Four years ago, I publicly lied about something.
It genuinely lives rent-free in my mind, 24/7. I fucked up. I lied to you all, and to myself. And so, I’m coming forward with an official editorial correction.
It was April 2021, and I’d been commissioned for a national magazine to write about my hair. I’d recently been on a journey of self-discovery, and found out my Sephardic/Irish roots had led me to being born with… well, Sephardic/Irish roots. My thick, curly hair; often ridiculed by other mid-aughts fashion victims at school, had taken on a new meaning, and I was ready to embrace it. Finally.
Except - and here’s the lie I didn’t even know I was telling - I wasn’t. Like, at all.
Eight months after it was published, my crunchy curls dripping with Olaplex and sea salt spray, I spent £300-odd on a keratin treatment to strip it, relax it, and carefully carve it into something it wasn’t. I sat in the hairdresser’s chair on a dismal December day, clutching a hot chocolate, as straighteners ripped through each wave and ringlet; the heat of the hair dryer burning my scalp so badly it made my eyes water.
No matter how hard I tried to silence the voice in my head that said: “You look SO much better like this,” I couldn’t.
Caught in a 2010 time trap, I felt like dragging a Poundland brush through my hair and burning it with heat styling tools would bring me one step closer to loving myself, even well into my twenties.
It took me until 2024 to realise distancing myself from myself isn’t the route to high self-esteem. I had to start from the ground-up, which took much more time and effort.
Ironically, it’s a lack of motivation that got me here in the first place. As soon as I entered the adult world, into a job that wasn’t 100% remote, I figured out pretty quickly that those extra 60 minutes in bed were more precious than time spent in front of a mirror dragging a hot iron through my mane. Hauling myself up at 6am, throwing my hair back into some semblance of a half-up, half-down thing, and leaving the house with a bit of moisturiser on my face became the norm. (I like to think I’ve found a happier medium now - bit of concealer and light contouring, because you can take the girl out of 2016, but you can’t take the 2016 out of the girl).
This started to bleed into day trips and nights out; a full face of makeup, maybe, and a bit of mousse in my hair. Don’t get me wrong, it was highly uncomfortable. I can’t tell you how many times I stared at the bathroom mirror, still thinking about what I didn’t have; still longing for thin, glossy, easy hair which looked effortlessly cool.
But there was something so liberating about showing up as myself: My ‘crazy’ hair, taking up space. There’s probably a feminist subtext in there somewhere.
I think it was only by doing this, that it actually dawned on me how afraid I was of being different. My desire to change my hair over the years has been steam-powered by embarrassment and hatred - which is a lot of baggage to carry around as a child, let alone a twentysomething with a job, a chronic health condition and bills to pay. I spent - wasted - so much of my life hating the idea of being scrutinised or potentially placed in the firing line for being laughed at. I couldn’t cope.
It’s very intricately linked to my personality, really. From the age of four, I was always being told to make eye contact while talking, to stop saying words one way and start saying them a different way, to stop being so independent and engage with others; even if they weren’t playing the games I was interested in.
So, just like my hair, I conformed. I made myself smaller; more palatable. I put myself in situations I hated because I thought it was the ‘right’ way to act, and I never got used to it. And even after two decades of molding myself into the perfect, palatable woman, there are still lots of people who don’t accept me - so fuck it.
To be able to accept you’re going to be judged, and to not care, is to be free. To be able to accept you’re going to be judged, and to do it anyway while feeling uncomfortable, is what little me would’ve wanted.
Two weeks ago, for the first time in 26 years, I got a curly cut. I spent two hours with a stylist who cut my curls individually, according to each pattern. She used natural products and massaged my head and most importantly, gave me words of affirmation all throughout the appointment.
For the first time in my life, I was made to feel like my hair was beautiful - not a problem to be fixed. It wasn’t ‘frizzy, big and crazy’ - it was rich, textured, layered, loud, gorgeous.
Gorgeous.
A word you might use to describe an old flame you recently reconnected with. How gorgeous it is to know you again.
My hair is unpredictable and can often shift from one state to another pretty quickly - ex boyfriends, feel free to get your comments in now. But the more I’m getting to know it again, the more I can cater to it - and the more I move with love. If it’s matted, I’ll gently spend two hours finger-combing it over the sink. If it’s bouncy and vibrant, I let it do its thing au natural. If it’s limp and listless: I book it in to see a professional.
There is so much beauty in knowing who you are.