{"id":13341,"date":"2020-12-29T08:00:47","date_gmt":"2020-12-29T13:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prose.com\/?p=13341"},"modified":"2021-04-13T14:55:30","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T18:55:30","slug":"curly-hair-personal-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/curly-hair-personal-story","title":{"rendered":"I Am More Than My Long Curly Hair"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<p>Growing up in the Latinx community\u2014in the Dominican community especially \u2014 deeply impacted how I felt about my own hair for years. Most of my life I wore it both ways. Meaning mami would straighten my long curly hair throughout the colder seasons and leave it curly during the warmer ones\u2014more so just during the summer. But even though I was familiar with my natural curl pattern and didn\u2019t grow up getting relaxers like a lot of curly-haired Latinas or Black women I know, I did often hear things like \u201cpelo malo\u201d (bad hair) when referring to naturally curly hair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And while long hair is something that\u2019s absolutely idealized throughout Latin American culture, it hits an especially sensitive nerve for Afro-Latinas who are raised to assimilate and embrace Eurocentric standards of beauty\u2014such as long, straight hair. The process of unlearning what we\u2019ve essentially been programmed to believe for centuries and learning and recognizing how to love and embrace our natural curls is not an easy journey. It\u2019s about so much more than finding the right curl cream. It\u2019s about looking in the mirror and genuinely loving what you see. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve always had long hair and it\u2019s not because my mom purposely kept it long. It\u2019s because my hair has always been the type to grow quickly and maintain length\u2014even when it\u2019s been damaged. When I couldn\u2019t appreciate my hair for its natural curls, I would always tell myself, at least I had my length. I believe that it\u2019s for that very same reason that haircuts still trigger me today. I\u2019m not necessarily traumatized by a bad haircut from the past. I\u2019ve been traumatized by the idea that maybe I\u2019m not as beautiful without my long hair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Strangely enough, I have had short cuts. All of them were cuts I had done in order to remove damage. My first lob was in college. I didn\u2019t want to go shorter\u2014I had to. All the coloring I did my senior year of high school left me with rattail ends that were practically breaking off. I hated it for a week. Then got over it and embraced it until it grew out. The second lob was back in 2017, in a desperate attempt to finally rid my curls of heat-damage. The day I cut it I was fine. The following day I cried and like always\u2014I eventually got over it and moved on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve gotten multiple cuts and trims since then but now that my curls are back to a healthy state, I\u2019ve been very particular about my curl cuts. That\u2019s because now that I don\u2019t wear my hair straight at all, an inch too much could appear much shorter on curls that naturally spring up a few inches. I recently got a much-needed cut. After almost a year of not getting a trim\u2014due to COVID\u2014and recently getting pintura highlights, my ends were looking dry, split, and sad. Even so, I had no plans of getting more than an inch trimmed off. The stylist did an incredible job and I was content the day of. But after a day it finally hit me how much length was cut \u2014 probably at least three inches. I panicked. <\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div><div class=\"gbda-custom-cta\" style=\"background-image:url()\"><span class=\"cta-title\" style=\"color:#FFFFFF\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Even after years of working on decolonizing my beauty standards and reclaiming the parts of me society told me weren\u2019t beautiful\u2014like my natural curls\u2014I still felt this need to have \u201cperfect hair,\u201d whatever that meant.<\/span><\/span><span class=\"cta-text\" style=\"color:#FFFFFF\"><\/span><a class=\"cta-button\" href=\"\"><\/a><\/div><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<p>\u201cYou always react like this whenever you change up your hair,\u201d my sister told me. I had gotten honey-colored pintura highlights in September that I initially hated before I loved them\u2014only because I had gotten so used to rocking my naturally dark hair. But in that moment, I realized that it was WAY more than just change for me. A lot of it stemmed from this idea of having \u201cperfect-looking hair.\u201d Even after years of working on decolonizing my beauty standards and reclaiming the parts of me society told me weren\u2019t beautiful\u2014like my natural curls\u2014I still felt this need to have \u201cperfect hair,\u201d whatever that meant. I\u2019ll proudly rock my curls, so long as they still checked off some beauty standards, like remaining long and waist-length. I was adhering to another societal norm. The idea of rocking \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cpresentable\u201d curls which was doing me way more harm than good and only contributing to the same beauty standards I was trying to do without. Keep it curly, but keep it long and as tamed as possible, was essentially the mentality I was running with without even being fully conscious of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe idea that long hair is more beautiful than shorter hair or that we as women look more beautiful when we rock longer hair, comes from whiteness, believe it or not,\u201d one of my good girlfriends told me via a voice note after I vented about how uncomfortable I felt with shorter hair. She was right. If I\u2019m being honest, it still took me a while following that conversation to really get over it. I mean, I even ordered hair growth vitamins. But then it hit me\u2014I am SO much more than just my hair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While it might take maintenance to give my curls the care it requires\u2014not to mention time, energy and patience\u2014it also requires love. Loving this hair is not just about embracing my natural texture, it\u2019s also about seeing myself beyond it. Because whether my hair is curly, blown out straight, long, or short, I am still beautiful and I am still full of value and worth. And I refuse to have the colonized mentality that I was raised with continue to keep me from truly seeing that. <\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A realization. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":13347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2],"tags":[266,268,479,267,265],"class_list":["post-13341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-our-friends","category-trending","tag-curly","tag-frizzy","tag-new","tag-very-curly","tag-wavy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>My Long Curly Hair Doesn\u2019t Define Me |<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Growing up in the Latinx community deeply impacted this writer\u2019s relationship with her hair. Join her on her journey to self actualization.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/curly-hair-personal-story\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Long Curly Hair Doesn\u2019t Define Me |\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Growing up in the Latinx community deeply impacted this writer\u2019s relationship with her hair. Join her on her journey to self actualization.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/curly-hair-personal-story\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-29T13:00:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-04-13T18:55:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn-blog.prose.com\/1\/2020\/12\/curly-hair-journey.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1540\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Keely McCormick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Keely McCormick\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/curly-hair-personal-story#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/curly-hair-personal-story\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Keely McCormick\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/cd00aa1df81e8b84cc05265f0413de08\"},\"headline\":\"I Am More Than My Long Curly Hair\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-29T13:00:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-04-13T18:55:30+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/curly-hair-personal-story\"},\"wordCount\":984,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/curly-hair-personal-story#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cdn-blog.prose.com\/1\/2020\/12\/curly-hair-journey.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"curly\",\"frizzy\",\"new\",\"very curly\",\"wavy\"],\"articleSection\":[\"From Our Friends\",\"Trending\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/curly-hair-personal-story#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/curly-hair-personal-story\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/curly-hair-personal-story\",\"name\":\"My Long Curly Hair Doesn\u2019t Define Me |\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/curly-hair-personal-story#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prose.com\/blog\/curly-hair-personal-story#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cdn-blog.prose.com\/1\/2020\/12\/curly-hair-journey.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-29T13:00:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-04-13T18:55:30+00:00\",\"description\":\"Growing up in the Latinx community deeply impacted this writer\u2019s relationship with her hair. 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