My family has a full length mirror hanging in the hallway. It’s at the top of the stairs, just off the bathroom. If you’re facing the mirror, all the bedrooms are behind you, and the living room is directly ahead. It’s inescapable if you want to travel from one part of the house to another. Memories of the mirror include;
My mom combing my hair, trying to be gentle. Me wriggling around, begging her to stop.
Eyes shut, wrapping a headband around my hair. Imagining long, flowing locks, then opening them only to see a mass of frizz.
Ripping out and throwing away chunks of hair, trying to see how many strands I could get at once.
Breaking hairbrush after hairbrush, stray bristles in my hair and the rubber parts pulling away from the back.
I’ve always had thick, curly hair, usually surrounded by a faint halo of frizz. For most of my life, I’ve hated that.
When I was little, I wanted straight hair more than anything. My friends had smooth bangs, or loose waves, or braids that they could do every day, because they didn’t require a comb-and-tourture session. All the images of feminine beauty around me had smooth hair, from Disney princesses to movie characters down to my dolls. I was convinced that having curly hair was the thing that made me ugly, because it kept me from fitting into a specific mold.
I was banned from flat irons, so I tried willing my hair to be different. If I had to get a haircut, I would find a picture of a girl with much straighter hair and ask for that cut. I refused to let my mom put gel or curl cream in my hair, because I thought needing it was a confirmation my hair was wrong. My hair progressed from a short frizzy triangle to a longer frizzy triangle and then to a ridiculous looking bob in third grade. Eventually, I started to tolerate foaming hair mousse, which tamped things down somewhat, but always disappeared within a few hours, leaving my hair just as unruly as before. Even once I got to high school, I never quite shook the idea that my hair could be convinced to act like it was straight, or gaslit into loosening its curls.
It’s fortunate that, in our enlightened society, one eventually finds curly hair role models. I found that I could see my hair as beautiful, as long as I had layers and constant styling. On days when I wash and detangle my hair, showering takes almost an hour. To keep my curls intact, I layer hair mousse, cream, and strong hold gel on top of each other. When I’m away from home and don’t have all my hair products with me, I just avoid water.
I get compliments on my hair, too. People ask what I use, or where I got my highlights (I didn’t). Other girls, random women on the bus, creepy old guys in the street, and drivers of unmarked white vans would make comments about my hair, or say it was pretty. Recently, someone told me that if I got rejected from college, I could still make a living selling my hair to fetishists, which I found very affirming.
However, while I was growing more confident about my hair, I was simultaneously growing more insecure about myself in general. Since nearly all the compliments I received stopped at the bottom of my ribcage, it felt like my appearance, or anything positive about it, was defined by my hair. I tried to hide behind it, hoping it would distract from the rest of my face. I used to wear my hair back, and braid it for special occasions. Now, I never do.
I can truthfully say that I love my hair. I put work into it. I genuinely think it’s pretty. But that doesn’t mean I love myself, or feel confident about how I look. At the end of the day, fixation on your appearance, positive or negative, is still vanity. All the time I’ve spent loving or hating myself hasn’t made me a happier or better person. Additionally, my hair isn’t for public consumption. It’s part of my body, and people don’t get opinions on it. Even though I felt the need to write a whole column about it, my hair isn’t a form of self expression or a part of my personality. It’s hair and nothing else.
