I stood in the mirror trying to brush out my hair and sobbed as I faced defeat. My hair had won and I had lost. No matter how I brushed, my hair had a mind of its own. It wouldn’t define any curls nor would it even brush out any tangles and knots. The only thing it wanted to do was frizz out and expand–the complete opposite of what I was trying to achieve.
Getting to a point of loving and properly caring for my hair was… a long journey to say the least. Every curly girly faces their own hair journey, and growing up in a predominantly white institution can especially make it rough. You look around and all you see is girls with perfectly straight hair and you want nothing else but to be just like them. Have that ease of waking up and not worrying if your bonnet fell off and your hair was ruined during the night.
I can’t count the number of times people have told me, “Oh I could never deal with curly hair,” as if that is supposed to be something relatable or comforting to me to hear. It really isn’t. Not. At. All. It feels like an insult more than anything–their way of telling you, “it must SUCK to have to deal with that mess,” in a sly way that seems nice but really isn’t.
It’s not like curly haired girls don’t get lazy or have all this extra time just to devote to our hair, it was something we were born with and therefore must care for. We DO get tired of emptying our entire bank accounts on hair products, scheduling our day or week around our hair, using arm strength, cleaning up the mess, and devoting an entire day once a week just for washing our hair (wash days as we call them). Even when we want a break from it all, we have to pay hundreds of dollars and sit in a chair all day just to get box braids, a wig, cornrows, or any other protective style that will last a month or two tops.
So yeah, it was a lot trying to learn all of that at 12 years old when my mom was white and had straight hair. Neither of us really had a clue on what to do, but it was MY responsibility. It was attached to MY head and a part of MY appearance. I was the one who would have to deal with it for the rest of my life. And that thought made me give up.
I wanted to have easy and manageable hair like the girls I went to school with, so throughout middle school I straightened my hair… a lot. It was fine at first, but then I started noticing my hair wouldn’t bounce back as curly as it used to. I was ecstatic– thinking straightening my hair had been loosening my curl pattern, buuuuut to my disappointing surprise, it was only damaging it.
The following years throughout highschool I became devoted to repairing my heat damage. I got my first curly cut and said goodbye to inches of dry and damaged hair. I did hair masks and oil treatments. Tried so many creams and gels–ranging in thickness and brands. I bought satin pillowcases and bonnets. I watched dozens of hair routine and advice videos. I stopped straightening my hair and started getting protective hairstyles. Truly it feels like I’ve tried and done everything in the book.
The whole journey made me love my hair. I saw the beauty in curly hair–the afro, the curls, the coils, the ringlets. I stopped looking at white girls and wanting their simple hair and started admiring mixed girls and their beautiful, bouncy curls. I took that insecurity that haunted my adolescence, and replaced it with pride that no one else had hair like me. I let girls envy me for a change, embracing that I had something they didn’t and could never have.
I love my hair and I won’t change it for the world. It is an amazing place to finally feel after years of trial and error, and I hope anyone else is able to get to a point where they are comfortable with every part of themselves–especially hair.
