Category: Basic Grooming

Children, what have we learned from our time in Westeros?

BRAIDS ARE POWER.

If you don’t watch “Game of Thrones,” I don’t blame you because it’s hella violent and disturbing, but I will say that it’s also completely brilliant through Season 5, when the writers had to take off on their own without the source material of George R.R. Martin, and the dialogue suffers greatly for the loss. Still, by that point you’re pretty much in it for the dragons and Jon Snow’s outerwear, even though you will constantly murmur to yourself “why in tarnation do these people of the North have against HATS?” :

You know nothing, Jon Snow!

Speaking of hats and head styling, let’s talk about the amazing way that the show’s hairstyles comment on power. From early on, I figured out that the amount of elaborate braiding on the characters pretty much conveyed how much actual power they had, and I could predict by the braids on the ladies how long they’d last in their quest for the Iron Throne. Take a look:

Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons. She’s going all the way. Look at all that coiffure!

Sansa Stark, daughter of Eddard Stark, Warden of the North. Not too many braids — and those were mostly adopting the style at King’s Landing where she hoped in vain to become a major player. She’s still alive in Season 7, though, and she’s got some coiffure back after a devastating forced marriage to a psychopath:

Margaery of the House Tyrell. Interesting. Soft, curly, abundant hair, princess ringlets. Sorry, Marge. I correctly pegged you as no match for Cersei when your hair never made it to plaits:

Here’s our girl! Braids for days! She loses them in a contest of wills with the High Sparrow, which I’ll be analyzing in a follow-up post, but here she is at the height of her still semi-sane powers:

Missandei. Badass costuming but no braids, at least not yet, for this former slave and cherished translator to Danaerys.

Another amazing badass, Ygritte. As a wildling woman she has a lot of strength and courage but no actual power. RIP, Ygritte.

Finally, Lady Catelyn Stark. Loved her, but once I figured out that braids conveyed power, I feared for her life. Catelyn is fierce but she made some really stupid mistakes– AND she wore her hair loose with minimal coiffure. You can attribute that to the styles of the North versus King’s Landing, or you can read the story that hair is telling on a symbolic level…

Braids can be powerful, they can be milk maid-ish, they can be hippie-chickish, they can be lots of things. I became fascinated with how braids function in the “GOT” universe and wondered why they would be so important to the visual story. Here’s what I came up with:

On a practical level, intricate braiding requires that someone help the wearer of the style, which communicates wealth (the services of a lady’s maid) or tribal loyalties (the presence of kinswomen willing to put in the time to do the time-consuming labor).

Braids are aesthetically majestic and beautiful when wrapped about the head. They form a natural crown and are understood as such in many of the world’s cultures. One cannot wear a crown of braids without holding the head and neck with dignity and grace. Cersei looks royal in her crown of braids even when she’s not wearing an actual crown.

Braids convey strength because braiding hair or straw or vines makes the strands stronger. Plaiting is a form of weaving that transforms soft, pliable materials into sturdy, durable and even waterproof containers, fabrics and roofing material, and you look at here now to find more information about the same. These women are both very tightly woven. I suspect that one of them will wind up sovereign of the seven kingdoms if they can manage to beat back the Army of the Dead.

What story are you telling with your coiffure?

#TeamDragon

PeaceBang sometimes wishes she went to Montessori schools where she would have had early training in motor skills by putting beans into cups with tweezers or threading pasta onto string. Had she had that advantage early in life, she might today be able to style her own hair, which is fine and slippery and given to snarl if she looks at it wrong.

When YouTube ladies describe hairstyles as “super easy” and “Like, soooo easy it will just take a sec!” PeaceBang looks at them the way Hillary Clinton looked at Donald Trump during last night’s debate: bemused and with barely disguised pity. How little they know, and they’re other treatments using the best equipment like the best hair straighteners which are useful for this.

How little he knows.
But I digress!!

Here is a video of a time I styled my hair. It worked very well and did not take long, and if I can do it, anyone with opposable thumbs has a good chance of being able to do it. As you can see from the photo taken after church, the boopsie curls calmed down (or “went limp,” depending on how you look at it) so that I did not look too much like I was leading worship services on the deck of the Good Ship Lollipop.

Here’s my favorite tutorial on this style. It’s my fave because the cute girl refers to it as the “Friar Tuck” method, and how can I resist THAT?
I did not sleep on mine. I started with dry hair, spritzed it with a little bit of spray gel and water, twisted it into the headband, let it sit for a couple of hours, and pulled it out. I then sprayed it unto to the gods.

You guys!

Two friends of mine RAVED about this product and I tried it but didn’t stick with it. It was just okay and not worth the big production required to use it.

This article says that it’s not a safe product, so buyer beware. You don’t want to lose all that HAR.