by Gretchen Louise Glaser, 2004

I’ve always had great potential for curly hair–it just took a while for my curls to sprout. My mom spent the first years of my life sticking little pink bows on my almost-bald head with Karo syrup so people could tell I was a girl. When my curls finally grew, they were bright red, and great for pulling on!

I spent most of my growing-up years with my hair in braids–just like Anne of Green Gables. There was always a definite curl to my hair, but sometimes Mom put curlers in my hair on Saturday night for Sunday ringlets. “The price of beauty,” she’d always say of the uncomfortable curlers. When I began doing my own hair, things only got worse. I still shudder when I look at the pictures–why did I do that to my bangs?!

At thirteen I chopped off my waist-length curls, and got shoulder-length frizz. My early teens were the “Big Bad Hair Years.” The easiest route became to just keep chopping it off–which I did! But I’d heard men like long hair, so I decided to try to grow it long again–but I straightened it each day as best I could. My mom was always saying how she missed my thick hair. I thought it was the haircut I’d gotten, but the truth was, my hair was naturally thinner because the curls were meant to give it body!

Then my best girlfriend Natalie emailed me one day saying, “You have to get this book!” She actually didn’t even have “this book” (Curly Girl) yet herself, but a friend had told her about it, and she was totally excited.

Now you have to understand, my best girlfriend has gorgeous, long, curly locks like those of the fair maiden in John Keats’ painting “La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” She often tells me about a new treatment she’s found for her hair, and I think it sounds complicated. But this time her explanation was simple, “You never use shampoo on curly hair, did ya know that? It dries it out–you just use conditioner.”

I thought that sounded easy, so I attempted it for two days, after which I emailed her in desperation saying my hair was greasy and gross. “Oh sissy,” she wrote back, “you need to get the book first–it helps so much! Just not using shampoo won’t work. But no, mine LOVES the change–it’s never been so curly. I like it lots. Once you get the book and see how it works, I am sure your hair will love it too!”

So, I ordered the book through my local bookstore, more excited than ever to try it as each of her emails continued to advertise the Curly Girl look: “I have happy hair! I had to find my inner curl…Mom and I like the way our hair looks and feels! I did a conditioning thing on my hair and it’s soooooooo soft. Happy hair!”

“Happy hair”? My mother has always said that my hair was just like my personality–very expressive and always different! So I laughed at Natalie’s personification of her hair, and awaited the arrival of my book.

I got a call from a childhood friend, who works at Waldenbooks. “Your book is in,” Ariane said. “I knew it was for you as soon as I saw it, because the girl on front just looks like you!” [The original version of the book, pictured at right, had a redhead on front.] I picked up the book when I went shopping the next week with a curly-haired friend of mine. (I’d known Becca for a year before I saw her hair in its natural state. She would always straighten it, but oh how gorgeous are her ringlets!) Becca started reading the book while I tried on clothes at the mall. “Can I borrow it as soon as you’re finished?” she begged.

I read Curly Girl when I got home that night, and began implementing the principles immediately. That was the last time I shampooed my hair, in July of 2004. I went to Walmart, spent a long time reading the ingredients on a dozen different conditioner bottles, found a couple I liked, and went home armed with the right kind of conditioner and some gel. I also told all my girlfriends about the book, and a “curly girl revolution” started among my friends online.

I’ve fought the wave all my life. I was the girl who used Dawn Dishwashing Detergent as shampoo. And I had finally figured out how to straighten my hair by putting it in a scrunchie as soon as I got out of the shower. But I threw out the shampoo (especially the dishwashing detergent!), gave my hairbrush to my straight-haired sister, and am loving the way my hair feels and looks under Lorraine Massey’s Curly Girl treatment.

I’ve always known I was naturally a curly girl, and for the first time in my life, my curls are easy to manage…and I’m loving it! I guess you could say that curly hair is happy hair after all.

