I have really curly hair (3b on the curl chart), but for my entire adolescent life, I did everything I could to mask it. I never went outside unless my hair was perfectly straightened or waved, and my poor hair was so co-operative that nobody would believe it when I told them my hair is actually very very curly. I recently got it cut, it's now 12-16 inches shorter in different places, and the plan is to almost never heat treat it; i.e. to go natural.
Here is some of my newly acquired wisdom regarding hair length (and texture!) on girls...and why it's nobody's business but theirs.
1. My hair before the cut was really really long. Longer than I thought it was due to damage and split ends.
2. All guys love long hair on girls.
3. Most girls wish they could chop all their hair off. They don't because of the former reason.
4. People stare at curly hair as if it were an anomaly, which truly is paradoxical since I live in an African, Middle Eastern country. Tells you a lot about beauty standards.
5. I really really like it. More than I thought I would.
6. Change is really easy for me to adapt to; I feel like I've had my hair this short since forever.
7. People who are really close to you won't filter out their opinions of your appearance. Which means getting a lot of "you're insane" and "you look 40."
8. I spend much less time worrying about how I look, whether I have stray locks or frizz. I know I do, I just don't really care about it anymore.
9. "Going natural" made me realize I can feel beautiful with no maintainance whatseoever. But it also made me appreciate how much effort women put into their looks. It's no easy task for a girl, you know.
10. Personal choices are easy to make if you don't think much about what people would say. If I had thought of every time people would look at my short hair with pity, I probably would have had second thoughts about it.
People still drop sour comments about it and some of them kind of sting, but at the end of the day, I look myself in the mirror feeling beautiful and feeling like myself. I wouldn't trade that for all the "good hair days" in the world if they don't give me that. smile emoticon
