Elizabethan Hair

Elizabeth the 1st was the leading person when it came to hairstyles (as well as make-up and fashion) during her reign.

It was desired to have fair hair ranging from yellowish blond to strawberry blond. Elizabeth had natural red hair,but everyone else who wanted to look like her had to dye their hair to achieve that look. At that time they used a mixture of saffron, celandine, oil and cumin seed. Just as a side note, too much saffron can cause poisoning, so you can guess that that mixture wasn't especially good for your hair and their hair became thinner and thinner, which is one of the reasons why people wore wigs. It was said that Elizabeth had over 80 wigs!

Usually the hair was worn up, decorated with pearls,threads,jewelery, strings, lace or embroidery.

A high forehead was desired ,so many shaved back their hairlines. As the hairline on our forehead is a sensitive area, it could happen that the hair wouldn't grow back. A risk that many actresses took just to portray Elizabeth in their movies. Also very common were a variety of headdresses,but I will make an extra post about these.

The only time you were allowed to wear your hair down was if you were a young girl or unmarried. On their wedding day a Tudor/Elizabethan women would wear their hair loosely and decorate it with flowers.

Elizabeth I. wearing her hair loosely at her coronation on the 15th January 1559, showing her purity and virginity 

 (source: http://www.wearemoviegeeks.com/2013/11/10-best-royal-movies/cate-blanchett-elizabeth/)

Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth in the movie 'Elizabteh'

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England)

Elizabeth I. coronation

Very typical for an Elizabethan hairstyle was also to have curls, frizzing and padding. Especially very tight curls which were mostly worn at the front of the head.

Here a few examples

 (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England)

Elizabeth's 'Rainbow Portrait' ftom around 1600

In the portrait you can see she has a lot of tight curls in the front and tendrils coming from the back of her hair.You can create those tendrils by frizzing your hair using a hairpin for example.

The next pictures show Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth.

Here again tight curls in the front

 (source: http://www.lahiguera.net/cinemania/actores/cate_blanchett/fotos/5644/)

 (source: http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/outsidetheframe/archive/2008/01/26/oscar-nomination-scorecard.aspx)

(source: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/cate-blanchett/images/13445744/title/elizabeth-screencap)


To create the round and heart hair shape, you can find in a lot of Elizabethan portraits, you had to add a padding under the hair to make it bigger and give it a form.Over the padding you would layer crimped and frizzy hair.

(source: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/cate-blanchett/images/13636410/title/elizabeth-golden-age-screencap)

(source: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/310748443009870945/)

In both pictures you can see the round shaped hair.