Straight Talk about Curly Hair
It was with a mix of delight and anxiety that I read online today that the perm is making a comeback. Amid the real-life never-ending Netflix drama that is the presidency of Donald Trump, this hair-rising news takes me back to the morning a middle-aged bald man reached across an impressive stretch of time and distance to announce on my Facebook page, “Hey!” “HEY!!!” “Didn’t we used to call you Crystal Tipps?”
Yes. Yes, you did. Relentlessly. It was funnier to you than it was to me.
Teetering on the edge of adolescence in the early seventies, I instinctively knew that Crystal’s coiffure, a big triangular purple frizz, belonged only on BBC television, in the groovy far-out world of cut-out animation created by Hilary Hayton.
Someone, probably not a feminist, had deemed more acceptable, and in my case, forever elusive, that silken sheet of hair that hung straight down the backs of other girls in standard-issue blonde, brown, black or grey. Crystal, with her dog, Alistair, by her side, was not cut out for corporate. Upside down, afloat in the sky among rainbows and bubbles, she was maddeningly oblivious to the very concept of “a bad hair day,” but I nonetheless did everything in my power to distance myself from her, a bit sad in retrospect, because Crystal was her own girl. It was no small task.
The 1970s represented the dark ages of hair care in Northern Ireland, with the curly among us left largely to our own devices. Major hair-care discoveries of the twentieth century were on the back burner – anti-frizz serum, leave-in conditioner, mousse, spritzes, and spray gels. Diffusers. Ceramic curling irons. Ionic hair-dryers. Microfiber towels. Accordingly, there were major hair mistakes – one of my most spectacular being a spiral perm that I rationalized would mathematically cancel out the natural curls. That paled in comparison to the fateful day when I allowed a desultory hairdresser in a Ballymena “salon” to cut my hair short. Like most of the nation, he was undeniably smitten with then-Lady Diana Spencer, whose short hair helped her achieve the kind of acceptability – and accessibility – that Crystal Tipps had been denied. Brandishing his Clairol 1200 hairdryer and a round brush, he presented me with pictures in glossy magazines all about hair that led me to believe a Lady Di do was just what I needed. It would be “tidier” and “far less trouble,” its short layers, very short. Liar, liar, pants on fire. Had I known better, before the first snip, I would have asked him to recite the laws governing curly hair, which if you’re a curly, you know include the following:
Curly hair is unpredictable.
Manageability of curly hair is directly related to its unpredictability.
Curly hair is longer – much longer – when combed through wet.
Would-be princesses and Charlie’s Angels have crews of “people” on hair duty. Working class girls in Belfast don’t.
Shampoo in moderation. Not every day. Only condition the ends.
No two curls are the same.
Curls must be cut one at a time.
The curls will win. Every time.
While most everyone everywhere else was distracted by Lady Diana’s sapphire engagement ring, I was growing out The Worst Haircut Ever, immortalized in a Valentine verse composed during his tea-break by a boyfriend who, of course, had great hair: “You’re very special /you’re very rare/even though/you have no hair.” ‘
Followed shortly thereafter, before I went off to college, by “The End.“
For a time, I was convinced of a conspiracy around curly hair. It was reminiscent of the way mothers withhold information about the pain of childbirth. Yes, I know the styling of naturally curly hair is not the same as giving birth, but both must be experienced first-hand to be fully appreciated. For the record, I am still bitter that when I was pregnant, not one of my friends-with-children divulged any of the more painful details of childbirth. When I asked them about The Pain, and told them to spare me no details, they just mumbled vaguely, as though in a trance. Avoiding eye contact, they told me they could not remember any of it, yet in the same breath they would tell me to be sure to ask for an epidural – “just to be on the safe side.” My mother, to give credit where credit’s due, remembers at least two important details: it was a forceps delivery that “you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy,” and it was Good Friday which she thought was a good sign. There was also snow on the ground which delayed my father’s arrival to the hospital in Ballymena best known for producing Liam Neeson. Invariably, this detail about the snow will lead to an extended treatise on the unpredictability of Irish weather helping her deftly avoid any elaboration on the forceps. Make no mistake, I have no idea how the weather was the day I gave birth, but I have not forgotten the pain. It was next-level.
