Hair-Raising Curls: Getting Back to My Roots

Mossy_Trees

Bed head with a side of plastered hair “swooshes” ambush me any time I leave the house in rain or humid weather. So straightening my hair in Hawaii was an effort as useless as understanding the user’s manual for a hardwired smoke detector installed in a previously owned house. The alarm keeps going off (your hair frizzes and poofs), and you just can’t straighten it out.

The solution: yank everything from the wall and start over. No. I didn’t yank my hair out. I just bought a leave-in “curl” conditioner and a curling iron at the drugstore and hoped for the best—and everything turned out okay.

Back in the 80s, I’d go to hair salons and explain to very skilled and artistic hairstylists that my curls just wouldn’t behave, and they prescribed the following remedies:

–a perm (no!)

–cutting the hair into multiple layers and spiking it with gel (okay for the 80s and big hair—but not so much for rain or wind)

I would long for the “right” types of curls and the lucky girls who looked good with hair of “one length.” For years, hairstylists convinced me I could ONLY have layered hair that needed constant styling and spritzes with hairsprays and gels.

And then, something happened: I got lazy and rebellious my senior year of high school. I refused to go to the hair salon: I was too tired, too full from eating bags of Cool Ranch Doritos, too sore from dancing to Duran Duran all night, etc.

And you know what happened? My layers grew out, and when I went back to my hairstylist, she said, “Let’s just make it all one layer.” And I never looked back.

Then, in the 2000s, I learned to straighten my hair with a flat iron—and all was right with the world, except for the rain, but I kept after it because I had a supervisor at work at the time who noticed I was straightening my hair and praised me for looking “so professional.”

But just a few weeks ago, Hawaii happened, and all “professionalism” went out the window—and my curls came back. Sure, there’s some very “unprofessional” frizz, but the leave-in conditioner is much healthier for my hair—and I feel—I don’t know—what’s the word? Fun? Yeah. It’s super fun to have curls.

Cecilia_and_Nate_Hawaii_Royal_Hawaiian

The routine is pretty simple.

I just wash my hair, work the leave-in conditioner into the scalp and ends, twist a few tendrils around my fingers here and there—and let it all dry for a few hours. If I’m in a rush, I’ll let it dry most of the way naturally and then use a diffuser attachment on the hairdryer. The resulting curls look pretty good, but I like to add some definition with a few extra curls from the curling iron—and that’s it.

I’ve not tried just standing in the rain and seeing what will happen to the curls when they get wet, then dry in tornado-force winds, and then smooshed into a pillow after a very exhausting day. However, I’m hoping the whole mop takes shape if I just whip my head around a few times, throw some hairspray in the mix, and run with wild abandon through the revolving door of the first hotel bar I see—wearing a brazen flower-print dress, bright chunky jewelry–and embracing my inner Mrs. Roper.

 Your Turn: What’s the worst or best hairstyle you’ve ever had?

Published by ckennedy

Author of the DIY blog: Fixin' Leaks and Leeks. Paper/Rock Writing Consultation, Sole Proprietor.

34 thoughts on “Hair-Raising Curls: Getting Back to My Roots”

  1. I’ll have to go with an ’80s perm that was so bad another stylist had to cut most of it off. Then there was the time I allowed someone to bully me into letting her cut my hair with a razor. I looked like someone about to be burned at the stake.

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  3. The curls really work for you! You look great!

    As for the worst hair style… maybe the attempt at straightening it out that ended up burning my scalp and making almost half of my hair fall off. Do not recommend.

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      1. Oh, it just occurred to me! I’d suggest using products with coconut oil! They really help keeping my curls under relative control – because of course, curls can never be really under control, can they? 🙂

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  4. My hair is poker straight. I did one experiment with big hair perming (truly awful results) and thereafter just allowed it to be what it is. It’s so funny; I always wanted curls like yours when I was a teenager – a classic case of wanting what I didn’t have. I think your hair really looks great, and phooey on supervisors commenting on how “professional” you look because you straightened it.

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  5. I recall the days of having a full head of hair. Bed hair is real and with thick stiff Chinese hair, it was time wasting to correct in the mornings.
    A bald head is so much easier. No more bed hair.

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  14. This is great. Love your way with words. I didn’t think my hair was too bad until I sent a picture of myself with a semi-famous person to my sister. She said, “Cut your hair. It looks awful!” So I asked my bff her opinion. She hemmed and hawed to the point I asked if one of her children had again stolen her phone. (Seriously. She was just responding with emoji faces.) Finally she admitted I should cut off the dead parts. (I had dead parts?! And it was obvious to others?) and used a product to control the frizz. I handed my husband scissors. A “product” is beyond me. Maybe I should try this leave-in conditioner you mention.

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