Owning My Curls Meant Owning Myself

I am sitting in front of the TV screen in my living room. I’m probably watching a show far too mature for my age, but as the youngest child, that was pretty much protocol in my family. I watched Friends long before Netflix got big. And I watched with commercial breaks every few minutes. My mom is sitting next to me as a Pantene commercial begins to play. A model with unimaginably silky straight brown hair appears on my screen. She strokes her hair, effortlessly brushing it with her fingers, not a knot in sight. The commercial’s narrator admires her hair and tells me that I can have the same silky straight hair if I use that shampoo and conditioner. I look down at my frizzy hair tied back in a ponytail and wonder: what would having straight hair be like? Would I be prettier? Would I feel prettier? Some premature thoughts for an 8-year-old, if you ask me. I looked over to my mom and asked her if it’s really possible to attain the model’s hair if I used that Pantene shampoo and conditioner. She told me the models on these commercials have blowouts and makeovers before they film the commercials, no product can naturally do that to your hair. I nodded, but still internalized the model’s straight hair on my screen and those wishful feelings that came along with it. I was 8 years old.

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The oaky smell of camp bunks fills the air in Wild Rose, Wisconsin. Shabbat is starting soon, which means the whole camp gathers for prayer services, Shabbat dinner, and singing. The pre-Shabbat preparation usually means dozens of girls cramped in steamy bathrooms clustered around the available outlets to plug in their blow dryers and straighteners, chaotically applying heat over and over to prevent the chance of frizz in the summer’s humidity. Preparing for Shabbat means having a blowout and straight hair. I am feeling a little left out as I patted my damp frizzy hair, so I asked my friends to straighten my hair when they were done with their preparations. You have a lot of hair, but I can try, they would say. I decided to just let it go and accept my fate of not having straight hair. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and moved on. I was 11 years old.

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Starting high school can be scary. New and older faces, longer days, lots of socializing. The impending need to feel pretty and presentable and wanted. There was no way I could straighten my hair every day, that would take hours. I started dabbling with different curl routines to make me feel presentable enough. I started letting them out of my ponytail. I brushed down my curls and applied mousse, mousse, and more mousse. At that rate, I was finishing a bottle of mousse a week. I’m sure my dad remembers the weekly trips to Walgreens to purchase, you guessed it, more mousse. My entire head was crunchy and filled with product, but my curls felt pretty and defined since they were completely masked in chemicals and stuck in one position. I cracked the code! I thought. My curls can be pretty! I just need a lifetime’s supply of mousse! I was 15 years old.

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After years of those weekly mousse purchases, I realized that lifestyle wasn’t sustainable for anyone’s bank account or my hair health. I chilled out with the mousse application, applying half as much as I used to. I changed my curl routine, and rather than brushing my curls down to prevent an ounce of frizz, I let them flow free, gaining volume, taking up more space, bouncing up and down and following my movement patterns. I noticed the beginning of a new mindset about my hair. “Is your hair natural?” “Do you get a perm?” “What product do you use?” “What’s your hair routine?” “Your hair is beautiful” people would comment– strangers on the streets, workers behind a counter, customers at the store I was working at, friends and family who had known me forever. I began to understand that my curls were unique. A shift had taken place. I was 18 years old.

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I started loving my curls. The way they fell on my face, the way their energy matched mine. Fun, lighthearted, easygoing, beautiful. I started viewing my curls as one of my defining features. A way to stand out from all the straight-haired heads around me. And at the same time in my life, I started gaining confidence in myself and owning my personality. I was confident in my ability to lead and own a room; make friends; share my voice and opinions. I was confident going out with friends and ditching the blowouts for my natural curls. I was confident in the blessing of having gorgeous curls that give me so much flexibility in how I wear my hair. Owning my curls paralleled the journey to gaining self-confidence and owning myself. I no longer questioned their beauty and whether or not they would allow me to fit in; I no longer questioned myself. And while sometimes, on the rare occasions that I do get a blowout, I think “having straight hair would be so much easier. Maybe I should get a hair treatment,” I remind myself of my blessing and the flexibility curly hair gives me. I remember that I wouldn’t be me without my curls. I wouldn’t have gotten to the confident place that I am in now. My curls and I are one in the same.