Monday, September 1, 2008

"Lauren... you know, the girl with the curly hair."

Last Wednesday, I asked my students to write on the prompt, "How do you identify yourself?" This comprised their writing diagnostic, so I could get an idea of their skill level with regard to composition, as well as figure out how to tailor the rest of the semester so that we are discussing relevant-to-them issues. Of course, as I asked them to write about what defines them for 25 minutes, I did the same thing. Surprisingly, and very unexpectedly, my pencil (yes! I was using a pencil! WEIRD!) started scribbling wildly and before I knew it, I had used a paper's front and back to craft a narrative about my hair.

As you probably (or maybe don't) know, my hair is a big source of personal contention. I have always had a love-hate relationship with it. It's a perfect hybrid of both my parents' hair types: my mom's is thin and straight, and my dad's is thick and curly. He had an afro in the 70s. This is hysterical if you know my dad. (If not, well, not so funny.)

Let me tell you, thin, curly hair is idiotic. It doesn't make sense. When you think of a curly-haired person, I'm sure you immediately envision a thick, tendrily, mop of pretty little s-curves. RIGHT? I don't have that. I realize that there are many different types of curl, and I realize that many women with curly hair have a similar love-hate relationship, but I'm so frustrated with my hair and still weirded out that after thinking about what identifies me, I unintentionally wrote about my hair.

First off, "running out the door" isn't a concept I can grasp. If I need to be anywhere, and fast, I always have a mini-panic attack about what i'm going to do to my hair. I don't "hop in the shower." Because when I get out, I have to dedicate at least 15 minutes to styling my hair, and that's after I let it air dry for 15 or 20 minutes, because it won't have any volume if I style it wet. Not like it has much in the way of volume, anyway. This is why Big Sexy Hair's Root Pump Plus is, like, my most favoritest volumizing product I have ever, ever used. OBSESSED.

If I don't put anything in my hair, it lies limp and frizzy and I look like a wet dog. (Without the wetness part, I suppose, because it's so thin it will be near completely dry after, like, a half hour.) But I can't ever find a product that works well with my hair. It's so dry in Pullman that I need something hydrating, and it can't be very thick so it doesn't weigh my curls down, and something that holds but isn't too sticky. This is the worst part about buying hair products.

Don't get me wrong, I love buying new hair stuff that I have never used, but I always keep this idea tucked away in the back of my head that it's not going to work, anyway. I am still furious with KMS for changing not only their packaging a few years back, but their product line-up. I used to use their Curl Gloss, and it was incredible. We had a love affair for years. I would periodically switch to something else, just to try it out, but I would always come back to Curl Gloss. I was addicted to it.

Then, they changed their curl line. I was irate. I saw all this bull everywhere that read, "Used Curl Gloss? Try our Hot Spiral Spray!" So I did, of course -- doing what the nice KMS people told me to do -- but it wasn't even a poor substitute; there was just no competition. Since then, my hair has been doomed to live a Curl Gloss-free life.

The moral of the story?
I HATE YOU, KMS.

Another issue I deal with is something that began in high school. I was always described as the really loud girl with the crazy, curly hair. So, yeah, I was too loud then. I never laughed, I gaffawed. I didn't exclaim, I yelled out "OH MY GAAAWD" in the hallways. It was always "lookatmelookatmelookatme." (Wow, how things change, huh?)

But I was often also defined by my hair. I still don't know if this was a good or a bad thing, but suffice to say, it made me insecure. And here I am today, still worried that people won't like me because of my hair. The grass is always greener, true, but I can't express how many hours I've spent thinking about how much easier my life would be if my hair were long, thick, and straight. Straight hair is easy. (I assume, anyway.) Luckily, I can blow out my curl very easily, but I still don't pass for a straight-haired girl. The ends always start to twist and bend their way back into the curl they should rightly be displaying proudly. That's my problem, though. I can't display it proudly. I feel like the crazy chick with the crazy hair who is too loud and who everyone can only take in small doses. Maybe I am. Maybe that is something I just need to live with. Perhaps I need to stop trying to straighten myself. (Know what I mean?) But, except, however, that isn't who I think I am. That isn't who I want to be.

It's kind of baffling to me that so much of my identity can be wrapped up into a bunch of keratin and dead protein. It's irritating that a social construction of the way hair is supposed to look so heavily influences the way I feel about my own hair. Maybe because it doesn't fit the mold. I don't want to fit the mold, though. So why am I whining? I don't really know. It's a love-hate relationship. Sometimes I adore the curl, I love how easy it is to dry my hair, and I appreciate that if I need to, I can just put on a thick headband and throw it back into a baby ponytail. Yet at the same time, when I touch my hair too much while it's still wet and it gets frizzy and limp, or when my hair wins the battle between my products and I look like a dried-out wet dog, or when I accidentally use too much Catwalk Curl Amplifier and it weighs down and pulls out my curl, I want to scream and shave it all off. Because it doesn't look perfect everyday. It doesn't look as good at 5:00 pm as it does at 9:00 am. I need to try to embrace my hair, though, as a part of what makes me, me. It wouldn't be right if my hair was long, and thick, and straight. I wouldn't be me.

I'll need to remind myself of this next time my hair isn't cooperating in the morning and I'm ready to throw on a hat and just leave my house. Because I'm not really a hat person. Hat hair is reserved for an entirely different post.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I am sooooo mad at KMS for getting rid of the curl gloss, too! I loved that stuff. I'm almost out of the 4 bottles I bought 3 years ago on ebay. Did you find anything similar?