha when you see her dining at Ruth’s since she could of done worse.

    #1163756
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    Maybe she spent an hour debating between bateling on a moderated website or bateling on a non moderated one. So you shouldn’t provide tochacha when you see her bateling on a moderated site since she could’ve done worse.

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