I hate curly hair!

[DammitJanet]

Granddaughter was supposed to go to church this morning with a friend. I really should have washed and done her hair last night but by the time I realized it was time to wash, Tony was ready to go to bed and would have nothing to do with me giving her a bath and washing her hair. One of the problems with doing it earlier was her little sister was asleep in my bed and no one wanted to wake her up and taking the older one into the bathroom would have woken her up. Personally I would have woken her up and not cared. She had been asleep for hours.

Well we washed her hair this morning and she wanted me to straighten it. Evidently Im a moron and cant do hair correctly. I watched a video on youtube on straightening hair using the flat iron and tried to do that but she kept crying and complaining that I was "making it frizzy." So I got fed up and said fine, Im going to go get the expensive flat iron that has the brush built in because that is the one my youngests girlfriend has and she has done granddaughters hair before and it comes out right. I dont know what I am doing wrong with the other flat iron but whatever. I even bought more product with argon oil and an expensive flat iron spray.

I got home and her father had managed to fix her hair enough for her to leave to go to church. Oh I was mad! I spent almost $125 on this stuff! It had better be the right stuff or she will have to live with curly hair from now on! I am not spending anymore money on her hair other than her shampoo and product. I even use WEN on her hair because its supposed to be so good for her hair.

Can we say spoiled?

 

[DDD]

Have you ever tried rolling her hair with old socks? That's how we did it in the 40's and 50's and it worked. No way I could/would spend that kind of money on a hairdo...especially for such a naturally lovely little girl. Sigh! DDD

 

[Wiped Out]

I can definitely empathize! When easy child/difficult child was younger she only would let husband do her hair. I really was completely inept and she didn't even like the way I took out her braids!

 

[InsaneCdn]

She has curly hair and she wants it straight.
The girl with straight hair wants it curly.
The girl with short hair wants long.
And so on.

Sorry. I come from a family where... you live with what you got. NO fancy machines or major effort to make any part of you into something nature didn't give you. Learn to love who you are and what you have.

 

[DDD]

Amen, Insane! DDD

 

[trinityroyal]

Skotti, I am a curly-top from a long line of curly-tops. ALL of us prefer to wear our hair straight at least some of the time. The trick is in the technique.

Here's what you've got to do:

1) Towel dry the hair until it's damp. Best way is to wrap the hair in a thick towel and then twist gently. That way you don't add more tangles. Then when the hair is damp, work some hair product through the hair. Not too much, or it'll be sticky.
2) Next, brush it with one of those wide, flat paddle brushes. If there are lots of knots, work through the air with a detangling comb (wide, thick teeth) first, and then go over it with the paddle brush.
3) Using the same paddle brush and a blow dryer with either one of the attachments shown below on it, dry the hair in sections. Brush under the hair, blow dryer over the hair. Start at the roots, and work your way slowly down the hair shaft to the ends. Make sure the dryer is on either cool or warm, not hot. If it's on hot you will see clouds of steam and you'll fry the hair. (Curly hair is dry to start with, so go easy.)

4) At this point, the hair will be dry and straight, but very frizzy. Now get out the flat iron, and iron the hair in sections. Comb each section first to make sure it is tangle free and smooth, and then run the flat iron over it from roots to ends. It's sometimes helpful to clip sections you're not working on out of the way. Start at the nape of the neck and work your way to the hairline if you do this, so you don't clip sections that you've already flattened.
5) Once you have flat ironed all the hair, go over it with the paddle brush one more time to smooth. Rub a tiny amount of hair product between your palms and then smooth them over the surface of the hair for a final "polish", and you're done.

I know this sounds like tedium-on-a-stick, but describing it takes longer than actually doing it. On days when I straighten my hair it takes me a total of 20 to 30 minutes from starting to wash my hair until it's ready for public viewing.

 

[InsaneCdn]

On days when I straighten my hair it takes me a total of 20 to 30 minutes from starting to wash my hair until it's ready for public viewing.

Right. And mine takes... seven minutes daily, eight if I'm not quite awake when I'm combing it. No straightening, no messing, no special goops, just... hair, go here, and here, and there, and twist and pin and... done. Well, a few more here and theres and a few more pins...

 

[trinityroyal]

IC, my hair is long, fine, abundant and VERY curly. It takes me about the same amount of time to straighten and style my hair as it does to make it reasonable looking while leaving it in curls. If one method or other was quicker then I'd probably just pick that. But. Step into the shower. Wash hair, then body. Towel off, dry and style hair. Dress. Go. 30 min from start to finish, maybe 40 if something needs ironing. It's not bad, either way.

 

[InsaneCdn]

my hair is long, fine, abundant and VERY curly

And mine, of course, is... long, fine, abundant and VERY... straight.

 

[LittleDudesMom]

Janet, call me sometime and we discuss young girls with curly hair!!!! You know easy child's hair was a "handful"!!!

Sharon

 

[AnnieO]

I have lots of fine hair, and wacky curls. Never know what they are going to do next. Some days they're so relaxed as to almost be straight, others it's a poodle-do. Level of humidity doesn't seem to matter, either.

However, straighteners... Are not my friend. Onyxx, who is VERY good at straightening, did my hair once, about 4 years ago. It took her 2 hours. Now... My hair fell midway down my back at the time. It was straight, except the ends that were frizzy no matter what. And no split... Just frizzy. When I got it cut a couple months ago, it was waist-length... And now is barely brushing my collar. I put a little leave-in conditioner in it and tousle it... 30 seconds start to finish. Before, the brushing took forever, but it still only took me about 5 minutes to get it into a ponytail. 7-10 if I used a headband, butterfly or banana clip.

