Save me from my kinkycurlyfrizzy HAIR!!!
Why can't I grow this shit past my shoulders?
(and other sorrows of the semitically curled female.) The Dream: The Reality: 1. My hair is actually like 14 feet long when it's wet, but it curls up to just under shoulder length: Straight Bozo meets Slash
2. I'm almost 40, and I've never once had a man run his hands through my hair. It's not that they don't try. It's just that they get stuck. And then they make a Jimmy Hoffa joke. And then I break up with them.
3. I once went on a week long camping trip. It took me three hours and two quarts of detangler to comb it
4. What's that you say, Brush? You've got to be kidding.
5. I have never once seen my dad without him telling me to put it up in a ponytail "so we can see your pretty face". Of course all the guys say "wear it down, it's so much sexier." I'm sure my shrink would have something to say about this, but I can't afford him anymore, because I spend all my money on product. One product specifically.
This is not an ad. I repeat. This is not an ad. I am in no way affiliated with Bumble and Bumble, although I'd be happy to shill for them, if it meant I could stop spending 100 dollars or more per month on their products. I've tried everything: KMS (too sticky), Aveda (smells pretty but no hold), Paul Mitchell (smells funny) Kiehl's (smells funny and you always end up with too much or too little).
But without Mumble&Mumble conscious curl, I'd have to do a Sinead. They must know they've got me by the, um, snarls, because they just raised the price of their line. I now spend more on my hair than I do on cable.
Why? Because Curly hair sucks. It's messy, it always makes you look frazzled, it means that your hair, instead of getting longer, just gets wider, and on top of everything else, rainy days make you look like roseanne rosannadanna.
And it's not just me being self-conscious. Remember when that bastion of investigative journalism, Good Morning America did a segment on whether or not straightening your hair (i.e. making it whiter) could change your life? Guess what! It can. You get taken more seriously, you are seen as more professional, and, if you're me, you also look like an extra on the set of the Soprano's. No way. Check out the opening of an open letter to Oprah...OPRAH! from the site owners of www.naturallycurly.com.
Dear Oprah:
It was with surprise and disappointment that members of our community at
NaturallyCurly.com alerted us to your Great American Haircut Makeovers.
In case after case, beautiful waves, curls and kinks were beaten into
submission with blow dryers, flatirons and extensions. In one of the most
curious cases, a beautiful woman - who was wearing a gorgeous and
undoubtedly hard-won afro - was given stick-straight extensions.
Oprah, you are well loved the world over, due in no small part to your
uplifting gospel of self-acceptance. Yet, in the eyes of curlies, these
makeovers send an unmistakable - and most disheartening - message that
one's natural hair isn't acceptable. These makeovers suggest that in order
to be beautiful, one must completely alter one's appearance into something
not at all natural...
The rest of it is just the owners of the site shilling for their products, and I have to admit, this gift basket sort of tempted me:
Of course I can't afford it. Instead, I'll just keep on trying for this:
and getting this:
Suggestions, anyone?
And please, don't tell me to cut it short.
