I DIDN’T KNOW MY HAIR WAS CURLY! I know this might sound strange, but as a child my mother always brushed out my hair, so it was puffy but never had any distinct curl pattern. As soon as I got a little older and hair straighteners hit the market, I was straightening my hair religiously every other day for the better part of a decade.
As you can imagine, this totally destroyed any curl pattern I had. To make matters worse, at one stage I chemically straightened my hair, which resulted in my hair breaking off in clumps. By the end of high school in 2009 the chemical treatment had “worn off”, but had left my hair so damaged it simply didn’t know how to curl anymore.
(My curl pattern in 2009)
From there, I was off to college in the desert. There is little to no humidity in the Arizona heat, which is actually ideal for curly girls trying to avoid frizz. So I did experiment with allowing my hair to be in its natural state sometimes, but usually with clip-in curly hair extensions in.
(All photos with hair extensions in except 2010 photo)
Since my hair was not actually as curly as the clip-in extensions, I would wash my hair and the extensions, then braid them into my hair to try to get the curl pattern to match. In the 2010 picture you can see my true curl pattern with no hair extensions in, which was definitely more of a wave than a curl.
Post college in 2013 and back in the New England humidity, my hair was doing much better. During that year, I really tried to avoid putting heat on my hair, and my curl pattern was beginning to emerge.
In 2014 I took a job in California. Unbeknownst to me, my apartment was riddled with toxic mold behind the walls, and I experienced severe hair loss, losing more than half of my hair. This required me to do a big chop up to my shoulders, and because I was insecure of how thin and short my hair was, I began straightening it regularly again. For the next several years I rarely if ever wore my hair natural.
It was 5 years before my hair had grown back enough to the point where I was comfortable wearing it curly again. With extensions in of course. The left photo is before I touched my hair up with a curling wand, and the right is after. So even though I was wearing it curly, I was still using heat on it. At this time, I was still straightening my hair at least once a week.
Then in 2020 the pandemic happened, and I had all the time in the world to sort out my hair troubles. You can see my hair was stringy, and my curl pattern was irregular and frizzy. What I really needed was to do another big chop, but I wasn’t ready to go there quite yet. So instead I set down the hair straightener and began experimenting with various hair products including Olaplex.
This helped immensely in the beginning, but I didn’t understand the difference between protein and moisture, and ended up with protein overload from the Olaplex products.
Once I realized what my hair needed was moisture and not protein, my curl pattern really began to take shape. As you can see, the ends were still stringy and needed a trim.
Turns out another chop was exactly what I needed. My hair was finally on the home stretch to its full potential. At this time I decided to forgo the hair extensions for awhile to avoid any unnecessary strain on the roots of my hair.
In August, I decided it was really time to commit to the curly lifestyle, and the best way to do that would be to get a curly haircut. I traded in my signature side part for bangs and lots of layers, and trimmed away the remaining stringy ends. Honestly, I never felt better about myself or my hair once I did this!
This is what my hair looks like today, and I have never looked back. It was a long and difficult journey to get here, and I know I didn’t help myself with all of the heat damage I did to my hair. I still straighten it on occasion, but I make sure to always use a heat protectant.
If you are interested in what products I use, feel free to check out my curly hair routine below!
