I am happy to finally introduce you to Danielle! She is such an inspiring person – an “Aishet Chayil” (woman of valor) in all ways. She has true grace and really exudes the balance of looking beautiful, treating her family and herself like royalty (because they are!) yet being humble, modest, and giving. I’ve learned so much from her over the years by just looking at her beautiful tichel creations, and I’m so glad that we all get a chance to read what she has to say as well! Without further ado, meet Danielle!
“Hi Wrapunzel Ladies! Firstly, I want to say what an honour it is to be featured as a Lady Wrap Star. The Wrapunzel blog and the amazing ladies of the Wrapunzel fangroup have been an endless source of inspiration for me and I am so grateful to have discovered this amazing wellspring of beauty and creativity.
I live in Johannesburg, South Africa and was raised in a very traditional Jewish home but we weren’t religious at all. When I was 21 years old, we moved to Sydney, Australia where I met so many young people discovering their Jewish roots and moving towards becoming religious Jews. It was there that I experienced a very powerful Shabbos which ignited a spark in me to become more observant.
Australia turned out not to be the best place for us and so we returned to South Africa where I met my husband. When we got engaged, I always knew I would cover my hair. It was never a difficult choice for me, and it was always a mitzvah that I found easy to keep. I bought a sheitel and a few hats and I reckoned that these would be my main mode of covering my hair.
Once I became a mother my sheitel became a nuisance. Little hands were always grabbing at it, I felt like it was constantly in my face, and it drove me crazy! I had wrapped with tichels before, but I had never seen it as an art or a way to become creative. I always just tied the scarf on and wrapped it around my bun.
One day, friends of ours surprised us saying that their connecting flight from Israel to Knysna was delayed and so they would have to spend Shabbos in Johannesburg. They came to us for Shabbos, and I could not take my eyes off my friend’s wrap. It had so much volume, and she looked so incredibly regal. That was when I first discovered volumisers, and I started watching tutorials on hair wrapping and eventually discovering Wrapunzel 10 years after my hair covering journey had begun! I had never even thought to layer scarves together, or add a colourful sash, headbands, pins, buckles, clips. A whole new world was opened to me.
I have had very mixed reactions to my wraps. The African ladies love them and always stop me to tell me how beautiful my “doek” (head covering) is. I’ve even been asked if I was married to a Xhosa man because they had never seen a white lady with a “doek”!
I now live in a religious community where most of the women cover their hair, but most of them cover with sheitels and only a very few will try more elaborate wraps.
Someone once said to me that they used to wear colourful scarves but they decided that it was drawing too much attention to themselves so they took to wearing a sheitel full time. This initially bothered me as I thought that perhaps I was drawing too much attention to myself. But then I remembered a something I came across when I was learning about modest dress. G-d is the King of the universe, and I am his daughter. I should therefore dress in a way that says that I am a princess.
As a result, my head covering has become my crown, and I am proud to wear it as a daughter of the King.”
“I make my home in a riparian canyon in the wilderness of southern New Mexico where my family cares for a botanical sanctuary. Our cabin is perched atop a mesa that overlooks the San Francisco River. The colors of the cliffs, woodlands, and wildflowers are dramatically colorful, and certainly inspire many of my daily scarf choices! The flaming orange of the Globemallow flowers, the turquoise skies, and the earthy greens of the Pines all show up quite regularly in my wardrobe.
More recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about my family, ancestry, and how many traditions have been lost or eroded over the years. And about what I’m passing down to my daughter (and only child) who just turned sixteen this past month…. so I guess I’m very deeply pondering and reconsidering aspects of my religious/spiritual and cultural/social perspective in ways that have led me to feel that covering my hair is an important part of how I interface with people, the natural world, and G-d, if that makes sense.
My family has been splintered by religious and mental health issues, and I find that wrapping helps me maintain some connection to my maternal lineage. I first learned wrapping from my mother, and she gave me my first scarves. Now I’m teaching my teenage daughter to wrap and this year her birthday presents were mostly scarves, so this feels like a joyful way of passing on beauty and meaning.
For many years of my life, I dressed, quite literally, in camouflage colors. Whether that was the green shades of the forest or the black uniform of urban centers, I tried hard not to stand out. I’m strange enough that this has always been something of a fail for me, but choosing to wrap was also a choice to embrace who I am and to stop apologizing for it. Choosing to wrap in shades of brilliant color took this yet a step further. At first, I had to make a concerted effort to hold my head up high when I stepped into public instead of pulling into myself in wary self-consciousness. It’s grown easier with each day of wrapping, and I now actually find myself looking forward to smiling back at people when they look my way.
Part of why I only wrapped off and on before was because I didn’t know there were wonderful things like 
It’s become a morning ritual for me to check in with the 
