Why Dove’s Love Your Curls campaign can’t come soon enough
IMAGINE the feeling when a complete stranger walks up and offers an opinion on your appearance. It’s a daily occurence if you’re unfortunate enough to have curly hair.
LAST night, I was given a sympathy hug for having curly hair.
The woman — who I had just met — pulled a sad face as she said something along the lines of, “Oh let me give you a hug before you leave. I have curly hair too.”
I instinctively touched my hair — which I thought looked neater than usual — and mumbled an “Ohhhh, thank you,” before scurrying out of the room and feeling quite embarrassed.
You see, situations like this aren’t unusual for people like me. Every curly-haired girl knows the horror of receiving unwanted commentary on your locks. I remember being told by a boy when I was at university that I would be pretty if I didn’t have curly hair. Another said that he just couldn’t imagine any kind of romantic moment with me that involved running his hands through my hair. If I had my time again, I would have said something like, “There’s no chance you’d EVER get close to my hair, buddy, so all you’ll ever have is your imagination” — but alas, the moment passed me by.
As I relay stories like this to colleagues, they chime in with curly hair stories of their own. One woman says people come up and scrunch her hair which, in our world, is akin to touching a pregnant woman’s belly without permission — it is NOT okay. We share experiences of hairdressers who straighten our hair after it’s been cut because they assume that’s how we prefer it.
Of course, the people with straight hair lament about having straight hair. But people with straight hair, I’m sorry to say — having hair that is “full of body” and “interesting” is only as good as the weather is. No-one ever says my hair looks good when it’s raining outside.
My mother-in-law has curly hair, and she and I have had countless conversations about how hard it is to be taken seriously in the professional world with curly hair. We have both had situations in which it’s been suggested we straighten or “re-curl” our hair with a curling wand so we appear “more polished”. Because of experiences like this, and because there are so few people who wear their hair curly in the corporate world, I regularly feel like I look unkempt, even when I’ve tried my very hardest to look professional.
So why don’t I just straighten my hair, you ask? Well, I could do that — but then I’d be playing the same game as everyone else.
You see, growing up, I always knew I wanted to be a journalist, but genuinely thought anything to do with television was off-limits for me because of my hair. As far as I was concerned, professional women with curly hair just didn’t exist.
It wasn’t just newsreaders and hosts who didn’t have curly hair, though. Growing up, I cannot think of a single magazine edition in which the person on the cover had naturally curly hair. How many dolls can you recall that had curly hair? How about book characters? There might have been a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead, but remember that when she was good she was very very good, and when she was bad she was HORRID.
In movies and television shows, positive images of curls were indeed few and far between — I was too young to reap the benefits of Carrie Bradshaw, but I LOVED Judging Amy almost exclusively because of Amy Brenneman and her curly hair. And before you bring up Shirley Temple, Disney Princesses or any other celebrity who tongs their hair curly, let me make something clear: THAT CURL IS NOT REAL. Beyonce, when you hit the red carpet with your natural, frizzy, untamed curl, come back to me.
The girls who did have curly hair were the stereotypical scatterbrains — intelligent perhaps, but a little loopy, messy, free-spirited, nerdy and oftentimes eccentric. Think Hermione Granger, Phoebe from Friends and pretty much any character Helena Bonham Carter has played to this day. Just when you think the stereotype might be fading, along comes a show like Scandal. Kerry Washington’s character Olivia Pope is a glamorous career woman with immaculate blow-dried hair, but when she is sad or sick, the curls come out to play — a metaphor for Pope losing the iron-clad control she holds in most situations.
I hate to say it, but I am not messy, I am not eccentric, and I am definitely not free-spirited. I’m actually super organised, well planned, and generally quite boring. When I ‘lose control’, my hair stays exactly the same.
Experiences like these are why I am so pleased to see a campaign like Dove’s “Love Your Curls”, released in America yesterday. Now before you dismiss this campaign as advertorial — which it is — and positive PR spin — which it is — consider this: Dove launched the “Love Your Curls” campaign after finding that only 10 per cent of women “feel proud” of their curly hair. I am part of this statistic.
Just like you can’t help but let the state of your skin or your weight influence the way you perceive yourself, having curly hair also influences the way you see yourself. As an adult, I can look more objectively at my hair, and separate the negative from the positive. But as a young girl, it’s much harder to do that. When you’re surrounded by images of polished glamour, it’s very easy to look in the mirror and think that there is something wrong with what you see, simply because you’re not used to seeing what’s looking right back at you. It might seem like a little thing to you, but to the child who is the only one in their class with curly hair, it’s a big deal.
What Dove do well in this campaign is show that, especially for young girls, it’s more than just wishing you had different hair. It’s feeling embarrassed about the hair you have. This is an attitude that starts in childhood, and often sticks. When I announce that I’m writing this story, no less than four people come and tell me that they have curly hair too, but they straighten it. It’s like a confessional, a guilty secret, complete with whispers and shy smiles. But curly hair is nothing to be embarrassed about! So it looks ‘messy’ sometimes — so what! So it’s hard to find a good shampoo and conditioner — so what! So when it rains your hair increases in volume 200 per cent — so what!
When Dove go on to say that “the best way to change how [young girls] feel about their curls, is to show them how you feel about yours,” I agree. I’ve been there, and along with the negative comments I’ve received over time, I also remember the women I’ve met who have unapologetically embraced their curl. I dream of a day when our newsreaders wear their hair naturally. I look forward to more movies like 2012’s Brave. Maybe one day, GHD will go out of business.
That’s why I wear my hair curly — and that’s why you should, too. Ladies and gents, #loveyourcurls.