curls

it's the ol' struggle. you have straight hair, you want curly hair. you have curly hair, you long to have thin, straight, shiny, blows-in-the-wind, down to your butt strands. the hair of tv stars, movie stars. jennifer aniston hair.

i have thick curly hair. my mother's hair. i've written before about my mother's epic hair battles. i have those battles too. usually i wear my hair short, the shorter the better. but i am trying to grow it long. my goal is a ponytail. but my hair grows painfully slow. already a year since my last trim and my hair only just barely kisses my shoulders. the longer it gets the greater the battle.

if you do not have curly hair you do not understand the "science" that is curly hair. you cannot use a blowdryer. heaven forbid! to blow dry your hair is to turn your hair into a huge, frizzy fro. towel drying is definitely better, but don't you dare rub your hair dry. what then of your curls? you should simply pat and scrunch, pat and scrunch. and choose your products carefully. too much product, to hold the curl, will make your hair crunchy. it will give your hair the much dreaded "wet" look. but too little product=frizz. frizz is the ultimate enemy of curly hair. then there is the question of what to do with the pieces that don't curl as well as the rest. you see, some people have beautiful ringlets dispersed evenly across their noggins. but i dare say that most curly heads share my problem. that is, i've got some pieces that just don't like to curl. so you have massive curls and then a few pieces that just hang in rebellion. i've heard that rebellious teenagers are bad...well, try rebellious strands of hair!

not only do i have curly hair, but i have LOTS of hair. when most people complain about their thick hair i just have to roll my eyes. honey, you do not know what thick hair is! i do not wash my hair every day. in fact, i'm lucky if i wash it twice a week. one reason is that washing curly hair every day is not good for the locks. did you know that? science. and second of all, it takes me about 20 minutes to rinse all of the shampoo and conditioner out of my hair. what a waste of water!

one time i tried to grow dreads. brett helped me roll and tease. he even tied a sea-shell into one of his newly formed masterpieces. i lost that shell. for two weeks it was buried in my knotty hair and i could not find it. sometimes, when i am doing my hair in the morning, i come across a stranded bobby-pin. and i am always puzzled as to how it got there or WHEN it was put in there. and straightening my hair is out of the question. i tried that once. after two hours my arms were tired and i still had half a head of hair to go! i'm pretty sure it would take three of your ponytails to even come close to ONE of mine, it's that thick.

there are websites dedicated to people with curly hair. they are filled with styling tips, product ideas, and message boards brimming with woes from curly tops like myself. here is what one site suggests i do EVERY morning just to make my hair look presentable:

"Use a curl-enhancing mousse throughout wet hair so waves maintain their shape. Let hair air-dry, then section into 2-inch pieces. For each piece, curl loosely around one finger, then pin it to scalp. Set 15 minutes, then style with fingers."

i've tried this technique and it worked! but who has that kind of time every morning? i'm lucky if i even get a shower! and have you ever tried to air-dry thick curly hair? i wet my hair at 8am. it is now noon. my hair is still wet. and most likely it will still be damp at dinner time. do you know how tired i am of looking like a wet dog every day? and it's winter! wet hair is cold!

now my routine consists of wetting, patting dry with a towel (never rubbing), using a drier to half dry my hair (so it doesn't freeze and crack off when i got outside), scrunching, scrunching, scrunching, twirling the rebellious pieces around my finger, spritzing hairspray over whole head, and using bobbypins to tame the mane. if i didn't use those bobbypins my hair would most likely reach out and strangle you. i've got this routine down to about 8 minutes. not bad, but i can't wait for the day when this mass will just fit into a ponytail.

whether i like it or not my hair is a 'big' part of who i am. it has taken me a long time to embrace this part of me and to realize that i will never, ever have jennifer aniston hair. -SN

**neither will i have halle berry hair b/c as my hair stylist pointed out to me after asking her to cut my hair like halle's, "halle berry is black. she has black person's hair." right.