I know she is only 7, but if she is going to demand her hair be straightened... She needs to learn how...

 

[DammitJanet]

Its very true that people want the opposite hair as what they were born with. Just look at how many women go in to get their hair permed.

I like her hair down and curly with just a little product in it to keep them from going frizzy when it dries. She, on the hand, loves to come to my house because I will let her wear her hair down. At her other house it is always up in a ponytail. The minute she gets to my house she pulls that ponytail out and shakes her hair out and says "ahhhh, now I can be me!" LOL

The youngests girlfriend has the exact same type of hair and can straighten it in a snap. She is the one who told me to get the one with the brush that rolls as the hair goes over the iron. I tried to go the cheaper way and get the plain flat iron.

I watched a video Trinity and that is how they told me to do it. Problem is when girlfriend does it, it doesnt frizz on the bottom. When I do it, it does. I think the issue is the products. I bought some very good argon oil spray and a flat iron spray from the same company. Last night I put her hair up in a ponytail to sleep in and sprayed a good amount of argon oil on it. Supposedly that is really good for her type of hair. Now whats hilarious is that her baby sister has our hair. Hers is straight and brown like my middle son's was when he was little. Nothing hard there.

DDD, some of these irons are very expensive. The one I got her was going for $140 2 years ago. Im lucky it dropped to under 100.

K can brush her hair and put it up in a ponytail but I would be afraid to let her use a flat iron that is over 340 degrees when on. All I need is for her to get a bad burn.

 

[DDD]

I wasn't trying to be a wise guy, lol. All the girls used heavy socks with the hair rolled under to end up with a page boy style. The hair had gunk in it to keep it straight and then the ends were rolled under.
We even slept with them so we'd look good in the morning. Maybe there's a difference between "curly" and "curly". Some of us are "wavy" some "straight" and some manageable "curly". She is just so very pretty that I can't imagine spending that much time on hairdo's. I think ponytail style would be it, lol. We didn't think about style until our early teens. DDD

 

[DammitJanet]

I will have to take a picture of her with her hair down. Remember the girls in the 70's that had permed their hair and it was below their shoulders? She looks just like that. Or...there is a commercial on TV about Purel hand sanitizer and it has a little girl wearing a yellow sundress who looks almost exactly like her twin. The only real problem we have is that she took a pair of scissors to her bangs about 2 years ago and they now almost reach the back of her head. However, it never fails those wisps come out at some point in the day.

 

[AnnieO]

Be careful with the argan oil, that stuff dried my hair out BAD... And it is supposed to be good for my hair type, too...

 

[trinityroyal]

A lot of the products designed to de-frizz also dry out curly hair, which causes it to be frizzy, which requires more product -- and you're off to the races.

I've always had better luck with food-grade oils. I used to use a few drops of olive oil. Switched to canola, because I didn't like my hair smelling like salad. Now I use avocado oil. All of them work really well, and you literally need only a couple of drops.

Frizzy ends can be troublesome. The blow-dry and then smooth method works pretty well for this, but it takes a few rounds of practice to get it just right. I find that with the flat iron, try just gently curling under or over (depending on which way you want the hair to fall), rather than just going straight down. Curly hair always has a bit of tension in it and will fight to retain the curl no matter what. If you give it something to work with -- either a flip, or a curl-under, then it's more controlled. I don't know if I'm describing it very well. I know what I mean when I do it to my hair...

 

[AnnieO]

LOL trinity... I will try when my hair is more than 4" long...

 

[LittleDudesMom]

Trinity,

when easy child traveled to St. Barths with her "nanny family" in May, she brought me back a bottle of avocado oil from a fancy spa there and it is wonderful! I haven't used it on my hair but I've used it everywhere else!!!!!

*Sharon

 

[trinityroyal]

Step, a flat iron can work on short hair too. You just have to be careful not to burn the tops of your ears.

LDM, I had no idea that they sold avocado oil in fancy spas. husband buys it for me from a discount online store. They carry tons of stuff for super sensitive skin, dry hair, etc.

DDD, I'm giggling at the thought of girls rolling their hair up in socks to get the perfect page boy. I can just imagine it. I used to sleep sitting up with giant rollers in my hair as a little girl so I could get the perfect flip hairstyle. My Grannie would coat my hair with setting lotion, and roll it up. It would always come out in Shirley Temple-style ringlets, and then Grannie would brush it with a paddle bush until the ends formed a perfect flip. I looked like Marlo Thomas with a better tan.

Janet, be thankful you don't have to wrestle with hot combs. Back in the early 70s, other than the roller-set I just described, the other option to straighten hair was a hot comb. It was a metal comb that you either heated on the stove or in the fireplace, or plugged in if you had a new-fangled electric one. Then you'd comb your hair with it to straighten it. Aside from scalp and ear burns, the biggest danger was burning chunks of your hair off. Not fun at all.

Flat irons and frizzy ends are MUCH better.

 

[BusynMember]

Jumper is bi-racial. She has a GREAT hair straightener and uses it every single morning of her life, but never stops whining about her curls, which I love. My hair is straight as a stick and thin and ugly and I've always hated it. Even after perms, the dang hair falls down right away.

We are never happy (sigh)!!!!