My Curly-Headed Ninny Muggins

This hair of Chloe’s wasn’t always easy to deal with!  And since this type of hair skipped me in the gene pool, I had no experience dealing with a wild mane of noodles. So, when I was blessed with Chloe and her hair and she was just a little lassie, it took me quite some time to conquer the learning curve of taming this loveliness!

First you should know that, when Chloe was born, it was in no way apparent that her hair would be a stand-out. She was mostly bald for the first few years of her life.

I made sure everyone knew she was a girl by dressing her in bows, hats and pig tails!

Then, the “wild-child” hair started sprouting!

When she started in school, crazy hair wasn’t going to cut it. So, for years we just slicked it back into a pony tail.  This worked because she was a dancer and it was always required that her hair be pulled back. So, that just became the default hair-do, even for school. 

Sounds easy enough…

However, we had to be sure to brush it only when it was wet and fully conditioned.  Brushing when dry was not only nearly impossible, but the results could be disastrous. 

Think giant brillo pad or un-sheered sheep!

After washing, we would glue it down with mountains of gel and hope that the curls, which seemed to have a mind of their own, wouldn’t pop free like a broken bed spring!

We mastered this technique in time, and all was well.

Along with the curls, this child of mine was also blessed with a tall forehead so, in retrospect, slicked back was probably not the ideal look for her. 

We experimented…

We went through a stage where we got wild and wooly and would allow one curl to break free from the slick-down. That curl was right in the middle of her forehead.  Her friend, Bradley, called it her “Elvis”.  I called it her “naughty curl”. 

My mom/Granny would recite the poem: 

There was a little girl and she had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead.  When she was good she was very good indeed and when she was bad she was horrid!

Granny was quoting Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Since Granny also had curly hair, she heard that poem a lot growing up, along with other curly hair taunts.

The one-lose-curl look gave us the courage to try other things.  Like two braids instead of one pony tail.  This was fun because the curls were like their own rubber band. When braided, they just entwined around themselves and stayed put…no rubber band needed. 

A plus for the braids was that, when the braids were removed, Chloe’s hair was squished into being more straight, which was a whole new discovery of hair taming possibilities.

When she was young and in school, Chloe would never, ever wear her hair down.  It was way too big of an ordeal.  It might look good wet and when it was first done but that was just trickery because later in the day, her hair would betray her and become a ball of wonder. A spectacle.  Think: King of the Forest Lion’s Mane.  Sheer horror for poor Chloe.

It started out tidy and then turned into a frizz bomb!

So, hair was a big deal for Chloe and me.  We spent a lot of time just keeping it in check so as not to be embarrassed by the pure spectacle of it.  The hours spent on hair was not about looking glorious to wow her friends.  She wasn’t the “look at me”, “center of attention-loving” type. 

It was all about staying as incognito as possible.

Chloe did not embrace the popularity of her hair.

Not only would strangers constantly comment on the gloriousness of these locks but many people…complete strangers at the grocery store, felt the need to touch it.  Somehow, Chloe’s hair had a way of taunting old ladies and kids and grown men and…anyone really.  Her hair broke down barriers and completely shattered the personal space rule.  Chloe’s hair had it’s own set of social rules that it did not consult Chloe about.

Her hair popularity was not harmonious with her personality.

She always politely nodded and smiled, secretly cringing.  She tried to stay kind and understand that others weren’t blessed with this freakishly marvelous hair. She knew it was her duty to oblige them with a quick squeeze, even though touching curls just turns them into a far-worse frizz bomb. 

Sweet Chloe was always kind and humble about the clueless, stranger-induced, hair debacle.

Looming in the near future was 6^th grade camp.  A fun and exciting time but loaded with hair-anxiety for Chloe.  She was 10.  10-year-olds can deal with hair unless it’s Chloe Hair which requires a degree in curlyhairology. A Curlz PHD.  A Doctorate of Hairosophy. I had a hard-enough time with it at age 39. How was 10-year-old Chloe going to deal?

I seriously considered keeping her home from 6^th grade sleep away camp because…A whole week alone with the Hair….Noooooooo!

Then we had an ingenious idea.  Corn rows!  Like Bo Derek.  Perfect.  No fuss, no muss.  Just corn row that hair all up and don’t touch it for a week.  Problem solved!

