Have I Killed my Curls?

I’ve been thinking a lot about my hair lately.

I realize that that probably makes me sound incredibly shallow, but I can’t help it. I always hit a point where my hair has been in a similarish style for several months and I start thinking about ways I can change it up to make it more exciting.

I went to Btown last weekend to see my family while the Hubster went camping. Spart had a hair appointment on Saturday, and since we have the same stylist, I decided to go with her to see if I could get my bangs trimmed at the same time. As the stylist started working with her hair, I felt old, familiar pangs of jealousy that I’ve been dealing with my whole life.

You see, I’ve always felt like I got the short end of the stick when it comes to hair in my family. Both my sisters have amazing, red, curly hair–like stop in the street to stare amazing red hair.

We a little bit like a Brady Bunch family in that we have an even split with the children in our family–three boys and three girls. Doodle is the oldest, then all three of us girls followed in succession. Peeah  is the oldest girl, and she ended up with huge, dark red curls:

Next was Spart, and she too ended up with red curls:

And then I came along, and I got neither the red hair or the big curls like my sisters. My hair is much more of a brownish auburn color, and while my hair is wavy, it doesn’t do nearly what both Peeah’s and Spart’s does.

So, I’ve always been a little bit jealous. You always want what you don’t have, right?

With some effort, I used to be able to scrunch it up and get some fun curly waves. I didn’t even own a straightener in the days before I met the Hubster when I lived on my own in The City. And while they aren’t the same big curls like my sisters, I used to love when I could get my hair to do this:

And yes, I used to be a blonde:

I was barely 19 – 20 in those photos, and that’s really the last time that I remember having really good curly hair. Not long after I got married I bought my first hair straightener and I’ve had one ever since. It didn’t even occur to me that straightening my hair every day could make me lose what little curl I did have. As time as passed I’ve noticed that when I did want to leave my hair curly, it just didn’t seem to have the same… oomph that it used to.

So, as I was sitting in the salon with Spart this weekend the  stylist laughed as she noticed that her bangs don’t even curl anymore as she straightens them every day.

And it hit me: have I killed my curls?

I’ve been thinking about it since Saturday and the idea of it has made me quite sad. Then almost like she knew what I was thinking about, my friend Steph posted the most amazing curly hair tutorial on her blog last night.

While my hair is currently much longer than what is shown in the tutorial, the way in which hers curls is very similar to mine–or at least the way it used to.If you’ve been following all my weekly belly photos, you’ll see my hair is straight in almost all of them. I’ve gotten in this habit of straightening my hair every day, even though it takes more time and effort than leaving it curly.

So, I made a decision: for the next seven days I’m not going to straighten my hair.

If that goes well, I’m not going to straighten it until Christmas.

I started this morning. While I didn’t have the exact products she used, I had similar ones and followed through with what she said. I ended up with big, loose waves that I am actually loving.

They’re not the curls I used to have, but I’m intrigued to see if I can make them come back. I did have to straighten my bangs a bit as they are so short right now, but as they grow a little longer I’ll stop that as well.

I’m going out today to pick up the hair products she recommends in her post, and I’ll take regular photos to see if my hair changes at all over the next few days / weeks.

Bring on the lion hair!