My Personal Curly Girl Method & Favorite Recipes

For my type 3B curls, I rinse my hair well with lukewarm water and condition well. Then I barely rinse the top of my head with cold water, leaving the rest of the conditioner in my curls. After scrunch-drying-and-gelling, I use claw clips to lift and criss-cross three sections of hair from the top of my head. (Click here for pictures.) When my hair’s dry I take out the clips, turn my head over, give my curls a good shake, and let them bounce everywhere!

Once a week I use the Brown Sugar Exfoliating Scrub, which I prefer to call Candied Curls or Boy Bait. It cleans any accumulated “gunk” off my scalp and makes my curls smell so yummy! Go heavy on the sugar, light on the conditioner. Be sure to rinse well with cold water, and then condition your scalp and hair normally. Try using equal amounts white and brown sugar for softer curls!

The Lavender Mist goes everywhere with me–I have a bottle in my car, in my room, and in my backpack. And when my hair needs some extra-special treatment, I give it “Love is in the Hair“.

Note: If I use plenty of conditioner and don’t foresee any bad weather, I can often skip the gel for a softer, more natural curly look.

My Favorite Curly Girl Supplies

For conditioner I alternate between TRESemme Vitamin E & Aloe Colour Revitalizing and Aussie Moist Conditioner. (I can’t decide which is my favorite conditioner, so I use both. And no, my hair is not colored–’tis very naturally red–but that’s TRESemme’s highest moisture conditioner!)

While my conditioner is like handcream that I use lots of every day, I use LustraSilk’s Placenta & Jojoba Oil Cholesterol as a special spot treatment for my curls, especially the ends. I’ll scrunch a bit on the ends right before I apply gel, or spread some over the canopy and through the rest of my hair before I go to bed.

I use the Curls Like Us Curl Cloth to scrunch my hair dry instead of my bath towel–it’s much more gentle on my curls, and it’s just way too cute with its “curly” edge!

My favorite gel is TRESemme Curl Care. I use it sparingly and scrunch exceedingly! And as always, my Lavender Mist is on hand to take away the crunchiness if I use too much gel.

Married Curls Are Happy Curls

a curly “afterward” from Mrs. Gretchen Acheson, 2008

This Curly Girl fell in love, got married, and is living happily ever after with her curly husband and our dozen curly-haired children. (Oh, wait, I guess we just have one curly baby girl so far!) Sharing the shower with my favorite person changed my curly girl routine a bit. Moving from a humid valley to dry mountains changed it some more.

My married curls are very happy curls. But I spend a lot less time on hair care these days, and a lot more time caring for my husband. As a farmer’s wife, my curls have to be pretty versatile–you never know what’s going to be in a day’s work! Cruising around on a John Deere “Gator” can give my curls a singularly wind-blown look. When my curls are longer, the end of the day often finds them up in some form of pony tail or bun. The more hot and pregnant I got our second summer, the more my curls grew, and the more I chopped them off. When half my curls fell out after my curly daughter was born, I was grateful for the endless shapes and sizes of curls that hid all the new curls growing in.

Our dry weather can be pretty brutal on curls, so I apply generous amounts of conditioner and just barely rinse it out (my husband says you can’t call what I do rinsing, actually). And my hair care products tend to be less from the WalMart hair care aisle (we try to avoid shopping there as much as is possible!), and more whatever natural hair conditioner happens to be on sale at the local grocery outlet. I’ve even experimented with making my own hair gel.

At the moment I’m planning to try to grow my hair out again, but my husband knows me better than to believe any plans in regards to my curls will remain unchanged! (My solution for bad hair days is giving myself a hair cut.) The best part about having married curls is that my husband loves me regardless of how my curls look. He likes them short, he likes them long–but he says he likes it best when he can tell I’m happy with my hair. I think that means he likes it best when I’m focusing on him, instead of self-absorbed in my curls.

Yes, I spend a little less time on my curls these days. Between the changes in hormones and humidity, my curls are a bit more wavy than they used to be. And I may not always look like a model from the pages of Curly Girl. But as long as I see the adoration in the mirror of my husband’s eyes, I don’t worry too much about how my curls look. After all, I’m his curly beauty. And to this happily married curly girl, that’s all that matters.