From hating my curls to loving them, here's my journey!
MY CURLY HAIR JOURNEY
It all began at the ripe age of 12, where the insecurity seeped in and the other kids began to truly notice that my hair was different. At first, it was nicknames like ‘Maggi’, and ‘Jhadu’ which would come and go, friends made jokes and strangers would stop and stare and point.
By the time I was 15, I hated my hair and consistently found ways to keep them flat, NO VOLUME was my go-to thought, I wanted pin straight hair like my other friends, I wanted to finally be ‘pretty’.
So I went to a salon like most of us do, the guy recommended smoothening and I said do it, I begged my mom and finally had what I wanted. As you can see, I seem more confident, I might even seem happier, but deep down I was just afraid about what I would do when my hair would begin to grow back curly, because that part was irreversible for me, what would I do then?
Time passed, my hair grew back slowly and those days felt like torture. I treated
them horribly, from blow dries every weekend to not washing my hair for 6 days in order to keep the curls from reappearing.
Let’s fast forward to 2017, this is when everything truly changed when I left for college, 2.5 years after getting my hair smoothened. I was in Canada now, this is how my hair looked for the first entire semester of college, and I was using ‘curly hair products’ from the drugstore, so naturally they were FULL of sulphates, silicones, parabens, and mineral oils.
Now, at this point I was in a city where many women had embraced their natural curls and had access to great curly hair brands, so I noticed curly hair looking beautiful on other girls. I kept asking myself ‘what are they doing that I’m doing wrong?’ Clearly they knew about something that nobody told me my whole life.
I watched a few YouTube videos about curly hair, and BOOM, a whole new world of haircare existed that we as women with textured hair are hidden from. Why? Because it’s profitable for the haircare industry to ask you to change yourself, to make you buy that straightener and serum that will never make you happy, so you’ll buy it over and over and nothing changes.
For reference, this was the exact video I watched and cried my eyes out! It led to me taking a plunge and doing more research on curly hair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pwzh2JOFw4
So then, I began my curly girl journey, using CG friendly products. I very slowly learnt what styling products were (it took me over 6 months to realise I had to use them after EVERY wash, I figured I could skip them and my curls would look fine!? I was very wrong.)
This was my true transitioning phase, moving from straightening my curls to embracing them, here’s a few things I diligently did and then finally saw results:
- Found a complete Curly Girl routine and followed it for more than 6 months.
- Trimmed my hair every 3-5 months to make sure any damaged/lifeless curls were gone, leaving space for better hair to grow.
- Stimulated growth by massaging my scalp every night for 6-8 months.
- No more dry brushing, I began letting my curls air dry and find their own texture.
- Genuinely deep conditioned every weekend, did not skip this step for a whole year!
- Kept experimenting with styling products, eventually learning that my hair NEEDED them like my face needed cream or my teeth needed to be brushed, apply that rule to styling your hair.
- I completely gave up heat styling, it has been almost 3 years since my hair has seen any heat! (I still don’t diffuse my hair)
So, I learned to LOVE frizz, all the volume, the bounce my curls naturally have, and fully realised that straight hair is NOT the norm of beauty, and that it IS in our hands to change that.
We still have control over what is beautiful, and no one else can tell us otherwise.
Lastly, please be patient with your hair. After all the damage and lack of love, it’ll need months of care to bounce back and look the way you want it to, but don’t give up, I promise you it’s worth it!
