Average Jane Tries for Curls

If you haven't met me in real life, you're probably thinking, "What do you mean? You obviously have very curly hair in your little scribbly avatar."

Actually, that cartoon was drawn in the the mid-1990s when I had a perm. Everyone had a perm then. I believe it was the law at the time.

Mostly I've spent my life with fairly straight hair. Even in the 1980s when I had my ferocious blonde mullet, I couldn't really get very much texture with scrunching, no matter how much hairspray and gel I used.

However, that's been changing over the past several years. I suspect it has something to do with the texture evolving as my hair gets more and more grey, ahem, underneath all the color I use on it. The upshot is that my hair has become downright curly, especially the finer hair underneath.

So as the summer heat and humidity moved in prematurely this year, I decided I would stop straightening my hair and see if I could make my curly hair presentable. This decision was reinforced by the fact that my straightening iron had developed a worn patch and needed to be replaced anyway.

I'm loosely following the Curly Girl routines, particularly the no 'poo protocols, which I learned about from reading Miss Zoot (whose hair is considerably curlier than mine).

It hasn't been easy. Some days my hair looks pretty decent at first and then turns into a ball of frizz later in the day. Other days it's overly heavy and icky from the get-go. It got really bad last weekend, but I restored some equilibrium by scrubbing with a paste of baking soda and then rinsing with water followed by diluted apple cider vinegar.

My go-to product aside from the various conditioners I use in the shower is Marrakesh Oil. It smells good, keeps the frizz down and seems to make my hair dry more quickly. I got a sample of a jasmine-scented hair oil in my June Birchbox shipment and used it today, but I think I like the Marrakesh Oil better (and it's cheaper).

Tonight I'm going to try the recipe for making hair gel from flaxseed that I found here. I'll give it a try on my hair tomorrow and see what I think.

The whole thing is still an experiment and I might at any time just give up, buy myself a new straightening iron and drag my shampoo out of storage. However, I am kind of enjoying doing something different, so I'll probably stick it out through the end of the summer.