In terms of the flowiness of wigs – especially long wigs – now that I have one myself, I can speak from personal experience. Even one of the nicest brands of wigs doesn’t have hair that mimics real hair. I’m not saying it doesn’t look pretty, but hair coming out of a wig simply doesn’t have the same movement.

When I got my new long wig, I have to tell you, I was a bit nervous to wear it outside. I always hear about people talking of the “too sexy long wigs” and I was worried that maybe this new one qualified as one of those.

I imagined that I would walk outside and people would stop and stare as I passed them by on the street, in a store. But when I finally went outside in the long wig, I noticed something interested – no one seemed to notice or care!

A few friends have complimented me, but I haven’t seen ANY change in how people notice me. If I HAD I wouldn’t have felt comfortable wearing something that brought such attention.

Perhaps it’s b/c it takes more and more to get people’s attention nowadays. Lady Gaga has to wear a dress made out of *meat* to an awards show to really shock people.

Long, pretty hair doesn’t seem to interest people much. But this newer wig is making ME notice the mitzvah more. It’s making me cover my hair more happily than ever and I find that I’m keeping my wig on at home, when normally I’d leave my hair uncovered around my family.

If you’re not into wigs personally, you shouldn’t wear them. There are different approaches, but I think it’s important to recognize that different forms of hair covering have pluses and minuses and we should support all the different halachic approaches even if it’s not what we personally believe in.

First of all – isn’t hair covering supposed to be a siman? And if some wigs are so realistic that some men and women cannot tell that a wig is being worn- doesn’t that defeat the purpose? I’m not referring to the fact that it looks like hair, I’m referring to a situation as to when you just can’t tell altogether).

Also, you wrote that a wig creates “a barrier so that the actual, free-flowing hair of the woman is not available for public consumption.” That may be true in a case of a shorter wig which “flowiness” is limited; however, many women walk around with these long, flowing wigs that are extremely seductive and attracting. Why do women want to wear these wigs so badly in the first place? I’d say probably because they’re made from real hair and flow just like real hair– which in turn makes them look more like how they looked before they began covering their hair. So if they look like exactly how they looked before they covered their hair – then the issue of sensuality is not being dealt with by wearing a sensuous wig on top of their sensuous hair.

You can wear whatever hair covering you’re most comfortable in, but there is nothing unethical about wearing a wig.

There is talk that they are not always donated … willingly. Young, very poor girls overseas, are forced to cut their hair. For money that doesn’t necessarily wind up in their pockets.

I don’t know. This is something I would never do. Scarfs or tubans look more natural.