What don't I know about having curly hair?

What do people with straight hair not know about having curly hair? (and vice versa)

That it sucks? That all the fun hairstyles for men rely on having straight hair and so I never have any fun at the stylists.

Female here - I like it but it either has to be put up in someway (ponytail for example) or at least the front and top styled so it doesn’t poof straight up. Regular hair cuts are a must to keep it from running wild. I have played with layers and no layers. No layers only works if I keep it very long, otherwise, I like shorter layers on the top so they will blowdry fast and lay semi-flat.

The good: It’s wash and go. I don’t even own a hair dryer.
The bad: It MUST be washed (or at least wetted) every day. Once I sleep on it, it’s a matted mess.
The extra bad: It occasionally tangles so badly that it takes a good 20 minutes to work the knots out, and I lose an alarming bit of it in the process.

I own one comb and I use it maybe 3 times a year. Haven’t owned a brush in 20 years.

I also don’t own a hair dryer.

If I want it to look good I have to take a shower about 3 hours prior to an event and then sit up while it dries.

If it starts to straighten out, it looks awful. This happens if it gets too long, if you wear a hat or if you sleep on it wrong.

I think I look totally silly and fat-faced with straight hair. I think a lot of you straight-hairs do too :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s temperamental. Any change in the weather can make it frizz, even if it’s not chemically straightened. Moisture in the hair will make it frizz. So, extremely cold and hot weather can have the SAME effect even though people always say hot weather cause curls/frizz.

Depending on how curly your hair is (afro, curly, wavy) it can be twice as long straight. When you get a hair cut and the hair is wet, it won’t look that long dry. That’s what I hate about curly hair. I once had a nice bob and it curled to look like up to my ears. I has to straighten it every day. My hair is more waved/loose curls.

Curly hair isn’t wearable the next day. You can’t brush curls. If you do, they’ll frizz. In my experience, curls have to be set right with product. One mistake and they just don’t fall right.

This is why unless very HOT or snowy weather, I just straighten my hair with a blow dryer.

I think curls get pulled down/out by the weight of the hair. I notice about two inches of my roots are straight. I have more loosely curled hair.

That unless you’ve found the elusive combination of treatments and products that really will control frizz and define curl you should not visit Baltimore between May and October.

The bad news is, the combination that worked beautifully last Sunday, when we had 47% humidity was absolutely useless on Thursday when the humidity was over 60%.

In the 80s when people were getting curly perms, my hairdresser would tell me over and over how much people were paying to get what grows outta my head naturally. The tabels have turned. Nobody wnats what I have, and to get smooth flowing tresses like the ones in a shampoo commercial I’d have to pony up some serious dough.

I’m hoping I live long enough to see a time when the most sought after look is Albert Einstein’s bed head. I am all over that.

When it’s long and thick like mine, it can hurt so bad to comb through it’s almost not worth having, but I don’t want an afro so I force myself to keep at it. And every day there’s what looks like a head full of hair in the comb! It can only be combed in the shower, full of conditioner, and that conditioner must be a combination of John Frieda and Herbal Essence at just the right amount. If I let it go to my scalp it’ll feel greasy. If it’s not enough, the combing is harder.
I have to rinse with cold water even when it’s cold outside or my hair will turn into a giant fuzz ball. I have a short amount of time from patting dry to getting in the mousse and smoothing serum or it will turn into a giant fuzz ball. If there’s humidity in the air (and this is Memphis so there’s frequently humidity in the air) if I don’t sit in front of the A/C to dry it–giant fuzz ball.

If I follow all the rules I can have good hair for 24 hours, and acceptable pony tail/bun hair for another 24 hours. Inevitably by the third day I’m sporting a giant fuzz ball.

You can’t sleep on it without having it turn into a weirdly poufy-flattened mess. The frizz is never-ending. Hats can seriously screw it up in the winter. Straightening it is a royal nightmare.

When Hollywood stars show up on the red carpet with perfect frizz-free waves and curls, it’s the result of many hours of stylists’ hard work. If your hair is like mine and naturally curly and wavy, it will also have frizz. It is unavoidable.