But back to my hair. For years, when it was curlier than it is today – because now it’s going gray but of course not all of it at the same time – my hair often made A Statement™ when the only statement I wanted to make was not sticking out like a sore thumb. We want to belong don’t we? In the classroom, the boardroom, the waiting room, the conference room, but not in a way that feels uncomfortably like conforming or settling. We don’t want to belong to Stepford. It can be a tough row to hoe, often requiring compromise if not complete surrender.
“You wanna be taken seriously, you need serious hair.”
By the late 1980s, I had begun brokering a kind of peace with my hair, and then along came Melanie Griffith’s Tess in Working Girl chopping off her hair because, “You wanna be taken seriously, you need serious hair.” A decade later in, Up Close and Personal Robert Redford’s character tells a big-haired shoulder-padded Michelle Pfeiffer who just wants to make it in broadcast journalism to “do something about the hair.” By the end of the film, her character has a short, brunette bob and a top job at the network. And just in case we were in any doubt about what might happen when women let their hair down, we watched Thelma and Louise drive off a cliff.
Then there is Julia Roberts whose characters are almost always winners, big hair notwithstanding. Before she was Erin Brockovich, back in 1997, she was “the best man” in My Best Friend’s Wedding, but not very “serious.” At the same time, I was enjoying pregnancy, my hair reaping the benefits of all those pre-natal vitamins. Big belly. Big hair. Big hopes for motherhood. Instead of commenting on my fabulously lustrous hair, colleagues would muse aloud, “Haven’t you had that baby yet?” or, bizarrely, “Are you still here?” followed by, “Really? You don’t know what you’re having?” Even sales people – strangers – would look at each other in disbelief and whisper loudly, “She doesn’t know what she’s having.”
“A human.”
This was a wholly unsatisfactory response that typically provoked a protracted agonizing debate over whether my human child’s nursery should be pink or blue.
Tired of all this, I decided one Friday afternoon, towards the end of the third trimester, that rather than go to Target to stock up on green or yellow non gender-specific clothes for 0-3 month-old humans, I would have my hair “done” at a swish Scottsdale salon. One of the best, I had been told by someone with children and straight hair. There I was, my hair freshly colored in a caramel-honey hue, trimmed in long, manageable layers.
By this time, I was proficient in the lexicon of curly-hair-care. I knew all the right products to use and had even mastered special drying techniques including the art of scrunching, diffusing my hair upside-down, and air-drying or using a paper towel to avoid “disturbing the curl.” It defies logic that on this particular evening, I would allow a rather intense stylist, dressed like a hungry Johnny Cash, to blow my hair dry with an enormous round brush, taking me back to those heady days following Princess Diana’s engagement. I concentrated hard on my magazine, avoiding the mirror, but when my stylist was distracted by the early arrival of a straight-haired woman, a local TV news anchor, I looked up to confront my reflection. There were four impossibly large round brushes nesting in my hair. Four. I resembled a failed test subject and wanted to cry. But there was a method to his madness. When he removed those brushes, he spun me around in that chair. Choirs of angels began to sing. My hair would have been the envy of any morning news anchorwoman. It was big, but by God, it was straight and smooth. I had straight hair, and it lasted for five hours, about as long as it took to achieve. I savored every minute – running my fingers through it, throwing my head back, tossing my tresses around – because I knew that once a drop of water hit my head, it would all be over.
I was fabulous.
