My Hair is a Pain

I have to beat my hair into submission almost daily. By beat I mean tug at, press between hot plates, put goo onto, and comb like crazy. I turn it colors it wasn't meant to be because I have a different set of aesthetics than my DNA. My hair is naturally very curly, so I do the aforementioned beating into submission with a flat iron. People say they would love to have hair like mine, and I say I'd like a little bit less of my own hair. So what goes into beating my hair into submission? Here we go.

First of all, let me illustrate what my hair is like naturally:

This is what it looks like when I straighten it:

This is what it looks like freshly dyed:

So you see, my natural hair is this curly untamed monster. When I say I beat it into submission, I'm not kidding.

So I wash my hair with Trader Joe's Nourish SPA Shampoo and Conditioner. (Don't buy it on eBay. It costs $2.99/bottle here in CA.) I barely towel-dry it, then I put in Garnier Fructis Sleep & Shine leave-in conditioner (though I vastly prefer Mixed Chicks leave-in conditioner). I usually don't blow-dry my hair. If I'm leaving it curly, I mix some of my conditioner with water in a spray bottle and re-wet my hair and tame it that way, usually just taking time to straighten my bangs.

Now here's the fun part: hair straightening. I used to use a Chi straightening iron, but after five years it died, so now I have a Pro Beauty flat iron. I like it so much better than the Chi and paid half the price! I usually use a spray-in heat protector, never really stick to one brand or another, and then once it's dry, I pin my hair back in sections so that I can get pretty uniform chunks of hair (something flatter across the skull). I use just a teensy bit of Gatsby Moving Rubber: Nuance Motion down the length of the section I'm working with, and flatten it twice, curling the ends under (as my hair is bobbed). Then I run through it with a fine comb. I'll do a bottom section, then the sides, then a middle back section, a top back section, and the top sides, and finally my bangs. It's important to run a comb through it at regular intervals, too, so that it all blends together. I'll usually give the ends one last curl, and then I'm done. I might spray over it with a light hair spray to fix it.

When I straighten my hair, it tends to last for a couple of days with only moderate need for touch-up. I think the Gatsby Moving Rubber is really to thank for that, as it's a re-styleable product. It's very light and if my hair starts to curl up during the day, running my comb through it fixes it right up. If I'm leaving my hair curly, I've found that Cool Wet is great for keeping it under control, too. It usually takes a little splash of water and some twirling to get the curls to behave again.

So that's it. That's what I use to get my crazy curly hair under control. I'm usually quite pleased with how it turns out, and there's a number of ways to dress it up. As you can see in the last photo of me, I have a large black sunflower clip that I love wearing to pin back one side. I have a couple of headbands and a fun leopard-print scarf I pull my hair back with sometimes. (For a fun Mode Gal style, look at Mitsu's Scarf Turban tutorial at Universal Doll.) Anyway, that's all from me!

J.