Chargen wrote:Important things to keep in mind - your character isn't of a wealthy background unless otherwise permitted via your RPP role, it is expensive to maintain hair and would likely not have hair below the shoulders due to the costly factor of not only keeping it clean but pest-free. We do ask our players to respect the realism factor in this and you may find your application declined should your description step outside of realm of realistic in this game's setting.
The Wiki wrote:Braiding one’s hair is a common sight amongst women and generally has meaning. Younger and unmarried women generally wear their hair in long plaits down their back, with the style of braiding showing a woman's work. Herringbone braids being most common for those in the fishing industries, and the most elaborate generally found by those who work in weaving or the textile arts. Married women will wear their hair braided up off their neck in various patterns of wreaths, bands, buns, or knots. To be promised or betrothed and to wear your hair already in such a fashion can get the tongues of local older women flapping in your earnestness.
Personally, I have known plenty of people in serious, third-world, no running water poverty with perfectly decent long hair. That having been said, I find many people do tend to keep it braided - and sometimes covered as well.The new Easterling docs wrote:Easterlings all tend to wear their hair long - and many either braid it or matt it into dreadlocks.
Various sources (check Wikipedia for some examples, if you like) suggest that long has not been uncommon in pre-modern cultures, either. And even if that long hair has sometimes been oily, dirty, or lice-infested, this doesn't seem to have been as noteworthy - or off-putting! - then as it would be nowadays. (While it's not a particularly scholarly source, there's a fun Atlas Obscura page on fancy lice combs, for those of us who like that sort of thing.)
I suspect that while Pantene model PCs with loose, flowing, glossy waves of hair that swing past the hip may be unrealistic (and in some cases annoying), there's really nothing unreasonable about long hair per se, especially when it's worn in braids, buns, or (as suggested in the Easterling documentation) dreadlocks.
In any case, since the documentation as it stands is contradictory, some clarification seems to be in order.
