Sometimes I do my hair in twists and things, but I still think I look much more beautiful with straight hair. But I don’t know if the reason for that is because every guy has always told me that I look much better with straight hair, and because society itself pushes curly haired girls to think that way, like you said curly hair has never been considered “professional” I almost feel like most people think that curly haired people have to be these wild, unruly, frizzy new aged people who can’t get a “serious” job, and this upsets me.

But lately I’ve been feeling like a bit of a fake because even though I get furious when people, especially guys tell me my hair is better straight, the truth is I like it better like that myself. So why am I so angry?

When I was younger I had very long, very straight hair. I donated my hair for the first time in the fourth grade, after which is was shoulder-length. In the fifth grade I donated it again and had a bob for three years.

And then when seventh grade was over, I cut it all off. I remember this first foray into short hair as being very liberating, due to the no-work of it (although with that no work came unattractive hair-ness). Since then I have had countless hairstyles because I’m the sort of person who can’t stand to look the same all the time, I guess. I get a bit frustrated with people who have never had a different hairstyle, which I know is judgemental and mean, but really…
Like Anna said about her short hair, I’ve also been called a boy for mine countless times in my life (apparently boys do get bobs, or something, although I’ve never personally seen one). I had very short hair last year in school and also last July and I loved it a lot… but I felt like even in the most feminine clothes all anyone was thinking about was if I was a lesbian or not, which I think is a ridiculous hair-standard. Sometimes that makes me jealous of girls with long hair because I’ll say to myself, “I could wear that sort of outfit if I had longer hair” which is completely unfair of myself. But then I’ll see a woman on the street with short hair and feel a lot better about everything. (:

But I do love my hair, just the way it is. It’s thick enough that I can do most styles (growing it into a wedge at the moment) and it’s only gotten a little wavier over the years.

Colour is an interesting thing, too. Mine’s kind of mousy and boring, but I won’t dye it because I love the red-and-gold highlights I get when I spend time in the sun.

I’ve been putting off getting my hair cut for a while, because I have to find a new hairdresser again. Every time I get one I like, they move to Queensland (I’m in Sydney. It’s a little far to go for decent hair). The two before last butchered my fringe, and the last one yelled at me for letting my ‘colour treatment’ grow out, and wouldn’t believe me when I told her the blonde in the ends was natural.

It wouldn’t be hair if it didn’t cause trouble, right?

COLORS

My skin is kind of sort of brownish
Pinkish yellowish white.
My eyes are grayish blueish green,
But I’m told they look orange in the night.
My hair is reddish blondish brown,
But it’s silver when it’s wet.
And all the colors I am inside
Have not been invented yet.

-Shel Silverstein

The second is that when I was a little girl my mom once told me that I had “lion-colored” hair. (Which I do. Or did, rather) so my favorite hair on myself is sort of shaggy-curly, because when it’s curly I think of myself as having a lion’s mane. The which is, really, pretty frakking cool; even if I don’t think it’s Pretty Onna Stick. So never underestimate the power of an imaginitive (kindly-meant) word in the ear of a small child.

But I was mad for the the Andrew Lang fairy books as a girl, and also for Tolkien’s LORD OF THE RINGS. The ideal of beauty there was long straight black hair, or as the princesses in the fairy books would have it “as black and shining as a raven’s wing.” And that stuck, too.

Go figure.

My point of all this is that society has a lot of instinctive prejudices against certain haircuts/styles, and they definitely do affect how they view a person. So it’s not just you thinking the world of hair is insane. It really is.

So yes, learning to care for your hair properly, and learning what cuts suit in instead of trying to make it fit things it does not, all this helps.

Oh, and as someone who used to draw a comic, straight hair does have the advantage of being easily captured with simple lines. Curly hair, not so much. It’s far too chaotic (in the best sense, perhaps) for that.

Have you all heard of the “pencil test”? I learned about it as a child and it was, apparently, used in apartheid South Africa. If a pencil was stuck in your hair and it fell out, you could be counted as white (or coloured, if you were darker skinned). If it didn’t fall through, if the pencil simply stayed right in your hair, well, you were coloured or black. As a youngster, I was obsessed with learning about the various tests governments, leagues and clubs had through out history to determine someone’s background based on their hair. Interesting hobby, kid!

So for me, taking care of my natural hair is part a matter of respecting my history, as much as it is part of trying to look nice.

Thanks for the post, Justine.

I’ll never forget the time I was at the mall and this woman stopped me and said, “I love your hair!” I was flattered, of course… and then she brought out the straightener she was trying to sell.

