Christina, an eleven-year-old Old Order Amish girl from Michigan, was kind enough to sit for a series of photographs while her mother, Mary, pinned up her hair. Like most Amish females, she has never cut or trimmed her hair. Amish women pin their hair into buns, and then cover their heads with a prayer kapp, following Paul's instruction to women in 1 Corinthians 11:5 to cover their heads. The idea is that one should always be prepared to pray, and one should be prayerful throughout their days.

Click on any of the images to see an enlargement. You may click the right or left side of each image to go forward or backward in sequence.

Mary begins by combing out Christina’s hair. She pulls the hair back away from her face and behind her ears, then fastens her hair on both sides of her head with barrettes.

Next she binds her hair into a ponytail using a simple hair band. The ponytail must be tight and close to the head.

In order to get Christina’s long hair to fit under the kapp, Mary must double it over three times (this varies depending on how long someone’s hair may be). Once the hair is rolled into a “bun” it’s time to pin it up.

Two heavy-duty hairpins are used to hold Christina’s hair in place until the hairnet is on.

Once the bun is stable, the hairnet is placed over the bun from back-to-front, then twisted and brought back from front-to-back.

The pins are pushed down through top, then back in toward center of the bun, grabbing some of the hairnet and some of the hair to make it stay. The first two pins that were used to hold the bun in place are removed, then replaced over the hairnet. A total of eight pins are used.

Once the bun is secured it’s time for the prayer kapp, which can be secured with either straight pins or bobby pins. Mary feels that straight pins look neater, but most often she has her young daughters use bobby pins because kapps tends to get dirty from oily fingers when pins are used. In these photos, Mary places the kapp on Christina’s head, then places two pins on either side, catching the hair beneath the kapp to hold it in place.

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