 Whew!  Dodged the bullet of being a sissy who bails out of 6^th grade camp.

Another hair adventure occurred in the year that Chloe’s highly competitive dance team decided that every dancer must wear their hair stick straight.  Wow, Ok. 

This dance team was a bit like the Soup Nazi, (Seinfeld). 

You didn’t complain or ask questions or even look cross-eyed. 

You were not allowed to speak with the director. The scenario was a bit like the Great and Powerful OZ: “Nobody gets in to see the Wizard, not nobody, not no how!”

If you wanted the privilege of dancing in the “Good Group” you kept your mouth shut, your head down and just made it happen.  No rocking the boat.

So, we purchased a flattening iron and tried our hand at straightening.

First, we used the braid technique which consisted of braiding the hair when wet, wear that style for a day or two and then, when dry, two days later, unbraid and start flat ironing.

This process took hours so if the dance call time was 8AM, we would straighten for hours, the night before and then rise and shine at 5AM-ish to re-straighten again for fine-tuning and taming the buggers that curled up over-night. 

Let’s all take a moment to gaze at Chloe’s hideous pose, Gavin in dance gear and Chloe’s braces-face, prepubescent awkward stage! Oh the cuteness!

Insanity!  This was a lot of work, but we were willing to “go the extra mile” and “take one for the team”!  I mean, we would do anything to be in the “Good Group”!

Competitions were not just once in a while.  There were competitions just about every weekend and they ruled our world.  We literally did nothing else but do hair and go to competitions.

So, we had another ingenious hair idea.  This straight hair pony tail process might be easier if we had her hair chemically straightened. 

Oy.  The things we do for hair and dance teams. 

This was not only expensive but just a really bad idea.  I sat in the salon with Chloe for hours watching, what appeared to be, a science experiment.  I believe the straightening “potion” that this stylist was using was for African American hair, which Chloe’s hair resembled but was actually quite different…much less coarse. 

After hours of processing, the stylist rinsed the hair and began brushing and flat ironing.  I watched in horror as handfuls of hair were breaking off of Chloe’s head.  The stylist looked at me like, “oh no” which is not a good look from the person who holds your shy daughter’s hair future in her hands.

I hid my shock and awe in an effort to keep from alarming Chloe, but I wanted to shout,

“Oh my God her hair is falling out by the handfuls, make it stop!!!!!” 

But I sat there with glazed over eyes and a faux smile on my face like a crazy person just nodding and grinning like, “All is well sweet, little Chloe.  Everything is going to be juuuuust great.”

Hair disasters, thankfully, are often not quite as disastrous as you initially think.  Yes, lots and lots of hair tumbled into the sink but luckily there was more hair to camouflage the bald spots and tiny one-inch-length hair, which Chloe later named her “Old man hairs”. 

The end result of the chemical straightening was damaged hair that was a little less curly and only slightly easier to straighten.

Well…lesson learned.  And Chloe didn’t seem to notice or care that much that she lost half of her head of hair. And…there’s always hats!

I was so glad that she was not a teenage drama queen.  The whole thing could have been traumatizing!

So, we slicked all the wayward lengths back and pony-tailed it up and ironed the heck out of that pony tail.  Such a team player, my Chloe!

The next hair evolution was the half way up.  This was a big step because it allowed the curls to be wild and free with just a tad of tameness around her face.  I absolutely loved this style.  She wears that one to this day.

Chloe also learned that LA Looks Gel would glue her curls in place for the day so they didn’t become gargantuan.  

Once she learned how to tame her mane, Chloe learned to love her hair. 

Now and then she humors us all by spending hours flattening it. 

There are lots of hats and beanies for the days that the hair has a mind of its own.  There is the “bun-on-top of the head” look and the “pig-tail” look and there have been many different colors of Chloe’s curls. Her straightened hair is super crazy, but I’d say it is unanimous that we all prefer those magical curls that make Chloe, Chloe!  They are perfect and spectacular, just like her.

Which “Chloe hair-do” do you like best?

If you’re blessed with a seemingly untamable mane of top ramen noodles on your head, check out Chloe’s hair technique on her youtube channel.  This may just be the magic potion for your curly locks!

Embrace the YOU that you were born to be.  YOUniqueness Rules!  Xoxo Jill