The #onescarfchallenge is taking the wrapping world by storm!  I have no words to adequately thank Miri for getting it started – you are amazing!  We’re getting Wrapunzel back to its true roots: which is joy joy joy!  Here’s what I’m wearing on my head today 🙂

Check out the backstory of the #onescarfchallenge and join!  Today I’m wearing my grey Cherry Blossom with a dark red Headband Secret.

All my love to you beautiful women!
Andrea

What an honor it was to be featured on Penina Taylor’s inaugural radio/video show!  This was such a fun interview and just the way I like it: raw, deep, meaningful, and pure.  It was like talking to a girlfriend from my childhood, except about the real stuff.  Enjoy!

Meet Miri, the woman that created the #onescarfchallenge.  THIS is what the Wrapunzel community is about; someone seeing a need, and doing something about it!  Read the backstory and join!  Here’s how:

– Wear only one scarf as your tichel, with one accessory (like a headband or a pin)
– When you post on facebook, instagram, or twitter, tag #wrapunzel and #onescarfchallenge
– Check out other ladies doing the same, and be inspired
– Let your friends know, the ones who are intimidated by the super intricate scarf wraps, that this mitzvah is for THEM, and the whole point of Wrapunzel is liberation and letting everyone know that “you can do it!”  You don’t have to be intricate/complicated to reveal your inner essence through wrapping your hair!

… and now, let’s hear from Miri!

Backstory: How’d you come up with #onescarfchallenge?

I thought about wrapping my hair last summer, around the time our boys were kidnapped. I remember their beautiful mothers’ head coverings, and being so impressed with their poise in the face of such devastating tragedy. Their simple wraps were so beautiful, yet simple. I learned strength doesn’t always need a lot of ornamentation to be beautiful.

Up until this point, I was pretty fluid in my hair covering. I’d been married about 10 years when my family became more observant and purposeful in our religious practice. I hesitate to label me or my family as “Ba’al tchuva,” because I believe I am the same person I’ve always been. Taking on mitzvot began in earnest when we moved to Rochester, NY, from LA, and joined my husband’s family’s Sephardi shul, Light of Israel. My son’s great great grandfather founded the shul, so our small family felt incredibly connected to the kehilla.  Being in a small town, well, the smallest town I’ve lived in, we had the opportunity to develop our religious practices in a way that was very organic, and really couldn’t have happened anywhere else. I could try to find out how I wanted to cover my hair IF I wanted to cover my hair. Usually no one mentioned my flirtation with covering my hair, except to give me encouragement.

During this time,  I worked at a Catholic college as an assistant professor in communication, and felt like I couldn’t take many risks in the way I covered my head. I didn’t really even cover my hair in a non-religious setting until 2011 when I developed breast cancer at 45. At the time I had a five year old son and was looking for something that I could do to cover my bases spiritually, so to speak. I was sent to Israel for a professional conference, and couldn’t NOT cover my hair while I was there. This was also right before my bilateral mastectomy—covering my hair with hats seemed to be the thing to do to put myself in a good place spiritually. My husband follows R” Ovadiya Yoseph, so wigs were never part of the equation. Sometimes I’d wear a snazzy bandana, but usually I’d wear a hat or a biker ‘do rag. Still, I was searching for a personal head covering style. I went through cosmetology school in high school, so keeping my head stylish is a priority for me.

Then I saw the person you know as Jennifer Michelle Ora Kreisler. She and I had known each other briefly, years ago, when we were part of the same speech team. I hadn’t given her another thought—until I saw this radiant rebbitzen sporting an amazing wrap on a mutual friend’s Facebook page. We danced around asking each other if we were Jewish… She had been a different person when I know her before (but I was too!), and I just LOVED her wrap, but not only that—she encouraged me to try wrapping just by wearing beautiful wraps herself. If she could do it, I certainly could!

