In her 2016 song ‘Don’t Touch My Hair’, Solange famously sang: “You know this hair is my shit. Rode the ride, I gave it time.” And sis, I could not relate more.
Life as a curly haired girl involves more care and maintenance than your growing collection of indoor plants. With all the time and effort that goes into the up keep of this mane, I beg of you: DON’T TOUCH IT.
Every now and then the internet offers the world a touch of positivity, and the curly hair revolution has been one of those moments for me. Like many other curly haired girls, I grew up hating my hair. It’s big, it’s frizzy and it has brought me my fair share of tears throughout the years. To this day, I’m still dealing with the childhood trauma of ‘hair brushing’ time.
But now, life as a curly haired girl has done a complete 180 and it appears it’s our time to shine. From the empowering ‘Natural Hair’ movement online, to ‘CurlFest’, the curly haired festival, curly headed peeps are being encouraged to put away their GHD’s and celebrate their 3a’s to 4b’s.
Although this new-found positivity has been a great ego boost, and the compliments are still welcome, must they continue to come with all the touching?
Every week I find myself enduring a series of laborious tasks to maintain the perfectly rounded, irresistible little curls that people can’t help but destroy every time they rake their fingers through my hair. Not only are they creating frizz, they’re ruining hours of effort that has gone on behind the scenes to create this perfectly bouncing fro.
The process begins with months of research, trying to find brands that produce decent curly hair products. Then you enter the trial and error period. Not only do you have to find a product that is suited to your type of curl, you must also ensure it doesn’t make your curls too hard or create build up on your scalp.
You suffer through hours of YouTube tutorials in an attempt to master the perfect diffusing technique – once you’ve figured out what a diffuser is. And then as every curly hair tutorial ever would say: “scrunch, scrunch, scrunch!”
Sunday plans are cancelled to deep condition and wide tooth comb, to prepare your hair for the elements of the upcoming week. And despite ordering a satin pillowcase online to reduce potential friction, you still wake on Monday morning with a ball of frizz replacing your once intact curls.
And don’t even get me started on hairdressers, most of whom don’t even know how to cut your type of hair, so you prepare to run just in case they offer to finish your cut with a blowout.
A lot of blood, sweat and broken hairbrushes go in to maintaining curly hair. So the next time you reach your hand out to spring a curl, or pet my hair like it’s cute little ‘doggo’, don’t.
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