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Sparkle (2)
I straighten my hair. Daily. To do this, I have to allow for more time to get ready. I spend more money on product than I do when I let my natural curls do their thing. I actually feel kind of sad some mornings when my curls disappear with the wave of my magic straightening iron. But I do it anyway.
My straightening routine is only saved by the fact that I have an angled bob with the longest portion of my hair barely grazing my chin. It's still lengthier than just letting my curls air dry, spritzing some spray and going.
- I start in the shower with a good smoothing/straightening shampoo. I've used everything from Pantene's Medium-Thick line to Oscar Blandi Jasmine smoothing shampoo ($$). I almost always follow the shampoo with the matching brand conditioner, unless I have leftover of the previous brand.
- I towel dry my hair and wrap it up to absorb as much moisture as possible while I get dressed. Then I wave buh-bye to my curls, run a brush through my hair, put a dollop of whatever straightening cream I'm using through my hair -- currently Pantene's newest offering -- and start the drying process.
- My blow dryer is kind of insane, so even doing my hair in sections takes less than five minutes. I use a big round brush sometimes, but mostly my fingers to pull my hair down straight.
- After it's dry, I pull up the middle section of my hair and secure it with bobby pins in a funny faux-hawk kind of way. I then use my straightening iron -- this one from Remington -- and straighten the sides and back before attempting the top. I let down the faux-hawk when I'm pleased with the sides and back and attempt to tame the most visible parts of my hair.
- I usually finish off with a bit of smoothing serum for those pesky frizzies and a quick spray of anti-humidity hairspray to keep the back looking stacked and cute.
From stepping out of the shower to walking out of the bathroom with finished hair, I don't spend more than twenty minutes. It's still longer than it takes me otherwise.
It’s not that I hate my curls. I don’t. In fact, in the summer, I usually just let them have their wild way. If I don’t and I dare to step outside into the humidity, they just spring up anyway. I am aware that they are beautiful. I enjoy the compliments I get. But... and there’s always a but...
My curls were a source of supreme embarrassment for me as a child and pre-teen. My mother has stick straight hair. Straighter than straight. She didn’t know what to do with my very thick, semi-curly, mostly-wavy hair. So she had it permed to help the curls have more definition. Perms were all the rage in the 80’s and 90’s. I remember sitting in a salon chair at age eight or nine, realizing that the smell was awful, but hoping that the end result would be something better than what was currently on my head.
The end result? My mom still didn’t know how to teach me to do my newly permed hair. So she brushed my perm. To say that I was teased is putting it mildly. I was in tears at least once a week for two or three years because of a hair-related comment. I began to hate my hair -- gorgeous, thick, wonderful hair. Poorly styled, yes, but really it was healthy and wonderful. And I hated it.
During my senior year of high school, I finally learned how to do my curls. I went through a nothing-but-curls phase for quite some time, well into college. As I got older, I wanted to get away from my youthful long hair, and went for lengths that were more flattering to my face shape. They were shorter. It took me awhile to figure out how to make my curls work with shorter hair, but I figured it out.
And then I stopped wearing it curly in general.
It’s silly really. It was just a comment from a co-worker who happens to have very curly hair. She made a statement about my curls and how her curls were somehow better than mine. I know my co-worker didn’t mean her comment to come out in a nasty way or to drudge up old insecurities, but I stopped wearing curls