Hair Politics
I miss the days when Hillary Clinton’s hair was the main news story. With intense scrutiny on whether she wore a headband or a scrunchie, we could be forgiven for perhaps forgetting her curriculum vitae which includes stints as State Senator, U.S. Secretary of State, and Presidential Candidate. Hillary Clinton made the headlines more than a time or two, not because of some act of diplomacy that might prevent yet another war, but because she had gone out in public on what some considered an unacceptably Bad Hair Day, made all the worse because she had done so without make-up. When Madame Secretary changed the rules of engagement, the critics flipped out. To the graduating class of 2021 at Yale, she offered this:
The most important thing I have to say to you today is that hair matters. ‘This is a life lesson my family did not teach me, Wellesley and Yale Law School failed to instill: Your hair will send significant messages to those around you. What hopes and dreams you have for the world, but more, what hopes and dreams you have for your hair. Pay attention to your hair, because everyone else will.”
Everyone did.
After the Democratic party nominated her as the first female presidential candidate, Mrs Clinton made history – and so did her hair – both highlighted on the fashion page of the New York Times the morning after:
Mrs. Clinton looked supremely unflappable: perfectly tailored and in control. Not a hair out of place (but some hair nicely waved). The kind of person who could carry the nuclear codes with aplomb.
“Supremely unflappable.”
With presidential hair.
Here’s the thing. As Leah Harper once tole The Guardian, “Historically, curly, frizzy or even wavy hair has been associated with scruffiness or unprofessionalism – a belief that often comes with racist connotations.”
Racist connotations? Yes.
When VP Kamala Harris was announced as the Democratic presidential nominee, Google Trends indicated that searches for “Kamala Harris” hair spiked 33% the following day. Her round brush silk-press and her pantsuits – like Hillary’s – were front and center. As interest grew in the presidential silk-press, so too did the national conversation about the politics of Black hair. The Vice President’s silk press hadn’t always been embraced so warmly. In the early 20th century, straightened Black hair became a way for Black people to assimilate, to meet Eurocentric standards of beauty. Pressed hair and relaxers didn’t just show up as trends. They weren’t really about vanity, they were about being acceptable in a society steeped in racism.
Bottom line? There are are risks with self-expression.
First Lady, Michele Obama, learned this too. Unlike the 54 first ladies before her, her hair was curly in texture, and it carried a different political weight. In her book, The Look, she details how she avoided wearing her natural Black hair – especially braids – during her eight years in the White House. “I didn’t wear braids in the White House because I thought America wasn’t ready.”
Her decision was less about vanity and more about not giving a hostile electorate another reason to question her – and her husband’s – legitimacy.
Love me Love my Hair
In response to learning I had been diagnosed with breast cancer, a life-long friend immediately responded with:
Oh no! What about your hair?
Observing that I still had my hair several months later, the same person felt compelled to ask about details of my treatment and to pass judgement on my decision not to have chemotherapy. True, the prospect of losing my hair to a cancer treatment made me feel guilty about the numerous times I complain about it, and all the time and money I have spent trying to coax it in to being more “sensible.”
I have abused my hair for years, mis-treating it with products from a largely unregulated industry that may even have contributed to the cancer. So instead of wasting time with drivel about whether a woman should be taken more or less seriously depending on whether her hair is straight or curly, short or long, up or down, perhaps the focus should be on what needs to happen in order to address the lack of regulation that allows our shampoos, conditioners, cleansers, and more “exotic” – toxic – treatments, to contain the very chemicals that may have caused the cancer diagnosis that rocked my world.
Years ago, I found a drawing by my daughter that has since become a favorite picture of me. Where art again meets reality, my budding artist was clearly struggling to get my hair just right. Frustrated, it was with a long sigh and a scribble of orange crayon and black marker, that she forced it into semi-straight submission and pondered Mom’s Bad Hair Days. That rendition of my hair is almost a triangle, resurrecting Crystal Tipps, for whom I have developed a belated respect. I like her, almost enough to believe Kristianna Michaelides, Australia’s leading “curl specialist.”
“Curly-haired people are seen as mischievous, with a sense of humour. I associate curls with creativity. People with curls tend to be at ease with themselves – if they’re not fighting their curls, they must be happy within themselves”
Love me, love my hair.
