One Curly-Girl... and her escape from the neverending BAD hair day!

I'm not kidding when I say I get asked ALL the time, "Is that your natural hair??" So let me just answer once and for all..... Believe me, if this wasn't my natural hair... I sure as heck wouldn't choose life with this mess I affectionately refer to as 'the natural disaster I survive daily'!

Because I also get asked an awful lot about how I deal with my curls, especially from straight-haired parents of curly-haired kiddoes who haven't a clue of how to deal, I thought I would share my own routine here in a post. So, in hopes that it might help even just one more curly-head disaster find their way into curly-head acceptance, here is the lowdown of my hair journey, from curl disaster to curl freedom.

For years, I fought my curls. I wanted hair that flowed straight and shone brilliantly. I wanted to just be able, for once, to pull a comb through my hair without tears of pain mixed with the tears of loss from both actually having lost the comb somewhere deep inside in the rat's nest and from the pain of the hair it had ripped out of my head before getting lost in the tangles I tried to pawn off as hair... Sometimes, if I prayed really hard and I looked long enough, I eventually was lucky enough to find remnants of the lost comb but generally, every comb that tried... disappeared..... forever.

My life was spent washing and conditioning my uncooperative locks with EVERY type of curly-hair specific product I could find, then I would try to dry my hair into the flowing wavy locks that populated every magazine cover I saw by pulling to stretch the annoyingly resistant curls. The end result was always a mess of frizz that was fighting to get back to the stubborn ringlets of it's true comfort. And so I lived mostly in ponytail hell... heavy, headache-causing and frizz-filled ponytail hell. I was always so embarrassed of my hair that I tried desperately to hide from cameras in painstaking effort of allowing NO pictures to be taken of myself, ever... I couldn't get myself out of every snap but at least the few in existance can help me show you all my struggle.

Rat's Nest circa 1992... That's me in the middle,
I think I had enough hair for all three of us!



1994 and still fighting the losing brush-battle...

It wasn't until I was in my twenties and was in hairdressing school, that I learned it was actually possible to straighten hair. None of my gradeschool or highschool friends had been cursed with hair like mine and it was something we just really didn't talk about. Sure, my friends would show me pictures and say things like, "you should try this" or "you would look so good if you did your hair like this". Once when I was about fifteen, before going to a teen dance club, a friend teased my hair and was amazed at how it stood up and stayed UP. Let me just tell you, the pain of trying to untangle the teasing the following morning (it was the 80's when rocker/mall hair was in) had me in tears... not only because it hurt physically but also because a lot of it had to be cut out and short hair is simply NOT a friend to this curly-girl. I survived the short cut even though growing it out was humiliating and seemed to take FOREVERRR and I decided no one would ever touch my hair again. Even now I refuse to let anyone try to 'style' my hair and I don't care what anyone else thinks of it. I still trim my own hair as a result of that teenage trauma and I likely always will despite the fact that it is not exactly an easy feat.

Anyhow, once I had learned about hair-straightening in hairdressing school I eagerly tortured myself with this method for a fairly long while. My teachers and a few of my classmates had, for a time, tried to talk me into chemically straightening my hair but I knew from experience how vengeful my hair could be and I held firm to my NO WAY decision. Everyone, even my family, kept telling me how great my hair looked when straight but the fact that it was a three hour long ordeal to do while crying from the pain of pulling it out with a brush as I blasted it with unbearably hot hairdryer air was just too much horribleness for me to be able keep it up. I think the only other person in my life who was as happy as I was to be done with straightening my hair was my Gramma who, the first time she had seen me with straight hair had said... "Heaven's to Betsy, Child! What in the world have you gone and done to your head!!?" and then followed that glowing review up with, "Don't you ever go and do anything so foolish again... landsakes, have some sense!" I had to agree with her, but for a slightly different reason; Gramma loved the look of my curls as they were but for me, looking better just wasn't worth the agony of getting there. Maybe everybody was right and straight hair did better suit me but like my beloved Doger, from China Beach, once said..."Looks aren't everything."

Painfully straight.

So, when the pain became just too much, I gave up the fight and I went back to ponytail hell.

Ponytail Hell

Okay, so I saaayyyy I don't care what anybody
thinks but when it really comes down to it, I actually DO care. We all care, don't we? We all want to fit in with the current fashions, to be one with our peers of beautiful and unfortunately, our world really does value good looks. My look isn't popular nor is it always comfortable. However, after years and years of trying to tame my hair, I finally stopped fighting and admitted defeat.





