I have always had a love-hate relationship with my hair. In multiple senses of the phrase. I love it and I hate it; I love it and it hates me.
Only 1-2% of the world’s population has red hair (human, anyways), and I am one of them. My hair is bright red. Not strawberry blond, not auburn. There are no other synonyms or adjectives required.
I know I won the genetic lottery when it comes to hair color. And don’t get me wrong; I love my red hair.
But… my hair is also curly. Very curly. Along with everything that goes with it – frizz, knots, fluff, dryness, you name it. Sometimes I hate my curly hair.
Despite growing up in a curly family, my hair was much curlier than my mother’s, and she struggled to tame it when I was a kid. She also couldn’t bear to cut it til I was seven years old, and the weekly hair-washing sessions were a nightmare (probably for us both, in retrospect). She had to close all the windows before washing my hair, for fear passersby would hear me screaming as she tried to comb out all the knots.
For most of my childhood, she put my hair in two braids. It was the only way to control it. I got called Pippi a lot.
I longed for straight hair. Even wavy hair would’ve been better than my mane of frizz. If a genie granted me three wishes, my first would have been for straight hair.
Every night, I used to do that thing that I suspect all little curly girls do, where when I got ready for bed, I would let my shirt hang down my back and imagine it was straight hair: beautiful, well-behaved, easy to manage.
And then when I was 13, I went on a weekend class trip, and a classmate introduced me to the concept of mousse. All of a sudden, my hair was free of its braids and instead of devolving into a giant puffball of frizz, it formed curls.
Of course, that wasn’t the happily-ever-after, riding-into-the-sunset moment. Teenage me was way too lazy to bother with doing anything that involved more effort than washing my hair once a week. I still braided it every day, though I did graduate from two braids to one, to look more “mature.” I’d use the mousse only rarely, for fancy occasions.
It wasn’t until I was well into my adulthood (or what passes for that), that I started seriously using curl products, and wearing my hair loose and curly. Sometimes I get a good curl day, and I know I look fantastic, and on those days I love my curls. And of course, sometimes I have a snarled rat’s nest. My routine is still evolving. As is my own acceptance of this crazy hair I was born with.
So anyway, yeah, that’s what this blog is. You’re welcome to come along.