hot chani

why is everyone talking about 'hot Chani's' lately?

FrumSatire wrote a post about girls who are considered 'hot Chani's' with a picture showing girls, who in my opinion do NOT actually fit the description. (http://www.frumsatire.net/2008/11/13/what-is-a-hot-chani)

The first time I heard this term was in Israel, when those Mir boys (who weren't for mir: http://materialmaidel.blogspot.com/2008/07/mir-boys-are-not-for-mir.html) called my friends that. We were like 'huh?'. I just thought it was only a term used by guys around other guys. Until recently.

Then I did a little more research.

Little Frumhouse wrote about what it takes to be a 'hot Chani' back in 2007: http://frumhouse.blogspot.com/2007/03/do-jewish-women-have-chiyuv-to-be-hot.html
She refers to a post written in 2006 by Ask Shifra(http://askshifra.blogspot.com/2006/10/chol-hamoad-at-six-flags-part-two.html).

So what do I think?

First off - I should start by telling you that all my friends are hot chanis! Seriously. My friends are all babes - gorgeous girls, with amazing personalities, with good jobs and/or college degrees who also happen to be frum. Some are even named Chani.

I'm talking about the single girls here. The married ones often stay hot, but don't often stay in touch and tend to move away :(

So is there anything wrong with being frum and looking good at the same time? I don't think so. As long as you're within the limits of tznius, why not try to dress well?

I have a good friend who majorly flipped out in seminary. Like major. She went from dating non-Jews one month to measuring skirt lengths the next (in case you're wondering, they must be kaka length, anything too long or too short was considered immodest for where she went for sem). She was always one of the most fashionable girls in my class. She loved reading Vogue, drawing sexy clothes, keeping up on the latest trends.

Then when she come home from seminary one summer - I barely recognized her. She would only wear button-down shirts (buttoned way, way up) and ugly skirts, with thick pantyhose and ugly shoes. Very Israeli Charedi. Definitely not Hot Chani. She didn't even pluck her eyebrows or comb her hair anymore - she said those things were not important and got in the way of her spirituality.

But does Hashem really want you to look ugly?

I don't think so.

I think it's true that some people go a little overboard with their looks. Like getting too much Botox - in the end, too much of it will only make you look worse! Whenever I'm in Flatbush (home of many Hot Chanis) I actually get grossed out by some of those women. It seems to be a fad over there for women to wear too much makeup, too much jewellery, just too much of everything. I'm not dissing Brooklyn. It just seems to be so much more of a trend over there.

There is a fine line between looking good and looking gaudy. And gaudy women are not Hot Chanis. At least not in my books. But there is nothing wrong with looking good!