In Defence of Curly Hair

Credit @Olivia Farr

By Erin Deborah

When I was 11, a girl on my school bus told me I should be embarrassed about my curly hair. 

The next day I wore it up in a ponytail. I did the same every single day until I was 17. I dyed it blonde, flattened it out with straighteners, and spent hundreds on products to make me look like someone else.

When I was 15 I gained a bit of weight, as many 15-year-olds do. But then a year or so later the boy I loved stopped talking to me, and I decided those extra kilos were the reason. So I tried to lose some weight, which frankly ruined movie nights with my best friend. I watched, a passive onlooker, as she grazed on popcorn while I ate diet yoghurt and drank laxative tea.

When I was 18, a friend said I should be insecure about my sex life and relationships with men. So I started wearing shorter skirts and tighter tops. Judging my relationships by her criteria I wore more and more makeup. I let her tell me how much to eat and how much to flirt with boys. 

When I was 20, I realised most of the women around me were taller than me, blonder than me, thinner than me. I watched them pick up boyfriends with the ease with which I read books and write down my thoughts. I carried on dyeing my hair, going a shade lighter each time. I continued with the diets, I went to the gym more than I went out with friends. I had worse relationships with men, putting myself in situations I hated more than once.

And then one day I realised I was missing out. Somewhere along the road, my need to look like everybody else meant I was losing myself.

I dyed my hair back to its natural shade of brown. I let it curl - no, I embraced the curls. I dressed how I wanted and I went to the gym only when I felt like it. 

All of a sudden, I had time. Time for pizza nights with my friends, for coffee dates and sushi dinners and movie nights and cocktail bars and road trips and museum visits and shopping days and beach trips and rainy days and train rides and holidays and nights out and clubs and fashion shows and work I loved and reading and hours spent at Waterstones and swimming and dancing and long walks and short walks and productive days and wasted days and hungover days and busy days and boring days and video games and birthdays and brunch and lunch and all the moments that pass in between. 

So I’ll defend curly hair until the day I die. Because allowing it back brought with it so much more.