Finally Learning to Love My Curly Hair at 51 Years Old

woman before and after curly hair transformation

Home > Inspiration > Finally Learning to Love My Curly Hair at 51 Years Old

Nov 26 2021,

4 Min read

“So, do you like it?” my friend Gina asked me over lunch. “You know? I think I really do,” I answered incredulously because for the greater part of my life, I hadn’t. The it in question? My naturally curly hair, which at age 51, I finally began to wear, well, naturally curly. Not blowing it out and reintroducing neatly spaced, perfect beachy waves with a curling iron, but rather air-drying it and completely letting it do its thing. As I walked home from lunch, I began to calculate how much time I’d wasted blow drying my hair straight, or at least wrangling it into some semblance of straight: roughly half an hour a day for 38 years. That’s 6,935 hours. Or 289 days. Oof.

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Now, it’s not like that time was completely wasted. It was at least partially worth it. I absolutely loved the silky texture of a fresh blowout. I would run my hands through it all day and flick my hair from side to side confidently knowing that my curly little secret was under control. Even when I just blew out the front and stuck the rest in a ponytail, my hair felt professional, which yielded dividends in confidence and swagger.

However, the dark side, as any woman with curly hair who has been a serial straightener like me knows, is that ultimately, you’re living a lie. Not a horrible lie, after all people are entitled to wear their hair in whichever style they please, but a suspended state of reality that could come undone at the first sign of rain. And now that I’ve decided to go with my natural texture, I see how much mental energy I wasted worrying about that precarious existence on some level—whether it was making plans around the weather, or simply hating the fact that my hair didn’t grow out of my scalp straight.

Didi with her previously beloved blowout.

So, what finally got me to wear it curly? A vacation (which is where people do their most clear-headed thinking, I find). Specifically, a trip to Italy with a group of friends, including the hair stylist Tommy Buckett. To set the scene, we were all getting ready to go out and had already downed several Negronis. My friend Gwen was casually scrolling through Instagram, as one does when one is pregaming, and said, “Have you guys been seeing this ‘wolf cut’ everywhere?” Tommy said that he had, and that my hair was a perfect candidate for the cut. He explained the look to me as “what we used to call a shag, but curly.”

Having been a teenager in the ‘80s, I had rocked many a failed shag. So, my first instinct was no way. Tommy then explained that, unlike the look that was popular when the song “Hungry Like the Wolf” was, the Wolf Cut actually had a slightly softer, more ‘70s feel due to the natural texture created by “chipping into the curls.” Something about that piqued my curiosity—probably aided by the freedom one feels when one is breaking routine coupled with the desire to live a little after being cooped up through a global pandemic. Out came the scissors and the rest is history.

After Tommy cut my hair, he gave me a few simple operating instructions for handling my new curly ‘do. He taught me to run a healthy amount of moisturizing, texturizing products through my tresses and twist the bangs into a coiled shape while my hair was drying. (Prose custom curl cream is hydrating and defines everything from waves to coils). As for cleansing, Tommy advised me to wash my hair every other day or every three days to ensure that my curls didn’t get greasy and limp. Truth be told, I was afraid to wash my hair after Tommy cut it for fear that it would never dry the same again, and it hasn’t. Curls dry slightly differently on any given day, but I’ve come to see that as one of the fun things about them. He also advised me to get trims every couple of months to maintain the shape of the cut. That was almost four months ago, and I haven’t used a hair dryer since. I’m now one of those women who step out of the shower, get dressed, and re-scrunch my curls for a second. Then, I walk out the door without thinking about my hair again until the next day. It has been liberating and wonderful.

None of Tommy’s advice, as good as it is, will come as huge news to those of you who already air-dry your curls. But for those of you considering transitioning to your natural texture, I will offer some more advice, which is less external and more internal since all it really takes to make the switch is a decision and commitment: Don’t look at yourself in the mirror for a few days after you begin to wear your hair naturally curly. Instead, allow yourself to experience your wonderful curls bouncing off your face when you walk. Revel in the surprise of others when they see those beautiful waves you’ve been hiding. And start to think about yourself as part of a big club of proud curly heads. By the time you do catch your reflection in a mirror, I promise you, you’ll wonder why you didn’t go curly sooner.