Manage Curly Hair
a guest post by Cindy Holt Smith
Today’s post is brought to you by a friend of mine from high school, Cindy Holt Smith. As someone who used to struggle with wavy hair, I totally related to one of her recent Facebook posts about her struggle to manage her curly hair. With her permission, I’m reposting her experiences here for your inspiration. To learn more about Cindy, visit her website and if you live in southern New Jersey, be sure to book a hair appointment with her or attend one of her yoga classes!
cindy holt smith
I am passionate about curly hair; one of the reasons is obvious; I have curly hair. Some of you may not know the other reason; as an adolescent I thought I had the most GOD AWFUL, FRIZZY, DRY, DISGUSTING hair in the world.
It was because I wasn’t shown HOW to work with my hair; I was working against it. I would spend an hour and a half every morning to blow dry and curl my hair; there were no flat irons, so I improvised. I drug the curling iron through my hair, and gave it a little “flip” at the ends to “feather” my hair.
That lasted until I walked out the door; my hair immediately lost its shape, and, on a humid day, became progressively bigger and bigger; which in the mid 70’s when the style was silky straight and smooth, well, needless to say, my head looked like a big, crazy mess!
It wasn’t until I became a hairdresser in the 80’s, (What an AWESOME time to become a hairdresser!) that I started to realize the potential my hair had, and what it was capable of doing. I used to crack up when people asked me what I did with my hair to get it like that. Mousse had just come on the scene, and people thought it was the miracle hair styling foam that could make your hair defy gravity and add TONS of volume even if you had only 10 hairs on your head. I always chuckled when people asked me how I got my hair the way I did, and before I could answer, they would say, “Ohh………. I KNOW…… YOU USE………… MOUSSE!’ I would reply, “Well, yeah, that’s part of it, and another part is because my hair is naturally curly, and I have a lot of hair!”
In the 80’s everyone had perms except for me and a few other curly girls I know; Darlene, Franca, and Cheryl are the ones that I can name off the top of my head……we ROCKED the curls then and we are ROCKING them NOW!!!!
Fast forward 30+ years, and I am so happy that I am now living my passion by teaching clients to embrace their curls, how to care for them, and how to make their special curl type look AWESOME! My client and friend, Paula, recently embraced her curls and she looks fabulous! (You can check out her gorgeous curls on my today’s Instagram post!)
Over 70% of the population has some sort of curl or bend in their hair; when I show clients how to embrace their curl, the first words out of their mouth are, “Oh my GOSH! I didn’t know that my hair was THIS curly!” The second I get is, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t know my curls could look SO GOOD!”
And then I smile……because it takes me back to a time when I didn’t think I could ever make my hair look that good either…….It’s so empowering to help my clients embrace their hair, and embrace who they are!
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Thank you, Cindy! Your curls are gorgeous!
You can follow Cindy’s Instagram HERE.
You can follow Cindy’s Facebook page HERE.
You can read more about Cindy on her website HERE.
(…and Cindy, can you believe it’s been 33 years since we graduated high school? That’s just crazy. And depressing!)
I’m a curly girl, too and I had the same woes with my hair. I never liked my hair until I was in my mid-30’s and moved to Colorado and no longer had to deal with the humidity of the southeast.
Becca,
It’s great to finally embrace the hair we’ve been given. It just takes some time and the correct product! A lack of humidity helps, too! Thanks for your comment.
Charlene