Curly Girly

I've spent a lifetime, well hopefully just half a lifetime, disliking my hair!  It was too puffy, too curly, too frizzy, too anything but straight.   So I have spent most of my life wearing my hair up (the easiest way to straighten it and the least effort!)  I was born with curly hair and a lot of it!  Every hair dresser since I can remember has said "You have a LOT of hair!"  

I actually even went through a stage where I permed my hair.  Usually my friend Shannon did it for me but I remember once going to a salon and having the hairdresser say "Wow!  You're hair really took to the curl!"  I looked in the mirror and realized that my shoulder length hair looked like Annie's.    Even though perms were the thing to do in the 80's I already had curly hair.  I didn't need a perm on top of it!  Every major life event I would try having my hair "done".   For sophomore prom it was so curly it looked terrible.  I had the hairdresser wash it out before I left so I could leave with it wet and had a chance for it to dry before my date arrived at my house for pictures.   Junior prom I don't think I bothered.   Just made those bangs stand up as high as possible and probably had a perm as well!  Egads!  

When I was in college I never understood the whole "let's get ready to go out" theory that my friends subscribed to with showering and doing makeup and getting dressed all over again.  Wasn't the effort of "getting ready" once a day enough?!   Even for my wedding I tried to straighten my hair.  It was at the end of August at the height of New England humidity.   By the time my hairdresser had done my hair, my flower girl's hair and my maid of honor's hair my hair was already getting frizzy.   "Add some curls" I said.  Otherwise I'm just going to look frizzy in all my wedding pictures.  

When I had Kelsey I fell in love with her ringlet curls.   I recognized how absolutely beautiful her curly hair was but still straightened mine.  The only time my hair is ever fully down is when I've been to the hairdresser's and she's blown it out for me or at the end of the day and in the morning when I have "PJ" hair.   My friends always know when I've been to the hairdressers if my hair is down.  

Out to birthday sushi with my sister-in-law, brother, Rod and I.   Hairdresser day.

Lindsay's hair was straighter but she still had her curly days especially when she was little.  She now has the hair I always wanted.  Stick straight and so smooth and never frizzy.  I play with her hair constantly.  It feels like silk.  It is beautiful.  But it is her hair, not mine.  She has the Stephanie and Laurie hair I've always wanted!  She often wants her hair curled for special concerts and occasions.  By the time we get to school for the event it is stick straight.  We try! She loves her straight hair!

Haley's hair is somewhere in the middle.  But it was curly just like mine when she was little.  I'm sure it will get curlier and curlier as she gets older like mine has.   She straightens it somedays but mostly wears it curly.  

Kelsey wears her hair curly somedays and straight others.   It has taken me watching my girl's embrace their own hair for me to come to love my own.   My hair is impossibly easy to do now that I have stopped fighting it!  I comb it out in the shower and put coconut oil on my ends.  I add either a curl cream or a straightening balm and comb it through my hair.  Either way it is curly! Then I throw a clip in it to let it dry.  No blowdryers, no brushing, just air drying.   If I'm going to go out with dry hair I just have to plan in advance because it takes a while for ALL this hair to dry.  

If you have curly hair don't wait as long as me to embrace it! (And you know who you are!!!!!)  Love the hair you are given, straight or curly or wavy, long or short, thick or thin.  Find a hairdresser who understands your hair, ask friends and even strangers what products they use if you like their hair.   Embrace the hair you have been given.   It took me way too many year, far too many tears, and numerous botched visits to the hairdressers, and lame attempts at fancy hairdos for special events for me to learn.  Learn from my mistakes!  At first your friends and other people will notice and comment every time you wear it down or curly or differently but after a while no one will notice and it will give you the freedom to do whatever you want with your hair depending on your mood!   

I loved this Dove campaign when it came out for my curly girls.  But forgot to embrace the message for myself!  

Maybe I'm just lazy now or finally coming into my own
but it's so much easier to embrace the hair you are born with!