When I straighten my hair–which takes a LONG time–I feel like I look completely different, or have an edge that I normally don’t have. I don’t know if people treat me any differently, but I feel like they should! I feel more fashionable, and maybe more outgoing.

And this from someone who loves her curly hair.

As for hair in general, some people notice it way more than others. I certainly notice it but mostly I”ll think, “I like that style!” and then get frustrated when it doesn’t work on my hair. But I definitely don’t hate my hair, I just get frustrated sometimes when I’m figuring out what styles work on mine, and when one does, I get really happy about it. (I love doing hair, so it’s a big deal to me.)

As for texture, my hairs are superfine, but densely packed, so you could say my hair is thick. If I don’t do anything to it but brush it, some of it waves, some of it lies flat and some of it encircles my head like a halo. Occasionally, when it’s particularly humid out, it curls. Normally, I keep it in a ponytail, but I just cut the last of the dye out of it, so it’s kind of short, and follows my jawline. Now I bobby pin back the front part and let the rest of it do it’s thing.

I do love my hair, but sometimes I wish it would settle on whether it wants to be curly or straight.

But it IS hard. Getting less so, because curls are coming back in, but when I went curly at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, it quickly became clear that while everyone’s first question was “wow – is that natural?” their second was, “Have you ever straightened it? NEVER? OMG can I straighten it for you? It would be so pretty!”

Now this is my hair: http://lh5.ggpht.com/_mlQDks2l70A/Sx7nV7yTAtI/AAAAAAAAAK8/KMQjl6CWVBM/s640/2009-12-08-23.59.28.jpg And although it is frizzy and takes a lot of time to fix, I like it! I still wish I had straight hair, but not for the look of it–just for being able to brush my hair and say, well! That looks good! I’m done! I’m off to shower right now and with the hair, I won’t be ready for at least an hour. Without putting on makeup or any thing like that.

Too much trouble, in my opinion.

Funny enough, I did a blog post on this once. My mother brushed my hair my entire childhood, not because she had anything against curly hair, but because she grew up with straight hair and she didn’t know any better. After a few years of constant morning crying, she just cut it all off. I had short hair until college.

Now I know how to care for it. I wash it twice a week, throw some mousse and leave-in conditioner in and DON’T TOUCH IT. It usually looks fine and if it kicks up a fuss, well a curly ponytail is cute too.

I fell in love with it once I learned how to work with it instead of against it (how’s that for a good lesson?) Still do; it’s work, but it’s worth it. But I have absolutely felt the frustration of people responding differently to me when I’ve had blowouts — it stunned me the first time I felt it, I was just completely unprepared for how palpable the difference was. Even more frustrating? Telling people afterward that I was taken more seriously when my hair was straight, and being told that I was imagining things. (I should have made that point while my hair was still straight one time, just to see if people believed me then. Interesting experiment, that.)

And you know who has my perfect haircut – ie., the picture I used to take to the salon before I found my fabulous hairdresser who I lovelovelove?

Howard Stern. Think what you will, the man knows how to rock his curls.

To be honest, African-Americans (or Canadians or wherever they’re from) think that straight hair is the right hair. Many are born with this mass of frizz and curls, and as kids we desperately want to look like those celebrities we see on TV, with long shiny straight hair, free of frizz.

And I definitely felt this way too. I wanted to have hair like people of white race, asians, etc. When I was in middle school, I got a perm (and a perm in the African-American community doesn’t chemically curl your hair- it straightens it). The perm made the hair less of a jungle and I could handle it much easier than usual. It also gave me the hair that is categorized as ‘good hair’. I was happy with it, I really was.

I only came to realize when I started highschool that I didn’t need to destroy my natural hair with chemicals and heat, so I let it go back to it’s natural state.

You should definitely watch one of the Tyra Banks show episode all on the topic of hair and how it influences people one way or another. It was very insightful.

Thanks again for the wonderful post, Justine!

I learned how to instruct stylists to cut it and eventually found some products that helped keep it shiny and bouncy.

The only thing I get frustrated with is how people can’t seem to resist touching my hair. I’m used to it by now–they’ve been doing it for years, but it’s not good for curly hair! The oils in your hands make it frizzy, something that’s taken me years to manage.

Sometimes I miss my straight hair, but I’ve come to love my hair like it is, despite being made to feel unprofessional or messy when I wore it down during my retail-working days. Maybe that’s why I got my BA in English Literature & Creative Writing instead of something else. :p