The Elizabethan period (1558-1603) is known for its uncomfortable, incredibly elaborate fashions. Women’s clothes forced the body into an unnatural, ungainly shape with an elongated, pointed torso and wide square skirt. To balance the wide silhouette at the lower half of the body, wide starched ruffs at the collar became a fashion staple. This necessitated hair styles that were upswept – hair could no longer fall down a woman’s back, and even styles gathered at the nape of the neck interfered with the line of the ruff.
The other major factor shaping Elizabethan hair styles for women was flattery. To modern sensibilities, the Elizabethan court was extremely sycophantic. Flattering Queen Elizabeth was the surest road to political favours, wealth and prestige. As a result, Queen Elizabeth’s hair colour, style and even hairline were imitated by the women of the court.
Hair Dye In Elizabethan England
Blonde was perhaps the most popular hair colour in sixteenth-century England. Mild bleaching agents such as chamomile tisanes and lemon juice, along with sunlight, were used to lighten hair. These methods do not give particularly dramatic results, but are fairly safe and are still occasionally used today.
Because the Queen had red hair, red became the second-most popular hair colour. Elizabeth herself made much of her hair colour, which acted as proof of her royal descent – as her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed for adultery, it was important for Elizabeth to stress physical similarities between herself and her red-headed father Henry VIII. The Queen’s actual shade of red varies in the royal portraits from strawberry blonde to deep auburn; it is thought she began to wear wigs after surviving smallpox at the age of 29, and these wigs may have come in different shades.
Whatever the case, Elizabethan women tried to imitate the Queen’s hair colour using dyes made of saffron and sulfur powder (now known to be toxic). Women who wished to darken their locks used lead combs on wet hair – also a rather unhealthy practice!
Women’s Hair Styles During the Renaissance
Most hair styles during the Elizabethan period were relatively simple to construct. The wow factor came from ostentatious hair jewels, plumes, pins, tiaras and beaded scarves worn over the styles. Perhaps the most well-known style has the front hair padded with hair rats into two “wings” above the eyebrows, giving the face a heart-shaped look; the back hair is then scraped upwards into a chignon. This style provided the height and fullness necessary to make the wearer’s head look proportionate to her enormous costume; it also kept the hair safely out of the way of the ruff, which could be so high it nestled against the ears. To imitate Elizabeth’s high forehead, women plucked their hairlines; to imitate her curls, they “frizzed” their hair with hot irons.
A more complicated style was known as hair taping. Probably borrowed from the Italians, the style involves wrapping braids around the outside of the head (crown braid style) and sewing tapes or ribbons around and around to secure the braids to the scalp. This was a practical style, keeping hair neat and clean for several days; it could also be very decorative if the tapes were wrapped in attractive patterns.
Another, more demure style was often worn with the French hood, and simply involved sleekly centre-parting the hair and combing it over the ears to the back of the head, where it was probably worn in a chignon.
Hats and Head Gear in Elizabethan England
Most women in the sixteenth century did not go bareheaded, although this may have been less about modesty and more as an excuse to add glitz to their hair styles! Sheer, jewelled scarves were often worn in a manner which covered some of the hair. French hoods were also commonly worn – the fashion was introduced by Anne Boleyn and framed the face while revealing some of the front hair. Snoods, headbands, coifs, flat caps and pill box hats were also common. Between 1568 and 1574, “sumptuary laws” required all non-noble women to cover their hair.
Sources
- Victoria Sherrow, For Appearance’ Sake: the Historical Encyclopaedia of Good Looks, Beauty, and Grooming (Greenwood, 2001).
- Dolores Monet, Renaissance Fashion: Women’s Clothing in Elizabethan England; sourced 21 March 2011.
Sarah Tennant - Sarah Tennant is a onetime English major who lives in New Zealand with her husband and two small children. Her interests range from ...
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