Curly-Headed Cutie

The journey to embracing my natural hair

In middle and high school, when I attended my sister’s volleyball games, I always noticed how all the players had beautiful hair. Straight, silky, thick in ponytails. In that same hairstyle, my curly hair would look like a tumbleweed.

I am the only member of my family with curly hair (here my sister will point out that actually my mom has “curlicues” at the nape of her neck), so none of us knew how to work with it. When I was really young and my mom left early for work, my dad would brush my hair into a ponytail that sat in the middle of my head (like plop in the middle, which in itself was a crime). I think back on that and laugh because everyone with curly hair knows not to brush it when it’s dry or else it’ll be a cloud of frizz. My teacher probably felt so bad for me, marching into first grade friendless, anxious as hell, looking like that Vine of the girl with tiny glasses dancing to the first few chords of “Take on Me.”

For most of my life, I wore my hair curly. I never used a straightening iron out of laziness, so if I didn’t get a treatment, I’d be stuck with curls everyday. In college and that first year post-grad, I got Keratins for the same reason: my curly hair was hard to manage, and I never got up early enough to put actual care into my morning routine so I was stuck with however it looked when I woke up that morning. Also, I thought it made me look younger, juvenile.

Growing up, there weren’t a lot of beautiful women with curly hair on my screen. For the most part, curly hair was the “before” in a makeover montage, along with glasses and braces. As a young girl, you internalize that, you think that the hair stylists who work for these shows know something that you don’t.

We know that straight hair beauty standards are rooted in racism, Euro-centric traits praised at the expense of everyone else. Still, it’s what I saw all around me, and I wanted so badly to look in the mirror in the morning and be pleased with who looked back at me.

What got me started on this journey back to my roots (hair pun) was my Silver Springs pilates class. I’ve talked about this studio before—how it’s situated on Melrose Avenue across from Great White, The Butcher’s Daughter, and, more randomly, the West Hollywood Public Library. It’s always packed with thin women in aesthetic athleisure, their ponytails casual yet perfect.

One evening, in the lapse of time between grabbing my weights and the teacher starting class, I looked around at all these beautiful women and realized I was trying to be pretty like them. But I didn’t look anything like them, so the objective was moot. And as stupid and cliche as this sounds, I realized I had to figure out how to be pretty like me. I booked a haircut with a DevaCurl specialist, who told me that my ends were still steeped in Keratin, so she had to cut it a different way than she would a normal head of curls. I told her to have at it.

In a perfect story, I’d come out of that appointment feeling beautiful and authentic and tell you that I never looked back. But this haircutter gave me layers, so no, my hair actually looked kind of fugly. It’s been six months since then and I’ve been growing my hair out so that soon I can get it cut evenly (probably by a different specialist, no offense girl). Several mornings I’ve woken up and wondered if I should just book another Keratin, but I’ve stayed adamant in my mission to at least give my curls a fair shot. And some days, I like the way they look. When I wet them and apply curl cream and scrunch them up with a cotton t-shirt, I’m like yes, that’s who I am! That’s what I’m meant to look like!

I watched a lot of Sex and the City during this time, and Carrie’s hair definitely gave me more confidence. I have several friends who just happened to start this journey at the same time as me, and we share tips and compliments. In December, I cut out this janky picture of a woman with super curly hair and pasted it to the top of my 2025 vision board. I’ve made a whole Pinterest folder dedicated to curly hairstyles I like. As you can see, I’m trying.

And I’m hopeful that in time, I’ll like the way I look with my natural hair more than with the waviness that comes from the Keratin. It’s empowering, the small act of choosing to look like yourself.