Italian Girls, Curly Hair! Part 3!

This topic is my most searched topic on my site, I believe our curly hair mystifies our cultural foundations.  Here's my story continued: my father had very tight curly hair and even as a man his hair even at 91 maintained its curly texture.  I definitely took after my father, and interestingly enough both my parents are direct from Reggio Calabria, Italy.  In my family, there a few of us with my type of hair and now with the newer generation, my niece has my hair, so its fascinating to understanding DNA and how it evolves over generations and lineage.   

Here's a link to the hair products I use and for me personally, its a full on task to take care of curly hair. Most days, I actually wear my hair up in a bun or braid.  I do get away with not washing hair for a few days because curly hair allows for it, just my preference.  You do have to comb out your hair though on wash days because any type of bun or braid seriously knots my hair.   The other element that I believe is the secret sauce for maintaining and getting my hair to look good is actually coloring my hair.  I get my hair highlighted and honestly when I do, it controls my hair even more.  

Let me know if you have more questions.  

 

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Italian Curly Hair - The Process

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Many of you sent comments and emails about being of a diverse background and having curly hair, and how to deal with it, so I said I would start sharing more of my insight on this topic.  Managing and styling curly hair is very unique and does require some patience.  I grew up feeling very sad a times because I didn't identify with other girls when I was the only one with curly hair and couldn't really relate to how they blew out their hair straight or wore it a certain cute ways.  Girls can make you feel bad at times.  Looking back as kids we were (are) so fragile and now I think back and say wow, my hair is actually powerful now, so this also something that may be beneficial to children who maybe don't always look like someone or may have different characteristics.  Education and empowerment are key.

 Funny how the world works. So, in order to find myself and get to a point of being happy about my hair I had to learn how to do my hair.  Now, I was lucky because my sister grew up and ended up owning her own salon and becoming one of the best stylists out there.  So, as she got great, she used my hair as her experimental space.  By the time I got to college, I had grown out my hair, I was definitely coloring it and learned that cutting it shorter only made it swell.  The way you see my hair above is basically how I've worn it the last 25 years.  I will share more on how to style and maintain curly hair, I've been talking about doing a video.  Stay tuned.  Tweet