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My first keratin treatment was just a few months after the birth of my first daughter.
My colicky infant dictated every moment of my existence.
Then came that first keratin treatment.
I emerged from the salon with the easiest, smoothest hair imaginableexactly as advertised.
Here I am post-keratin treatment, which made my natural curls mostly straight.
Wash and go; air-dry; easy-breezy.
And so I kept it up.
Here I am post-keratin treatment, which made my natural curls mostly straight.
After the keratin treatment that changed everything.
Children: famously unobservant unless you’re trying to sneak vegetables into their pasta sauce.)
I felt a strange relief when they both ended up with naturally straight hair.
The summer of 2023 marked the end of that era.
Me, myself, and my two-textured hair.
I tried a different brand of keratin treatment and afterwards something was catastrophically different.
My ponytail was the size of a dime.
After the keratin treatment that changed everything.
My curls today in all their glory.
This wasn’t a temporary setback that another treatment could fix in a few months.
What if the curls were totally different, and not in a good way?
The evolution was staggering.
Entireproduct collections dedicated solely to curly hairnow lined store shelves.
There were webinars, online courses, and virtual communities all centered around embracing natural texture.
At this point, my reentry into the curly world felt like learning to walk again.
Having discarded all mycurly hair productsand tools years ago, I was truly starting from square one.
“I have to have clear-outs so often.
When friends with curly hair come over, I’m just like, ‘Take it!
It needs to go.’
But you just want to always try things.”
This was apparently less of a styling consultation and more of a hair therapy session, minus the couch.
This resonated deeply with me.
“It takes time and learning.
It takes trial and error, says Viola.
Sometimes people just get frustrated, especially if you’re not into hair.
They’ll just be like, ‘Do you know what?
I’m just gonna blow dry it straight again.'”
When I joked that managing curly hair felt like a part-time job, she laughed and agreed.
“It definitely is!”
You’re getting that elasticity back in your hair, which is allowing your curl to bounce back."
My hair, apparently, was on its own wellness journey.
I confessed my frustration to Shundell Vance, a stylist at curl meccaOuidad, in New York City.
“I feel like its justa lot,” I told her.
“It is a lot of work.
Why is it so much work?”
Her answer was both candid and oddly comforting: “Think about a gardener and their flowers.
To get the most beautiful flowers, you gotta put in the work.
And to embrace the curls, you gotta put in the work.
If it was easy, anybody would have them.”
This simple truththat beautiful curls require dedicationwas somehow liberating.
I wasn’t failing; I was gardening.
My ability to keep houseplants alive is mediocre, though… so the metaphor was concerning.
Me, myself, and my two-textured hair.
Not gonna lie: that regrowth process was nothing short of horrendous and lengthy.
When I described this frustrating limbo to Viola, she immediately understood the struggle.
It can be very frustrating."
Twisting and pinning the front, so you’re not seeing that contrast as much.
In other words, elaborate hair origami was now my only option.
Eventually, after enough regrowth had happened, I started getting periodiccurly cutsto shape my hair.
In my twenties, straight hair had represented professionalism, polish, and control.
It was easier to manage, less affected by weather, and more aligned with conventional beauty standards.
Straight hair was safe.
It didn’t make statements or take up so much space the way big, wild curls do.
But still, my preconceived notions about what curly hair signified were hard to shake.
For me, perhaps most tellingly, my straightening ritual had become a form of security.
It was something I could control in a world where so much felt uncontrollable.
It’s sort of no surprise that my hair rebellion (resurrection?)
came at midlife, a time when many aspects of my identity are already in flux.
Amid all this transition, reclaiming my natural hair texture feels like part of a larger reckoning.
There was also something liberating about revealing my true texture to my children.
When my younger daughter first saw my natural curls emerging, her eyes widened.
“Your hair is curly?”
she asked, genuinely surprised.
That conversation opened up deeper discussions about beauty standards, authenticity, and the pressure women face to conform.
The curls areverycurlymore so than Id even remembered.
My curls today in all their glory.
The journey has been both more challenging and more rewarding than I anticipated.
In embracing it, I’m embracing those qualities in myself as well.
I need to bite the bullet and get new headshots takenwith my big new head of curly hair.
I’ve also found that adding in theDevaCurl CurlBond maskperiodically really does make a difference.
But I’ll be totally honest.
I find myself tempted to go back on the sauce.
momentsfor better or for worse, through frizz and fuzz, in humidity and in drought.
I’m learning to work with what nature gave me, to enhance rather than erase.
Finally, I’m wearing my hair the way it was meant to be worn.
It took a village of expertsonline and IRLto get me here, but the curls are back in action.
It’s not always perfect, not always cooperative, and definitely not always predictable.
(The tighter the curl, the longer it takes!
It’s like growing your hair in dog years rather than human ones.)
Read more about caring for curls:
