Go Grey, Go Curls -- Stand Out!

by Korie Beth Brown
(Sierra Madre, CA, USA)

When I was a teenager, my mother always used to say that she would keep the grey if it came in silver. Unfortunately, her grey came in yellow-grey. So she dyed it -- what a pain and timekeep! She also complained about her stick-straight hair, which she kept very short. Naturally, all of this made a huge impression on my budding sense of style.

Now, in my late forties, I am incredibly lucky with my hair. The grey came in silver -- but also in a streak at the front of my head! So I sport an 'X-Men' swath of silver embedded in a dark brown nest of curls. My hairdresser always warns me that hair thins as we get older. I then ask him: "Has mine thinned yet?" He grins and pauses before answering: "Not exactly." We laugh -- because it's still bushy, thick, and all over the place.

My curl pattern is very loose but very curly (if that makes sense). It's been like that my entire life; I have a photo of myself at three months with the same dark tangle atop my baby head. Nothing has changed. It tends to be dry, and my chosen workout (swimming) doesn't exactly help. But it's relatively easy-care. Actually, it's more of a 'do as I want or I will frizz out and make you miserable'... but why am I surprised that, again, my hair completely fits my personality?

I've been accosted many times by the 'Brazilian Blowout Nazis", but the two times lately that I've had it straightened (for the day! Only!) I wasn't happy with it. It looked okay (to my eyes) to good (to my friends' eyes). But, as my husband said, it mostly looked wrong. It's not me.

As I mentioned earlier, having a mother with super-thin, stick-straight hair that she kept super-short because it didn't do anything on its own has pretty much made my mind up. Yeah, I am limited on what I can do with it. Yeah, it has a mind of its own. Yeah, someone went in there once and hasn't been seen since. Yeah, birds nest in it. (This last isn't a joke -- but a whole different story...) HOWEVER... sometimes Mother Nature really knows best. Curl on!