And then... this amazing thing called The Internet came along and with it, the introduction of youtube! I finally realized I wasn't alone in my curly hair fight. There were lots of others living with frizz-shame just like I was and tips and tricks were shared freely in hopes of helping come to terms with their own messy heads. I tried every tip I could find, I even tried making my own shampoo and flaxseed gel for awhile but my hair was still not a fan of anything I had found to try. But then, when years later I was still searching, I somehow stumbled upon a hair-plopping video... I know, I know... it sounds totally gross! Because it sounds gross some people refer to it as plunking instead but I like to call it plopping; it makes me giggle because it's just a funny sounding word that can be said with tons of hilarious inflections

Not long after I had started plopping my hair, my aunt actually found the shampoo/conditioner set that wold change my world and bought it as a gift for me. That gift has saved my hair from being shaved to cadet military-style length in my almost-having-done-me-in frustration. This shampoo set has been my hair savior... I kid you not! My aunt bought the set from the salon she goes to and I now buy it from a local beauty supply shop. Don't make the mistake of wasting time or money buying the same name set sold in drugstores; they are NOT the same formula. Yes, the bottles are a might pricey but trust me they are well worth the cost and they last a really, really long time! Seriously!! I have a LOT of hair and I only use two pumps each of shampoo and conditioner with every wash. I try to only wash my hair every third day to keep it healthy so these big bottles really do go a long way for me. I have also learned that condition-combing is the ONLY time my hair ever needs to see a comb. I keep a hanging comb in the shower to comb the conditioner through and that is IT for combing these curls of mine!

Not kidding... a LOT of hair!

Now... what I am about to share with you is the hair routine that has changed my life and eased my pain! I think I was probably thirteen when I started to really care about my horrible hair so, that means it took me about twenty-seven years of trying and failing until I finally mastered the art of giving in. The past two years have been Heavenly-non-stylin' and I see nothing but the same for years to come!

So, here they are... my tried and trusted steps to Curly Head Freedom:

1) STOP! Stop listening to outside opinions on how your hair should look. Stop wasting hours that add up to days and months and years of pain in trying to conform to popular demand. Stop fighting the true YOU!

2)Wash with a low-poo or no-poo shampoo and follow with a light coating of conditioner. I try to wash my hair no more often than every third day which has helped immensely in keeping my curls from drying out and frizzing. Remember to use as little product as you possibly can... your hair will thank you!!!

This is my product choice of perfection.

3) Wrap still soaked hair in a microfiber towel. DO NOT SHAKE the excess water from your hair after rinsing... gently squeeze most of the water out and lightly and without disturbing in a microfiber wrap for a minute while preparing whatever gel concoction works best on your hair.

My preferred gel/cream mixture ratio

4) Remove microfiber wrap and let curls fall as they wish.

5) Gently pat styling product onto still soaking wet hair and either scrunch through or squeeze through firmly to distribute through every strand completely; I prefer to squeeze it through (as firmly as I possibly can). Because my curls are so ringletty on their own, I don't comb or scrunch the product through but if you want to enhance your curls even more, go ahead and scrunch away.

6) Time to plop! This is the link to my video version of my full hair routine.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=w04SFVLRH

The middle section shows exactly what I do to securely wrap my freshly plopped curls and leave myself looking like this for a half hour...

Plopped with a bow for good fortune...

Now, some people like to do this at nighttime and actually sleep with their hair plopped; Itried it once... it was bad..... really bad....... For my curls, thirty minutes seems to be my perfect plop time. It really just depends on your individual curl patterns and how they react to the plopping. Try a few experimental times on days you don't have to go anywhere and you will quickly find your own perfect time just by how your hair reacts. Trust me, your hair won't hold back in letting you know. During plop time I just move on with my morning routine. I usually get breakfast for my two Greyhounds and then breakfast for myself... before I know it, it's time for the finishing steps.




7) Carefully remove plop wrap and let curls fall naturally as they wish. My curls always fall over my face so because I like to be able to see I use tiny clips to pin a couple eye-blocking curls back from blocking my vision.

8) Time to dry. If I have enough time, I just let my curls air-dry and because the T-shirt absorbes so much of the moisture from my hair I am good to go after about and hour and a half of air-dry time... sounds like a long time, I know, but before I discovered plopping, it took at least six hours or even longer for my hair to fully dry without a hair dryer. If I'm heading out early, I dry my hair gently with a diffuser on the lowest setting (NO MANIPULATING) and it only takes ten to fifteen minutes to fully dry after the plopping has done it's job of moisture-taking. Before plopping, it used to take forty-five minutes to dry my hair with a dryer... a whole half hour saved as well as being saved the constant damage of extra dry time. Once my hair is fully dry, I remove the holding clips and I am done and good to go!


My hair starting to adjust to the new routine...
this may actually have been one of my first reprieves
from ponytail hell! 



Peace made and the curly life is good!