I've seen a trend for engagement rings to no longer be just diamonds. I know diamonds were not always the stone used in rings for weddings/ engagements. You could choose a stone, or stones, with personal meaning. Like your birthstone, or the birthstone of your groom, family, children.

Also, changes to bridal gowns. Not always so long, luxurious and expensive. I think it is a great idea to choose a dress you can wear again. No point in having something stuck at the back of your closet. Also, more likely the dress could be recycled for someone else to wear, wedding or not. My own wedding dress was red with a black faux fur collar. I loved it for my winter wedding. I did wear the dress again for other occasions too.

If you were planning (for real, or not) a wedding, what would you do to make it a bit greener, or ecologically friendly?

Would you try going without shampoo and other hair products? What if doing without modern shampoo was the real way to great, healthy (not just healthy looking) hair?

What's the longest you've waited to wash your hair? I've gone without washing mine for a few weeks. You can build up the time by washing your hair less often. The scalp does not get oily or greasy for quite awhile. Unless you get rained on or somehow messy, your hair can remain unwashed for quite awhile and still look good. For me, the hair itself began to look greasy before my scalp did. I've noticed shampoo needs a first and a second wash to really 'clean' my hair. Afterwards it is a scraggy mess unless I comb it out (I have a great wooden comb I bought from Amazon years ago) while my hair is still pretty wet. If I let it get too dry it is much harder to comb and being curly it looks like a heap of straw on my head, even though it is longer than shoulder length.

Brushing hair used to be something women (people with longer hair) did everyday, more than once even. In school (1970's) girls would carry a comb with them and brush their hair to keep the style. If you've seen movies from the 1900's, people did carry a comb and did use it often. Combing and brushing also help move the hair oil away from the scalp and down the hair to the ends which tend to dry out and split as they grow longer. So brushing and combing hair was good for maintaining a style and keeping hair healthy. Plus, think of all the hair products you can do without.

When you do wash your hair, with shampoo avoid shampoos that contain sulfates and silicones. They strip your hair of natural oil and healthy stuff (for lack of a better word). They can also irritate your scalp, especially if have eczema/ sensitive skin.

Instead of regular washing, women practiced a daily ritual of brushing. Brushing allowed the natural oils produced by the scalp to travel along the length of the hair, giving it a natural shine and keeping it healthy. This routine was seen as essential to proper grooming, and many women considered their hair one of their most valuable features. In a time before modern shampoos and conditioners, patience and consistent care with a brush were the keys to maintaining beautiful hair. - I lost track of the source for the above paragraph.

Synthetic shampoos were introduced in the 1930s. Daily shampooing became the norm in the US in the 1970s and 1980s, but hair washing is determined by cultural norms and individual preferences, with some people washing daily, some fortnightly, and some not at all. From a clinical point of view, "the main purpose for a shampoo is to cleanse the scalp", not to "beautify the hair". - Wikipedia

YouTube - Why medieval people didn't wash their hair, and how it stayed clean | Historical Myth Busting

This hair treatment is simple, cheap, and fast — my kind of beauty routine. All I have to do is wash with water, then brush my wet hair with a washcloth 100 strokes each side. This moves the oils from the scalp, spreading them evenly across the hair. Miraculously, within two weeks, my frizzy ends became less flyaway. My hair began to shine again, getting wavy instead of bushy. And, since the oils weren’t massed near the scalp, my hair didn’t droop, limp and greasy.

The more I used this washcloth process, the less I needed to shampoo (winnowing down gradually to every week, then every few weeks). After a month or two, I found I could stop shampooing entirely — except in rare circumstances, like that time I sanded drywall and appeared to have been dragged in from an archeological site.

Before you mutter anything about what a big fat liar I am, take a look at a book of old photos — maybe one featuring daguerreotypes from the turn of the century. As you peruse the photos, consider this: the first commercial shampoo wasn’t even invented (right here in Springfield, actually) until 1930: Breck. Before that, people didn’t rinse their hair more than a few times a year. Although soaps gentle enough for personal hygiene had recently been invented, they definitely weren’t used on hair. Sure, some historical photos might get retouched, but not a photo of a Yakama Native American, her hair thick, lustrous, and definitely not oily. And not a daguerreotype of an Irish maid, her curls vibrant even in black and white.

