The quest to get my curls back

Step one: embrace the frizz...

"If you could have one wish come true, what would it be?"

This was the question poised by my teacher to my 10-year-old classmates and I, sat dutifully facing each other for 'circle time', the weekly hour when we were expected to reveal our deepest feelings AA-style.

Of course she came to me first. With no barometer of previous replies to measure my own, I sat for an eternity before offering: "Umm...to have straight hair?"

Let me tell you, she was AGHAST. "Hair!! Of all the things to say, you choose HAIR! How ridiculous, Louise!"

I was a pretty introverted child who always tried their best at school and being shamed like this still makes feel defensive! This woman wore heavy makeup and had a lacquered perm, so it wasn't like she was completely devoid of vanity herself. 

She moved on to the next person. A boy who quietly said: "I wish my mum and dad hadn't split up". OH FFS, THANKS, JEFFREY.

So yes, my naturally curly hair was somewhat of a bone of contention for me growing up, in a completely silly way of course. I just wanted to have hair like everyone else, and not have the bitchy girl greet me in the morning with comments like "Wow, your hair is very (dramatic pause) flyaway today" with a snide recommendation to buy FrizzEase served up as a helpful aside. 

By secondary school, I'd learned to slick it back and straighten the bits I could with those BabyLiss straighteners that leaked scorching water down your neck. 

And then GHDs entered the chat. Glorious GHDs. They were my saving grace until my last couple of years of high school, when I suddenly took a notion to embrace what I had, mostly inspired by Carrie Bradshaw. 

In the years that followed, I've actually considered myself lucky to be able to chop and change between curly and straight hair. 

And then pregnancy came. Don't get me wrong, it brought with it wonderful hormones that made my hair grow the longest it's ever been. And I didn't suffer too badly with post-partum hair loss. But it also stole my curls. 

I've been left with weird half waves that I'm now desperately trying to coax back into curl mode. Here’s what I’m doing…

• Learning to embrace fluff and frizz. As with many things, my perfectionist streak has prevented progress. If I couldn’t have flawlessly formed ringlets from every strand, I was out. Since realising this is ridiculous, and also that it suddenly seems quite cool to have frizz and natural texture in hair, it’s been weirdly liberating. Like, yeah my hair is a bit of a riot today, who tf cares. While I navigate the weird in-between stage in the hope of getting my curls back, this is just how it has to be.

• No knee-jerk product purchases. Another of my procrastinator practices is deciding I must have item A, B and C before I can attempt change. I have therefore banned myself from fancy stuff and am making do with a spray bottle made up of 1/3 conditioner mixed with water. I use on wet hair but also on day 2/3/4/5 dry hair to revive. Yup, I don’t need to wash my hair nearly as much now. I then scrunch my partner’s cheap-ass hair gel through before diffuser drying upside down.

• Ditch the Curly Girl Method. I’ve studied this in-depth in years gone buy and felt exhausted before even trying. So as mentioned above, I’m opting for trial and error with what I’ve already got.

I’m only a week in, but I take far less time to get ready, my hair is less damaged, and I somehow feel more ‘me’ [insert going-back-to-my-roots pun].

The coolest girls always seem low-maintenance and unbothered by imperfection, right? I can live in hope…