I get overwhelmed with fan feelings for Zarqa Nawaz. Not only is she the creator of one of Canada’s most successful TV’s comedy series, Little Mosque on the Prairie, she’s the author of one of my favourite memoirs, Laughing All the Way to the Mosque. If you haven’t read it, you need to remedy that immediately. It’s astonishingly funny and warm and insightful. Kind of like its author.
Those who have met Zarqa know she’s as engaging in person as she is in her writing. And her style is on-point and then some. Here she is sharing a style secret as only she could.
Thank you Zarqa. Please write another book as soon as possible.
Muslim women who wear hijab have a secret. We love our heads to have a profile, which makes us look like we have a large bun under our scarves. It just looks better. We look like ‘turtle heads’ without the skull profusion. When you have long, thick hair, this look is easy to achieve. But when you have short or thinning hair due to (cough cough) age, this becomes more challenging.
I have several devices to attach to my head under my scarf, which gives me a ‘fake’ bun. It looks like a giant hairy scrunchie. You attach it to your ponytail and voila, instant volume on the back of your head.
But I recently came across another device on Wrapunzel, a website for Jewish women who also wrap their hair. It’s an underscarf with a shaper attached.
Basically it’s like wearing a mini pillow under your scarf. I wear mine everyday because it’s so comfortable. And one woman wrote in to the site about falling on an icy sidewalk and avoiding a concussion because she landed on her personal air bag.
So there it is. When you see Jewish and Muslim women looking like they’re got a pile of thick, luscious hair tied up beehive fashion under their scarves, sometimes it’s just an illusion. We may not have hair that falls to our knees, but we do have our own personal headrest. So if you see us taking a nap in public, you know why we’re so comfortable!
