This paper looks into the ways in which lower- middle class women with headscarves are categorized as a specific type of labor force in the retail labor market in Turkey. Much has been written about the social and political implications of the headscarf in Turkey among middle class, educated, Islamic activist women and the struggle they have waged against the homogenizing imaginaries of secular, Westernized woman in the public sphere. Yet, how the connotations of the headscarf unfold in the context of insecure, low status private sector jobs hardly count among the concerns of public and academic debate regarding women, Islam and headscarves in Turkey. This paper traces the ways in which the connotations of identity attributed to the headscarf intersect with social class in the making of lower middle class, non-university educated women’s experiences in work life. In doing that, the paper questions the dominant pattern of taking the headscarf as a blanket of religious identity which uniformly defines the experiences of women with headscarves regardless of class, status and level of education. The study relies on ethnographic research conducted in different retail settings in five cities of Turkey. The research includes data from focus group discussions and in-depth interviews conducted with saleswomen with headscarves, as well as with employers in retail. The data uncovers demarcation lines in the retail sector with regard to employing or not employing women with headscarves. These demarcation lines reflect a multiplicity of assumptions which lead to categorizing women with headscarves as a specific type of labor force that would ‘fit’ only in certain retail settings. What kind of assumptions related to class, gender, religiosity and identity are at work in the construction of these demarcation lines? By looking into both the employees’ and employers’ narratives, the paper traces the interactions between the socially and culturally loaded assumptions about the headscarf and perceptions of class in drawing demarcation lines in the retail labor market.