Roman Hair - For Women

Roman women wore their hair up in various styles...here's some for you to try out.  The last three links show how to actually do the hairstyle with the tools they had at the time.

Basic Roman Braid  (Easy)

Simple Braids and Buns (Easy to Medium)

Easy Roman Looking Hairstyles (First 3 on Page:  Easy)

Up-Do with Bands (Medium)

Roman Bun (Medium)

Faustina's Hairstyle (Hard, but shows examples of easier ones also) - Takes 35 minutes

Braided Ponytail of Agrippina the Younger (Hard)

Authentic Tutulus Bun (Hard)

Some Thoughts From the Bible

When I was  looking up Roman hairstyles for our volunteers,  I found some that were not too elaborate...ones that I could manage in front of a mirror. But there was many elaborate braided styles I learned about that there was no way for me to do on my own.  And then I thought of these verses: 

"Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness.." (1 Timothy 2:9-10 NASB).

I often had wondered what "braided hair" had to do with modesty, but I realized that they were using "modesty" here in the same way we say "a modest home" or a "modest income." The braided hairstyles this probably refereed to was the elaborate types that would require a servant (in Rome, most likely that would have been a slave). Elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls, expensive clothes...these were all conspicuous shows of consumption. And suddenly these verses made so much more sense to me. It was about how we spend our time and resources, not just about "fashion."