My curls have always been the first thing people notice about me. My hair is my signifier that helps friends find me in a crowded room, or helps me stand out in a group photo. I won "best hair" in high school, because everyone feels like they have to vote for someone with curly hair. People know that it's hard to handle, but you never truly understand the struggle unless you're dealing with it every day.
These are the struggles that only curly-haired girls understand:
We never have a brush when friends ask to borrow one, because it's impossible to brush our hair.
If we want to switch up our look, straightening can take up to two hours.
And after all that work, it can still end up looking poofy, or our curls will come back to haunt us.
We take compliments on our straightened hair as insults. Are you saying my natural hair is ugly?
People are jealous we can just "scrunch and go," but we never know if we are going to have a good or bad hair day until it's dry.
Every curly haired girl has suffered the wrath of a straight-haired hairdresser who just doesn't understand how curls work, and has ended up with a horrible hair cut.
We've also had poodle-like hairstyles done for us at prom for the same reason.
Here is a picture of me, unfortunately looking like a poodle at prom. Note: I did not ask for this hairstyle.
We wish we could "curl" our hair to be loose, but we'll be stuck with ringlets no matter what.
Basically any kind of weather is our worst nightmare, so we might as well just stay inside if we want to have a good hair day.
We are always running out of conditioner, but if we open our closets, it's pretty likely we will find about 50 un-used shampoo bottles.
We lose way too many strands in the shower. (Sorry, roomies.)
We have a lot of temptation to tame our natural hair. Taylor Swift used to be our curly-haired role model, but now she's ditched the curls for straight strands. I still haven't recovered and have yet to find a new curly-haired star to emulate.
Even though there are some downsides to living with curls, it's pretty cool to have a hairstyle that's hard for others to attain, so embrace the curls you were born with!