We moved to NYC for my health during my time as a wrapping lurker. When I first started wrapping with purpose last year around the time of the Jewish holidays, I was VERY intimidated by the gorgeous styles I saw on Wrapunzel. Certainly I could never have a wrap as beautiful as those I saw Rebbitzen Ora and other women wearing. But moving to NYC changed me, and I decided I could take more chances with my head covering than I did in Rochester in the small conservative school where I worked. My new NYC boss has blue highlights in her hair, for goodness sake! And so, like everyone else, I dove into the Wrapunzel pool full bore. Multiple scarves with all sorts of additional bling—pins, headband, sashes, you name it!  Again, I was trying to find where I fit in the covering world. I tried all the styles “named” for someone, Shira tails, the Yael, the Leizel… All gorgeous! But where was The Miri? Would there be a Miri if I only wear one simple scarf? How could there be?!  Then I read someone say something about the Wrapunzel fan group in another group—something along the lines of, “those Wrapunzel women have such intricate wraps—I could never do that, so I’m leaving that group…” What?! Give up because you can’t do multiple scarves? That was enough for me! I decided to issue the #onescarfchallenge—one little ol’ scarf with one piece of bling—headband, brooch, etc., to show women that there is no reason to feel inferior to women with elaborate wraps—one scarf can be absolutely gorgeous! I laid down my gauntlet in hopes other women would take the challenge! And you know what? They did. I might not have a style named after me, but that really doesn’t make a difference. My life is devoted to helping people on many different levels. If I can help one woman wrap and feel beautiful, isn’t that enough? One can be gorgeous. One can be playful. And like I tell my “only” son, one is sometimes all you need to be happy. #onescarfchallenge

🙂

I can’t wait til tonight, when I can tell you more about the #onescarfchallenge… but for now let me just say, THIS is what Wrapunzel really is all about!

On Shabbat, I wore one scarf: my light teal shimmery, with my empress headband… and WOW, did I ever feel great!  My outfit was inspired by a beautiful woman on the fangroup (she knows who she is!)

Who else is looking forward to hearing more about the #onescarfchallenge?  Can’t wait to share with you all about it, and the woman that created it!

Love, Andrea

Okay… so I could explain to you the deep kabbalistic meaning behind “4”, or I could tell you how well these colors go together, or I could just tell you that this was a wacky idea and someone needs to stop me before I end up with ten 2 in 1s criss-crossed on my head!

Someone please tell me to stop before it’s too late? ❤

Shabbat shalom!
Love, Andrea

I saw these colors in my burgundy Cherry Blossom tichel this morning (burgundy, dark yellow and grey) and thought, why not?  And then that morphed into a cah-wazy idea – why not try a triple zig zag criss cross wrap?  So I had to get the attempt on video, and lo and behold, it turned out awesome!  Huzzah!

I don’t know what possessed me to try this style with these colors, but wow – super like!  This is the Yael wrap, but a double.  Basically everything in the single scarf version, I did a second time with another scarf… does that make sense?  It’s a definite repeater!

I’m wearing my Exotic Spice (aka new favourite color – who woulda thunk that I wear it wayyy more than the burgundy?!) and Dark Blue 2 in 1s so it was cool enough to beat the heat!

Hope you enjoy this new style!!
Love, Andrea

Since Penina Taylor made her first video for Wrapunzel, we’ve been getting requests to hear more from her!  She’s had lots going on in her life, with her son’s wedding, a recent move and her regular teaching/speaking gigs, but was able to make the time to share some beautiful thoughts with us about the boxes people make for us and the boxes we put ourselves in.  Listen, dig deep, and love yourself and everyone you meet for the WHOLE multifaceted people that we all are!  Enjoy!

I’m loving wearing the double braid lately with a little extra addition… a sash, a patterned headband.  Just adds an extra something to an already gorgeous wrap!

Here I am on the subway a month ago (in NYC… wow do I ever miss a good transit system here in Baltimore!) pairing it with a golden tan lace sash:

And here I am rocking it with a Damask Headband… these three colors were just laying on my bed together and I was like, “Wow!  Gotta try this!”  I would have never put these three colors together on my own, so am somewhat grateful for being a little disorganized lately!

All the scarves I’m wearing are 2 in 1s… they are, as always, just so perfect for styles like this – especially in the summer!

