Growing up, I never knew how to properly care for my hair, less how to love it. I’d spent many mornings trying to “fix” my hair by straightening it or pulling it into a tight bun, never realizing the damage it was causing. It wasn’t that I was actively discouraged from wearing my curls, but that I didn’t feel the need to embrace them, as no one around me—family members nor friends—were embracing theirs.

I didn’t need to look at magazines to know most girls didn’t look like me. I could see it all around: girls with sleek-straight hair walked the halls confidently, leaving behind a trail of mesmerized high school boys. Whether their hair was naturally straight or the result of scorching heat was never something my teenage mind ever contemplated. All I latched onto was the feeling of being left out. Years later, I learned an astonishing truth: up to 65% of American women have curly, coily, or wavy hair. It’s a dominant characteristic—who knew! All this time, I thought I was an outlier at my school, but the only difference was that I dared to leave my hair in its natural state. I would ultimately discover a booming curly hair market that catered to my natural locks.

As I entered college, I began unraveling my earliest memories and experiences of “dealing” with my hair. I remember watching my mother and grandmothers wrangle with their curls, blow-drying the vivacious ringlets into sleek, pressed hair. This styling session occured in a family member’s apartment in Washington Heights, a New York City neighborhood known as the epicenter for Dominican blow-outs.

The women from our community would gather in these makeshift salons (a living room apartment packed with rows of hooded dryers) to get pampered and trade chisme (gossip) in Spanglish. These conversations would spill out of the apartment and onto the staircase as women strutted out with their new dos.


The Dominican blow-out usually consists of three steps: washing, setting rollers, blow-drying, and straightening. After vigorously washing your hair with a sulfate shampoo and applying conditioner, the hairdresser sections the hair for rollers. Imagine having a motorcycle helmet on; that’s what having a full set of rollers feels like. After an hour under the dryer, the beautician quickly unclips (ouch!) each roller and starts the process of blow-drying. This second part is usually the most taxing for my scalp. It consists of pulling the hair straight from the root. I will never forget the smell of the exhausted blowers trying to keep up with the stylist’s quick hands or the hot sting of the silver clips against my scalp. I’d leave looking like a John Frieda model.


After years of these blow-outs, I decided to start from scratch and remove the years of hair damage accumulated. I believed the only way to do this was by getting a pixie cut. Everybody said I would regret it, and at first, I did, but in my mind, there was no better way of truly starting over. Oil treatments, deep conditioners, and expensive leave-in treatments could only gloss over the years of mistreatment my thin strands had endured. The journey wasn’t perfect—at one point, I got the Brazilian keratin treatment which left my curls frazzled and splintered. Growth is nonlinear. I promised myself I would try my best to leave my curls in their natural state, but I knew there would be the occasional moments I would break and straighten them (usually for a job interview or other special event).


Over time, I began reaping the rewards of treating my locks with love. My curls started resembling gorgeous spirals and grew healthy. More friends and strangers began taking notice of my hair’s newfound shine and bounciness. This transformation was partly due to using products from curly hair lines: Shea Moisture, Ouidad, Jessicurl, As I Am, Miss Jessie’s, Devacurl, Cantu, and others. Regular trimmings for my split ends didn’t hurt either. As my mentality changed, my self-confidence grew, and I began donning an “Iron Clothes, Not Curls” t-shirt around campus. I wanted everyone to know that they too could learn to love their curls in all their beauty.