Ramen noodles with a side of boobs
*curly hair
When I was around 10 years old I bursted into tears in my mums bedroom complaining about how much I hated my hair. Telling her it was frizzy, big and messy. She told me that she very much understood how I felt and that when I was older I would eventually grow to like it or even love it, but she agreed to straighten it for a change. Having straight hair for the first time at ten years old, I remember feeling truly beautiful for the first time. That same age I was hitting puberty before most of my peers and had boobs developing rapidly, wearing training bras since the age of nine made me feel alienated from my prepubescent peers. I also had a monobrow as well as hair above my lip developing around the same time, a “friend” of mine once said she could “see it growing fast”on my face while lining up in class. That was bullshit. But let’s just say from the age of nine I became very self conscious of my appearance and envied my peers who had straight hair, flat chested and could participate in PE without a training bra. So looking in the mirror with straight hair for the first time, I felt small and beautiful. Just like how I wanted to be.
Being an “early bloomer”, you feel like a stranger in your own body. I didn’t get my period until I was 14, however I have been living in a woman’s body for as long as I can remember. With hair that has a personality of its own, that I believed had to be tame in order to be perceived as beautiful and desirable.
Growing up I have had many many haircuts, to try to shape and tame my hair to my liking. However many hairdressers don’t understand or know how to actually cut curly hair properly. For most of my teenage years my hair has looked very box like with frizzy bits going in different directions, many occasions I had liked how my hair had looked but not enough to convince myself that I was truly beautiful. Curly hair is more predominant for people of colour and non western cultures, meaning this type of hair does not meet western beauty standards. Being a white woman I don’t understand the struggles that women of colour face, however I know that there is not enough education on how to properly care for curly hair in general. Which creates this idea of curly hair to be perceived as not beautiful in mainstream media. It is the 21st century, this isn’t good enough.
Around late last year I got a haircut that I will genuinely say changed my life, for the first time I truly loved my hair. The person who cut my hair truly understood and listened to the struggles that comes with having curly hair and brought back my hair’s natural shape. However this haircut was very pricey. Which is a very common theme for curly haircuts , which is genuinely unfair. People born with hair that takes more patience and a bit longer to cut shouldn’t have to pay a ton more than people who happen to be born with less thick and straighter hair. No one gets to choose the hair they are born with, there needs to be more education on how to cut and look after curly hair for hairdressers as this can majorly impact individuals with curly hair’s self esteem.
Curly hair is special, it’s rare and unique. Who wouldn’t want to have it? Many people have said to me “you must hate it”, but why? because it isn’t deemed desirable? There are times where I have hated my hair. But why should that be the norm? Everyone who has curly hair will eventually accept it, love it and embrace it. It’s society that say’s we must hate it. fuck that. Curly hair is amazing and anyone who has it knows it.
Like seriously though, how does our hair just form ringlets like that??? how lucky we are to have such cool hair.