The above quoted content is from - The Boston Phoenix - The No-’Poo Do - Audrey Schulman

Ancient Egyptians, renowned for their focus on beauty and cleanliness, were the first to use a formula of animal and plant fats mixed with alkaline salts to create the world’s earliest known form of shampoo.

Fast forward to middle ages when Europeans were known to employ animal fats while warming themselves by fireplaces for caring their tresses! Women used boar-bristle brushes made from animal hairs that helped distribute scalp’s natural oils down through strands – ensuring smoother look & reducing breakage at same time.

In Ancient Egypt, for instance, people used castor oil as an effective treatment towards enhancing hair growth. Egyptians also shaved their heads regularly to maintain cleanliness due to the hot climate, wearing wigs instead that required diligent grooming daily with special combs made from wood or ivory.

Moving toward Asia – India specifically — has given world one of its most impactful beauty practices – Ayurveda. This 5000-year-old practice considers the health of your scalp and uses oils integrated with herbs such as Amla and Bhringraj — known for preventing premature greying—alongside coconut oil renowned worldwide today for stimulating healthier locks.

Quoted from History of Hair Care: A Glimpse into Ancient Traditions and Practices

• The Daily Mail, UK - Could you Survive without Shampoo? - Helen Drake

I don't wear a lot of hats, literally. But, hats are always interesting. Partly because people don't wear them often any more. People who do wear hats, unless they're hiding baldness, do seem more interesting, just because they chose to wear a hat. I was a kid when the Archie comics were around, long before the Riverdale TV series. But, the Jughead hat began before Archie and his comics. It is often called a whoopee hat.

The style is called a whoopee cap and, believe it or not, it was insanely popular among young people when Jughead made his comic book debut in 1941. Turns out, factory workers used to invert their felt fedoras and chop off the brims so their eye sight wouldn't be restricted while working. When they got new hats, they'd pass their old hat down to their kids and the crude fedora hack actually became trendy among their kids.

Quoted from Seventeen Magazine online.

Most of the whoopee hats I find online are crochet or knit now. An authentic hat would be made from felt, a thicker felt than I could find in craft shops. To make a whoopee hat now you would need to search for a better kind of felt, one that might even be washable a few times (at least) before it fell apart. Finding a better grade of felt would be harder than finding a pattern (if you need one) to make the hat. Instead, you might buy (try a thrift store) a felt hat with a brim you can cut, turn it inside out and wear a real whoopee/ Jughead hat you created yourself. Add your own pins or brooches to it. Now that you're a hat maker, think of other styles to work on and wear. Like the cloche hat from the 1920's or some Edwardian hats, romantic and elaborate but all made with felt. Maybe fascinators, all the hat trimmings without the hat (sort of). Maybe a more structured top hat with fancy trimmings leftover from those fascinators. Soon you will become a regular milliner/ hat designer and maker.

Here are some patterns I found, for your Mad Hatter inspiration.

I like sweatshirts, they’re comfortable, usually warm, and easy to wash. But, why do they add hoods to them? The hoods pull down on the back and leave the back of my neck cold. I try different things, like rolling it up and pulling the string tight to keep it from dragging down my back. I’ve tried stuffing it inside down the back. But, none of these stay put well enough. I’ve read about people cutting off the hood and sewing the remains together to make a collar. This seems the best solution. I haven’t done it yet.

Mostly I avoid buying sweatshirts with hoods. That works better than anything else. But, I wonder, does anyone actually wear the hood? Not as a fashion thing, but for practical reasons, or just because the hood is comfortable, or warmer? Maybe this is something men, or people with short hair would like. With longer hair the hood doesn’t work. Not for me anyway.

In the end, I wonder why they add the hood. There must have been some reason for it.