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She offered practical advice: “What I advise for people when they are growing out their keratin is that you might have to do a lot of half-up, half-down styles. Twisting and pinning the front, so you’re not seeing that contrast as much. You’re mostly just seeing that newer, curly hair underneath, and you clip the top layers half up.” In other words, elaborate hair origami was now my only option.
Eventually, after enough regrowth had happened, I started getting periodic curly cuts to shape my hair. Two local curl experts helped along this journey: Susan Ayad at Curl Spectrum and Alexandra Lugo at Filament Salon who both dry-cut my hair, carefully trimming off the frayed ends and cultivating the curls coming in.
As my natural curls finally began to take over, I found myself reflecting on what straight hair had meant to me all those years. In my twenties, straight hair had represented professionalism, polish, and control. It was easier to manage, less affected by weather, and more aligned with conventional beauty standards. Straight hair was safe. It didn’t make statements or take up so much space the way big, wild curls do. Voss had an insightful observation about the psychological aspect of curly hair: “Nine times out of ten, a straight-haired client is a million times easier to have a consultation with because they don’t have hair traumas,” she told me. Of course, as a white woman with Type 3 curly hair I have a vastly different experience than a Black or brown woman with Type 4 hair, who is far more likely to experience outward discrimination and societal judgements. But still, my preconceived notions about what curly hair signified were hard to shake.
For me, perhaps most tellingly, my straightening ritual had become a form of security. It was something I could control in a world where so much felt uncontrollable. There was comfort in the predictability: I knew exactly how my hair would look after a treatment, exactly how it would behave, unlike my children, career, or the stock market.
It’s sort of no surprise that my hair rebellion (resurrection?) came at midlife, a time when many aspects of my identity are already in flux. My body has changed—and is changing, like it’s being slowly replaced by a similar but slightly less cooperative version. My role as a mother is evolving as my children grow more and more independent, no longer requiring me to cut their food but instead requiring me to Venmo them money at random hours. Amid all this transition, reclaiming my natural hair texture feels like part of a larger reckoning.
