Hair Net Vs Snood

[LoriAnn]

Pinterest

@AshleyMel , you inspired me to look this up.

All this time, I thought anything snood-like was indeed a snood. Apparently my snoodily assumptions were way off. (In related news: I like saying "snood".)

Anywho, I had no idea hair nets were used, nor did I realize how pretty they could be.

I found a lovely blogger at Southron Creations who wrote up a post on this subject: Snoods or Nets?

"Hairnets of the 1860s were either a fine thin net, or a beautiful thick woven net made of silk ribbon or silk chenille. A pretty band was often attached to the net across the top which included braided or ruched ribbon, flowers, beads, or lace. Nets in the 1860s were not the thick crocheted nets of the 1950s."

Also, her mother has an Etsy shop where she sells handmade hair nets: Southern Serendipity.

I'm not in the market for any of this, but I like being able to see these pieces up close. (She features floral headpieces too.) Often when I see era photos, it's a bit difficult to fully appreciate the hair styles. Now that I've seen these examples, it'll be a little easier to figure out what's going on in the period images.

 

[AshleyMel]

Oh thank you, thank you, thank you! I knew I did not have the proper vocabulary for what these lovely hair adornments were actually called so "hair net thingie" was all I could articulate! I think I like the way "snood" rolls off my tongue too!

I saw these beautiful pieces when I went to a Civil War event last fall and I kept telling my Hubby, "I can make THAT!" So now the pressure is really on! No procrastinating or "Eventually" allowed!

 

[MaryDee]

Nets could be and were made of one's own hair, which of course would render them mostly invisible. The sheer nylon "lunch lady" nets are the closest we have today. Unfortunately, they don't come in gray so for me are useless--even in gray they wouldn't work because my hair is multicolored with patches ranging from dark brown to white! I have a black lace net with ribbon trim at the top, which I lined with black cotton batiste so my short gray hair (in a pixie cut, hardly suitable for 19th century) doesn't show. By the time of the Civil War, nets were worn mostly on the back of the hair. Of course, with my short hair I wear mine about 1 to 1 1/2 inches back from the hairline, using plenty of hair care product to tame the hair that shows.

The rayon "snoods" too often seen nowadays are definitely a "reenactorism."

 

[nitrofd]

Never heard of a snood before.

 

[Mike Serpa]

I actually have this short movie in my collection.

 

[MissREP]

Oh...I think I need one made out of chenille like that. (Okay, so I have a red one, but it looks more like a Renaissance hat!) I love snoods and wear them from time to time in 'modern' life. Mine are all essentially doilies with a ribbon/string through the edge and as such I prefer the ones made from crochet thread. Looks like perhaps these hairnets are slightly less gathered.

 

[Jackson'sArm]

I actually have this short movie in my collection.
View attachment 135300

Coincidentally, Buster Keaton appears, by association, in the Trivia Question for today. He starred in "The General" based on Andrew's Raid. It's a great way to learn history... slapstick with a piano accompaniment!

 

[MaryDee]

Nets like the one pictured above were often made from silk or velvet ribbon, rolled. I haven't seen instructions on how to do it, unfortunately.

Buster Keaton's The General is my favorite Civil War movie. You can find it on youtube. Not a lot of history, but wonderful entertainment! Did you know that the music for silent movies was furnished by a piano (or sometimes organ) player in the theater's orchestra pit, who played whatever he/she thought was appropriate for the scene being shown. My mother did a lot of that back in the day. It was job security for a lot of music students, until sound came along in the late 1920s.

 

[Eleanor Rose]

That is so cool @MaryDee!

 

[Jackson'sArm]

Coincidentally, Buster Keaton appears, by association, in the Trivia Question for today. He starred in "The General" based on Andrew's Raid. It's a great way to learn history... slapstick with a piano accompaniment!

 

[LoyaltyOfDogs]

Nets could be and were made of one's own hair, which of course would render them mostly invisible. "

Did women make nets themselves, of their own hair? Or did they take their hair to someone who specialized in that craft? Would they have cut out a small section of their hair to provide the material for this? Seems to me it would take a long time to collect enough from a hairbrush.

