Love Your Curls
There are many things that make up beauty and for each woman those characteristics are all different. Unfortunately many of us get caught up in the stereotypes or the media's definition of what beauty is. Dove Hair and poet Taiye Selasi have teamed up to show you to embrace your natural hair with their new Love Your Curls book.
Many women today will either straighten their hair to avoid the frizz or style it to get those glamorous Hollywood curls, but with a little care you can embrace the natural curl. You can learn to leave that hair that you were born with. I got the chance to chat with Taiey Selasi about the inspiration for this book and some of her curl care tips.
Hi Taiye. How are you today?
I'm doing well. How are you?
Well, I am just wonderful. Now talk to us a little bit about the inspiration behind your partnership with Dove for the Love Your Curls book.
Absolutely. So, Love Your Curls is a book of curls designed to inspire the self-confidence in the younger generation of girls as well as our generation of curly-haired women.
I like that idea, because today we view the curly hair that everyone wants as the Hollywood curls and if it's not that then they want straight hair. They don't want to have to deal with the stereotypical mess and frizz of naturally curly hair. And for many natural curls, they don't even know how to handle and tame that.
Exactly. It's funny that you say that because these poems were inspired by the stories of real women. Dove Hair invited real women to submit their stories online, and they received thousands of stories, photos, and testimonies. I got the chance to use all of that to inspire these poems. What I encountered again and again were women telling me that they felt their hair wasn't beautiful. 4 out of 10 little girls with curly hair call their hair beautiful.
That means that other 6 out of 10 (and I was certainly one of those girls) don't think it is. In the stories, I was able to see what and it came down to the media. The media is telling us straight hair is beautiful, manageable, and silky. To say to little girls that their natural curls are beautiful just the way they are is very important.
And we never think about an impact of something like hair. But you're right. It's the styled curls that are glamorous but not necessarily going with the natural curly look.
Right. I'm West African and I have typically African hair. Even in the natural hair community of Black women there is this idea that there's a loose curl that's beautiful and then a frizzy curl like mine is less beautiful. It's almost like you can never get away from this hierarchy of what's good, less good, and bad. So what we want to do with this book of poems is to say girls with all hair textures that their natural curls exactly the way they are are beautiful. That is the priority of the book, first and foremost.
Then we want to offer some help for keeping them healthy, lustrous, and nourished. By working on that, it will make a difference in how we feel about those natural curls. In my own hair journey, I've really learned how to care for my own hair. So I think the combination of giving naturally curly-haired women the tools they need to love their hair and then giving the next generation of girls the inspiration is priceless.
What are some of the tricks that you've learned over the years to care for your curls so that you can embrace that natural look?
I think one of the key things is a really good leave-in conditioner. I live and die by leave-in product. I've tried the Quench Absolute Leave-in Serum that Dove Hair has come out with. It adds a lot of definition and suppleness. For me, I'm not a wash and go kind of girl. I need to wash, deep condition, leave-in condition, and then go. Part of it is also figure out ways to not resent that and feel that it's a burden. Instead to say “this is me”, it's a part of my natural care plan, the time I get to spend with myself, and the love I give myself every morning.
I can imagine the more you use something like that leave-in conditioner, the less time it will take in the morning to get ready because your hair will be healthier and look healthier.
That's exactly right. Now, I don't wash my hair everyday, probably more like once every two weeks because that's specific to my hair texture. I make sure to put in a good leave-in product everyday. In addition to the leave-in product, regular trims are also important for curly hair because with the curl pattern you want to make sure the ends don't fray. That fray will help lead to the frizz.
So regular trims, regular use of a good leave-in product, and a good conditioner leaves the hair more “manageable”. I don't like to use that word because 70% of women with curly hair feel they need to tame their hair. I'm trying to help women move away from that vocabulary, so instead of saying manageable let's say healthy. Healthier will make us happier and happier will be easier.
I like that you brought up the point about regular trims because it makes such a difference in how our hair looks. And with the humidity already here and getting worse for summer, we want to avoid as much frizz as we can. And those regular trims are such as easy way to help keep our hair healthy.
It really is key because with the split ends when humidity hits, as any woman knows, you get that poof look. And okay, that look looks good on some people, but no on everyone. So we want to coat the hair follicle so that it will respond to the humidity appropriately. Another thing that has been wonderful in my hair journey is that humidity is not the enemy. It's the moisture which is actually good for the hair. So we want to use products that work with that moisture and keep hair healthy while keeping women happy.
It is an on-going journey and the biggest change that I've seen in relation to my hair is the sense of joy and adventure in discovering how to care for my hair. In writing this book of poems, I've tried to put that in there so that little girls would come to see that it is an adventure and a journey. You learn as you go and it's worth it.
So what would you say was one of your favorite stories that helped to inspire a poem in this book?
One mother wrote in with little girls who kept telling her how much they wanted straight hair. Finally she decided to ask them why, and their answer was that they wanted hair just like hers. She then realized that her daughters had never seen her natural hair because she had always straightened it. So she decided to go completely natural and curly. That made her daughters excited about their hair. It wasn't that they wanted straight hair, but rather hair just like their mom's.
When she was able to love her hair naturally and beautifully then they were able to love it too. I loved hearing that story. It really touched me because it underscored what the research has shown which is that little girls are more likely to love their curls if the women in their lives love their curls too.
That is such a cool story because seemed so small to that mom was bigger to her daughters.
Exactly. She wasn't thinking about the fact that she always straightened her hair. They just knew their mom as a straight-haired beautiful woman and associated that beauty also with straight hair. It was that little switch that changed not just her life, but her daughters' future. That's what this book of poems is about...inspiring the next generation.
I love that. Where can people go to pick up a copy of this book?
www.dove.com/loveyourcurls is where you can download a FREE e-book. Plus, you can customize that e-book for any of the curly girls in your world. It's totally free, so if you have five daughters, 6 nieces, or 8 goddaughters then you can customize one for each of them and write them a dedication. I also included a poem that allows you to fill in her name, hair color, and eye color so that there's a poem just for her. I think it will be a wonderful part of a movement to inspire girls to love their curls.
And I would have to agree with you and plus it's at a price that you really can't beat. Thank you so much for joining me today, Taiye.
My pleasure.
So go to www.dove.com/loveyourcurls to pick of a copy of this book and share it with the women in your life. Remember that your hair is beautiful. You don't have to straighten or tame to for it to be beautiful.