Curls

I vividly remember my mom telling me to flip my head over and applying Aussie Sprunch Spray in my hair when I was a kid. I had brown ringlets with blonde highlights because my mom would also spray Sun-In all over my curls. Everyone called me Shirley Temple and people with naturally straight hair would tell me that they wish they had mine.

I felt the same exact way. All I ever wanted was their hair.

You can only brush curly hair when it’s wet, or else you’d look like a circus clown. And because of me not knowing how to properly maintain my curls, my mom would have to cut the knotted parts out. That’s why I started having my mom straighten my hair. And eventually, I did it myself.

It was a miraculous discovery! I could brush my hair as much as I wanted. My hair was even longer when it was straight. Who cares that it took over an hour to straighten my thick head of hair? I could finally look like everyone else. Except I still didn’t.

I felt like the mermaids in “H2O: Just Add Water” when they were trying to avoid getting a drop of water on them. Because if the tiniest bit of water dripped onto my hair, my secret would be revealed. I wasn’t like everybody else. I was a straight-hair fraud. The rain was my enemy. Pools would make me choose between ruining my hair or putting it up and having to yell at anyone who splashes around me.

Even if there was no water, my straight hair could easily be ruined by a little bit of humidity. Getting ready for picture day consisted of me running the flat iron over my hair as many times as humanly possible to try and prevent my hair from essentially inflating. There was no use in trying to keep my hair straight if I had gym right before the time my pictures were scheduled. Much to my dismay, the curls always came back.

That’s why I begged my mom to take me to get a Brazilian blowout when I was in middle school. I subjected myself to over two hours in a salon chair where all I could focus on was the horrendous stench coming from the formaldehyde in the products. All so I could straighten my hair more easily and have it last longer.

I don’t even think it made that much of a difference. My hair was wavy after that, but still with the unwanted thickness and frizz that came with my curls. It only lasted for a couple of months and the treatment was so expensive. So I only got the blowout that one time.

I can’t remember a moment where I wasn’t trying to conceal my natural appearance. In high school, I spent so much time in the drama club. In my senior year, I was cast as Medda Larkin in “Newsies.” That was not a straight-haired role. My director came into the dressing room to discuss my character’s look and she said, “So, a little birdie told me your hair is naturally curly.” I immediately rejected the mere idea of wearing my natural hair in a stage performance.

My curls were a nuisance to me. I remember I said to my director, “They’re not pretty curls. It’s just a mess.” So, for the dress rehearsals and the show dates, I would re-straighten my hair and then have a cast member’s sister curl it. I went out of my way to mimic something that I naturally had because I felt it wasn’t good enough.

I thought my natural curls made me look like I didn’t try. I didn’t feel pretty with them. The last time I did was when my mom fully took care of it. But I couldn’t be an adult who depended on her mother to do her hair for her. 

It wasn’t until my sophomore year in college that I finally freed my hair from the flat iron. It’s going to sound silly, but I felt inspired to learn more about curly hair because of Chappell Roan. She didn’t have perfect hair. It had frizz. It looked wild. And it still looked beautiful.

My hair didn’t look good at all at first. I also started wearing my glasses all the time. When I looked in the mirror, all I saw was Woody from “The Suite Life on Deck.” And when I thought I found a perfect routine (Rizo’s curl products), I started getting pomade acne from the oils in the hair products. So, I had to completely switch up my styling and look for products that had no pore-clogging ingredients. I would copy and paste every ingredient from a gel, cream, or mousse into an ingredient-checking website I found from TikTok. 

During this period, I straightened my hair one time when I was going to get my hair cut because I know they charge extra to untangle hair. I came to campus with straight hair and got compliments on it from multiple people. It kind of brought me back to the mindset I had all my life. But another part of me viewed it as a challenge. I would make people adore my curls if it was the last thing I ever did.

It took over a year of trial and error with different products, but I finally have a routine that I think works for me. A lot of the magic comes from what used to be my enemy: water. I do, however, credit my Bounce Curl brush for the main transformation. 

Now, my mom compares my hair to ribbon candy and is jealous of the way it looks. The kids at my work are always playing with my curls and I cringe on the inside because I’m scared they’ll ruin my masterpiece. I secretly love it, though, because people are finally positively commenting on my real hair again.  Some people have even asked me for my routine. I usually give a very long-winded explanation about it.

But the most important step is to stop covering up the natural beauty and find ways to accentuate and embrace it.