 

[Mike Serpa]

Nets like the one pictured above were often made from silk or velvet ribbon, rolled. I haven't seen instructions on how to do it, unfortunately.

Buster Keaton's The General is my favorite Civil War movie. You can find it on youtube. Not a lot of history, but wonderful entertainment! Did you know that the music for silent movies was furnished by a piano (or sometimes organ) player in the theater's orchestra pit, who played whatever he/she thought was appropriate for the scene being shown. My mother did a lot of that back in the day. It was job security for a lot of music students, until sound came along in the late 1920s.

Some of the big budget movies had musical scores written for them. Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ and Metropolis are two that come to mind. Many movies had cue sheets which were suggestions of which songs or which type music to play. Some theaters in big cities such as New York, Chicago, etc. had full orchestras.

Here is the transformation scene from Metropolis (1927). I'm pretty sure this is the original score. (I'm too lazy* to get my DVD and play it to verify my claim). The life and soul of the good and true Maria is transferred to the Machine Man/False Maria. If you have three minutes you might like it.

* I mean too busy.


EDIT: Were Frankenstein, Dr. No and Star Wars influenced by this movie?

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

They must have been awfully smitten by them, to wear something called a ' snood '. It'd take a lot- or diamonds. " What a lovely snood, my dear, quite ravishing! " You don't hear a lot of that.

I'm not finding ' snood ' instructions, in Godey's although that means nothing- tons of crocheted hair nets. This is scooped from Pinterest but did search a few Godey issues for ' snood '. No researcher here! Someone better at it might come up with a result. Godey's helped women make everything.

 

[LoriAnn]

I'm not finding ' snood ' instructions, in Godey's although that means nothing- tons of crocheted hair nets. This is scooped from Pinterest but did search a few Godey issues for ' snood '. No researcher here! Someone better at it might come up with a result. Godey's helped women make everything.

Could be because hair nets were more the norm, and snoods weren't as Victorian as some originally thought.

From the blog post I linked to in the OP:

"Victorian reenacting is catching on, whether you're a Civil War enthusiast or a Dickens lover. People are bringing back some really lovely old-fashioned styles of the mid-Victorian era. But there are one or two "fashions" of the Victorian era that never really existed - and I hate to say it, but the wearing of snoods is one of them."

When I was reading up on this, I ran across comments about Civil War reenactors incorrectly sporting snoods. Perhaps people think those and hair nets are interchangeable.

I've seen snoods at Ren Faires, but Lord knows those aren't the place to search out authenticity.

 

[donna]

Great thread LoriAnn. Just had the time to read. been very busy with Food Forum and Animal Forum. Needed to catch up on the many others. Thanks so much for posting. I had never heard of "the snood".

 

[Anna Elizabeth Henry]

Great thread on snoods and hair nets! I actually stumbled upon the term years ago in an old novel I found about the Civil War when I was high school and had no idea what they were talking about, so I pulled out my trusty Oxford dictionary and looked it up. And luckily it was one of those older dictionaries wherein they kindly provided little sketches of things and I saw a drawing and was like, oh I've seen that before in Gone with the Wind!

 

[18thVirginia]

We did some "living history" kinds of sketches a few years ago and one was a Confederate woman reading a letter from her son. A local seamstress group made the dress for us, which turned out pretty well, and I ordered a hairnet for the actress. Let's just say that actresses are not reenactors and she refused to wear it, even though it looked very good.

 

[AshleyMel]

OOPS!

 

[AshleyMel]

Convention is fast approaching so I though I'd get crafty. We shall see how they turn out.
Maybe the ladies will like them???

 

[Zella]

Very interesting!

I love the word snood and regret that I have no opportunity to slip it into everyday conversation.

My first encounter with snood was in Anne of Green Gables. Anne comes up with the word as a way to describe something for her hair.

I remember looking it up and then being like, "So . . . Anne didn't invent the word snood?"