This is pretty much word for word my thoughts upon reading the title of the thread, before even opening it up. It really is a curse. Okay, pretty far down on the severity of curses as far as it goes, but still. Curse.

I love my curls.

However, some things you don’t know if you don’t have curls: Curly hair is dry. It can’t be washed every day. (Unless you’re willing to spend tons of time and money on "product"to put what you just washed out back in.) It should never be blowdried or it goes all flooffy. Towel-drying too harshly will also just create frizz. Basically it’s a different animal than perfectly straight hair and should be treated by its own rules.

And kept right, it’s striking.

You know, until I read this like this, I sometimes I forget NOT everyone combs their hair in the shower. :smack:

I love my curly hair but I benefit in that it’s thin and curly. But you look at it funny and it tangles itself. I can’t use a lot of clips, since it is so thin. I can’t comb it once it dries. I won’t wash it every day. It’s frizzy. It constantly reacts to the weather.

I do lose about two or three inches when it dries. And when it’s bad, it looks awful.

When it looks good, though, it’s fabulous.

Did you always have curly hair or did any of you have curly hair when young and then it went straight?

Reading this thread with quite a bit of interest. I grew up with straight hair. I always had straight hair except when I was pregnant, when it would get wavy with two spiral curls.

About six months ago, I got curly hair. Well, maybe not quite curly, but very definitely, unmistakably wavy, with many spiral curls creeping in. I have no idea what changed. Everyone tells me wavy/curly hair is genetic, and I must have had wavy hair all along but it was too long to tell because the weight pulled out the wave (nope - had a bob for several years in college. It was straight.)

Anyhow, I’m trying to figure out what to do about it now. I feel like I’m learning hair care all over again.

Is this really universally true, though? I’ve always had oily hair, but I read this in Curly Girl (see, I really am trying to learn!) so I’ve been trying her no-shampoo method, just conditioner and friction to clean it, along with hair gel to define the curl/wave. What I feel like is that I still have oily, gunky hair that’s now *also *crusty and “dry” because of the gel.

I’ve never, ever washed my hair every day, straight or curly. But I think I’m ready to break down and go back to shampoo…it looks better, with less frizz, but I hate this gunky feeling.

If you cut it too short you get helmet hair. I spent 4 months looking like my grandmother when a new stylist interpreted intructions for a trim to mean cut it all off.

Can’t wear bangs.

I can’t style it and expect the style to stay in for 30 minutes if there is any moisture in the air at all.

At the right length & with a good cut, it is a way simple wash-and-go deal.

Bangs! Oh, I’d love to have bangs. But nope–the stylist would cut them, it’d look great for a day, and after I washed it I’d have three ringlets clinging to my hairline. Unless I wanted to brush and straighten my bangs. Every single day. I don’t have that kind of time or patience, especially when I live in a damp, humid ocean climate.

When I was a couple years old with a head full of ringlet curls, my mom inexplicably decided to cut bangs on me. It was awful. But I was two, so I didn’t care.

I’ve always hated my curly hair. There was a boy in junior high who used to call me “pubes” because it was always so fuzzy. Since then, I’ve learned to handle it a lot better. On non-humid days I even like to wear my hair down and curly! Most of the time I straighten it using the InStyler. My hair is about shoulder length. It takes me about 10 minutes to dry with a hair dryer and another 20-25 to straighten. Then I’m good for 2-3 days until it starts to look greasy and I have to wash it again. This doesn’t work on really humid days though, so then it just goes up in a ponytail.

I hate my naturally curly hair too. I know the grass is always greener, and many straight-haired women tell me they would love to have curly hair…but they have NO idea what a hassle it can be. You could buy a mansion with all the money I’ve spent on hair products over my lifetime, and I still haven’t found the magic bullet for frizz. Summers are a nightmare; I spend about four months straight with my hair in a ponytail. Straightening it myself is much too difficult and having it done professionally gets really expensive.

Nope, it’s a curse, and don’t let anyone tell you different. :slight_smile: