  My name is Rose and my hair needs product. Okay, I do have long, naturally curly hair and always have had it -- except for three brief forays into rebellion. Its current length is (stretches longest curl) at my waistline. (ALa71: "You're the only person I know that still wears their hair the same way they did when they were five.
") I know it's not so cool for a 33-year-old woman to be walking around with her 4-year-old with their hair done identically, but allow me to explain. My daugher has absolutely glorious hair. She only had bangs cut twice (my sister in law the hairdresser wanted to kill me, because she said it would grow back "too thick," but she doesn't have bangs now and it's fine) and the back of her hair has never been cut.
It goes down to the hem of her shorts, and the curls are glossy and honey-highlighted. In fact, everywhere we go, people rave about her hair and P usually says something like, "Yes, I know it's beautiful! " "Where did you get that wonderful hair? " people ask her, and then they vaguely glance at me and whatever random ponytail and pile of hopeless midday frizz I have going on, despite my best efforts , thank you very much , and sort of half-heartedly smile and say, "Well, I guess you sort of have curly hair too.
" Yes . I sort of have curly hair too and the haircare industry's scions sort of have eight yachts each just because of li'l ol' me. I have a texture problem and I'm trying to fill the void with various frizz serums. Okay? Okay? You don't have to get mean about it. Those kinds of "yesterday's breakfast" interchanges remind me, by the way, of one of my Disney stepmother's "compliments" during my pregnancy. DISNEY: I can tell, you're carrying a girl. ME: Is that so? DISNEY: Yep, it is. ME: Okay, why? DISNEY: Because they steal all your beauty away from you. Thanks, Mommie Dearest. Clearly S's genes had something to do with P's gloriousness.
S's hair is as straight as a poker and fine, and I thought, good God -- if P gets straight hair I'll be SOL, because you don't really learn to "do" curly hair. It does you. So you have no styling skills whatsoever. Or at least I don't. Most curlyheads I know who do, have them because they were trying to defy their curls all these years. In my daughter's case, I pictured a poor straight-haired child with a perpetual Dorothy Hamill bowl cut because her hapless mother was unable to use a blow dryer.
But the thing about curly hair that people may not know is that it is actually a big barometer right on your head. The hotter and more sticky it gets, the more hair you have. That's why I always do P's and my hair the same. If it's dry and cool, it looks really quite good -- except in the winter, when it's so dry that you have to put about two gallons of conditioner on it every shower to keep it looking reasonable.
Let's explore some notions about curly hair and hair in general. 1. People pay to get those kinds of curls. That may be so, but the kind of curls they get are much nicer than the ones I have. Straight hair has an innate silkiness to it that holds the curl better than actual curly hair, from what I've observed.
2. Curly hair is wash-and-go. It's true that you can wash it and let it air dry without applying a mass of heat appliances to it. In fact, I tried to do that last winter to look more polished (Internal critic: "it's not seemly to be walking around in a ponytail, would you do your hair, for God's sake") -- and it actually fried my hair and made it look worse. As an alternative, I often walk around with a soaking-wet head in all seasons and it dries into curls.
However, the amount of goo required to actually produce curls rather than something looking like a woodland creature that stumbled into a transformer is truly astounding. 3. Just do 101 beauty strokes with a brush every night. You can't actually BRUSH curly hair if it's dry unless you want it to look like a brillo pad after a rigorous use. You brush it IN the shower, WITH conditioner in it. Gently. 4. Doesn't the gel bottle say a dime-size portion?
Yeah, if you have a buzz cut. I fill both my palms with gel and then smooth it through. And sometimes it's too humid for even that. 5. Why did you cut your hair short? The first time, I was 13. It was the 80's. "Tails" were in. I left one long tail and hacked the rest. I looked rather like a q-tip, but it went well with parachute pants and those assymetrical chintz shirts with the big collars and the snaps. I grew it out after six months -- I missed putting it into ponytails. The second time I was 19. I had just gotten back from a year abroad, and I had to make a distinction between my former and current self.
S and I were dating, and he hated it. That time, it was a little short bob -- I loved it. I got married the next summer, and I wanted an updo so I grew it out. The third time I was 28. I was going through fertility treatment and basically hating the world, which included my own hair. I did a wedge -- shaved the back up really high on the ears. I loved that haircut, actually. S moaned on about missing my long hair, so I grew it out.
6. Why am I posting on this? For two reasons. One, it got so humid during the night here (S always turns the airconditioner down, which I loathe, because I like it freezing cold like the dead of winter, with a big comforter on) and I could actually feel my hair frizzing out during the night. When I woke up, I looked in the mirror and laughed aloud at Rosanne Rosannadanna staring back at me.
So I had to go replace the tweezers that got inadvertently flushed down the toilet a couple of weeks ago -- I tried to buy an inferior pair to save money, but they didn't cut it -- and I went to the beauty supply that sells the awesome tweezers. While there, as is my wont, I got all wrapped up in the amount of frizz-augmentation products like I always do. I remembered last week that S actually had to phone me while I was roaming around the drugstore, mesmerized by the array of haircare options. From his cell phone to mine, from the car. It takes me twenty minutes in the shampoo aisle, because I desperately want to believe the promises.
So okay, I do like my hair. It's like a pet you didn't really want but keep around for the hell of it. I wish it weren't so fluffy and problematic. But at my core, I am not a long hair person -- I wear it up so much one of my bosses actually called me "Bunhead," because I sat in front of her so she had to stare at my bobby-pinned cranium all day. As in, "Bunhead, do you have those proofs finished?
" I actually answered to it after a while. 