Enjoy and happy wrapping!
Love, Andrea xo

This tutorial is a bit bittersweet… it’s the same technique that I did wayyyyy back before Wrapunzel even existed (yup, I was making tichel videos on andreagrinberg.com, then created Wrapuzel the blog… and only after that did a store emerge – time flies when you’re having fun!)  Anyway, back then I didn’t have a velvet headband or shaper, and was too shy to talk to the camera so I just had gorgeous classical music playing – check it out!  Awwww nostalgia ❤

So here is the newer version of this old classic – how to do a gorgeous single braid!

On the Wrapunzel Fangroup, we’re grateful to see so many women rocking various tichel styles.  There have been some great ideas about what to do with sashes on there, so here is a video of my playing around with these ideas from Gwen, Naomi Rose, and Heather!  Enjoy!

I rarely wear pastels… but Shabbat always inspires me to wear light colors to help get in touch with my elevated self.  I truly felt like a queen in this ensemble.  We had an super special group of people at our table on Friday night… who weren’t afraid to be intense and deep – very inspirational!

I’m wearing a sky blue 2 in 1, and a white shiny-licious, with a vintage beauty headband 🙂

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead!  This is the hardest week on the Jewish calendar, but it holds the potential for a type of connection that we cannot experience during the rest of the year.  May we all use this difficult time to grow closer to our creator and ourselves.

Love, Andrea

This girl is is a turban wizardess!!  Check it out!  And yeah, we totally listened to you and asked her to make more tutorials for Wrapunzel… this isn’t the last you’ve heard from Rachel!

This is my new favourite summer wrap – invented by Yael!  It’s perfect for our new Summer Solid Pashminas!
Here is a little about Yael, in her own words:

“I am Italian, I´m born in Florence and I lived there till I was 25. Then I made a PhD at the Hebrew Universty of Jerusalem, on Purity/Impurity in Biblical Hebrew. I meet my husband there, who was born in Hamburg Germany and we lived then in Jerusalem for 10 Years. At the moment we live in Germany in a little town near Frankfurt, where we´re the only jewish orthodox family (besides a very old couple). Therefore we are trying to leave Germany, in order to find a living jewish community, in Europe, America, Israel, in which we can live our yiddishkeit together with other …. Our kids (three) need friends and structures in order to develop themselves… Actually my english is better than in the tutorial (a part my Italian accent), but I was very excited to make my first video at all and I am not yet comfortable with the tichels and wrapping vocabulary… “

Well… I certainly think she did an incredible job!  LOVING this wrap!

There are no words to describe the gratitude that one feels when seeing a message like this.  This is everything that I ever dreamed Wrapunzel would become.  May we only continue to all grow bigger and brighter!

Written by Emily Rose from Oregon

“For me, covering my hair and surrendering to modesty has been the most positive, affirming, freeing choice I have ever made in relation to how I feel about my body and in the year I’ve been wrapping, it’s changed everything for me and I can’t even think about it without crying.  I have a long, ugly history of severe mental illness; I have severe social anxiety, severe panic attacks, and I also have a long history of eating disorders including anorexia and I still struggle with bulimia to this day. Often, my various symptoms are intrusive to the point that it keeps me from school, work, and life. But this isn’t about illness, I want this to be about the unique challenges we all face as women in world obsessed with the physical, trying to feel good and connect with others. I still struggle and fight with myself, but I am light years from where I used to be. Years of therapy has not done for me what connecting with my spirituality and creator has, and walking the path to modesty has done and is continuing to do for me. I could write a book on this and maybe someday I will. For now, I just want to tell all of you how strong and beautiful wrapping makes me feel, and I want to hear how it’s changed things for you, too. I never thought standing out could make me feel safe and strong, make me feel right, make me feel beautiful, make me love the way I look and love getting dressed while always knowing that my body doesn’t define me, make me appreciate every amazing thing this body I live in can do –but that’s exactly what covering does for me!  I’ll throw it to you ladies – have any of you struggled with body image and found that covering has changed the way you feel about yourself? How so? I know I’m not alone!”