The Hair! It’s Happening!

I’ve had a specific goal for my hair, and it’s finally coming along!

Previously, I’ve mentioned my hair journey. When I was a kid, my hair was always frizzy and fell down my back like a hybrid Taylor Swift/Hermione Granger nightmare. My only solution was to blow dry and straighten it almost every morning before school.

As I got older, I realized that I had more to work with than what I thought. As a kid, my mom always told me to brush my hair. However, when I went on trips without my mom and when I went away to college, I realized that my curls, when left to air dry and without a brush through, would come out looking like beachy waves! Lucky me! To this day, whenever my mom tells me to “brush my hair,” I almost always refuse. To be fair, she also thinks that Blake Lively never used a hairbrush as Serena Van der Woodsen on Gossip Girl. Agree to disagree, for once!

Certainly, this is not to say I never brush my hair. I do! I just tend to do it immediately after a shower, with a wet brush, to get out any tangles that remain. How my hair curls and reacts is up to the day!

When I was blow drying my hair straight in college, Aaron would note that my hair would look really shiny and healthy towards the top, but I had ultimately dry and dead ends from the heat.

Nowadays, I don’t spend a lot of time on styling my hair. I’m appreciating my natural beauty (that’s a thing, right?). However, I’m doubling down on treating it better.

In the shower, I use an Active Green Tea Shampoo and Conditioner. That way, the constant sweat from my morning runs don’t lead to an oily scalp! To keep my ends healthy, I apply an anti-frizz hair oil. The combination of coconut and argan oil keeps my hair smelling and looking pretty!

As well, I occasionally rinse off in the shower using cold water, not hot. I love my scalding hot showers, so I often forget this step! However, I’m working to make it a regular occurrence (read: every shower in which my hair gets a wash)! The cold water helps to lock in the moisture, and keep out the dryness that hot water can bring.

With the right regimen, my luscious locks have really had a moment lately. Which brings me to my main focus: for all that I want to keep things natural, I want to always be able to style my hair! I’ve always been impressed with women like my cousin, who know how to curl their hair (perfectly, I might add) with a straightener. She’s attempted to teach me a few times, but I’m not the best student when it comes to beauty maintenance.

However, I’ve had a breakthrough! I’ve gone into my bathroom, iron at the ready, and followed along with Youtube and Pinterest tutorials.

Whenever I’ve attempted this in the past, my curls always came out uneven. Some were Shirley Temple bouncy, others were “basic babe” curly, and some were bombastic waves. Now, all of those looks have their place! However, in different, mismatched places? All on one head? At the same time? Not so much!

In the past ten days, I’ve curled my hair with my straightener twice. The results were actually not half bad! In fact, they were almost pretty good! It’s still something that’s going to take time and effort. As well, I want to space out my attempts so I don’t expose my hair to heat in excess again. But when all is said and done, I’ve taken a step towards being the one who always has pretty looking hair! An easy first step to having it all.