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“Pelo Malo” (Bad Hair) – That’s what Dominicans say when you wear your hair in its natural state.
My mother took me to the hair salon at the age of 9 to get my hair chemically relaxed for the first time. The upkeep required touch ups every 3-4 months until I turned 18. Culturally, it was more acceptable to have straighten hair despite the torture (chemical burns on my scalp, hours spent sitting in a salon chair, etc.) than to wear your hair naturally.
As I was heading out of state for college, I needed to find a new hair routine so I did the big chop. The big chop means cutting off the relaxed portion of your hair and letting your natural hair grow in; for some, it could mean a cute short afro but for me it meant cutting my hair chin length and saying fuck it!. Well I was a little ahead of my time in 2005 because I had little to no resources on maintaining curly hair so my hair journey has been a lot of trial and error and years of looking like an ungroomed poodle. Most of my hair products were generic combinations of shampoo, conditioner, and mousse from the drugstore. I would flat iron my hair out of convenience because I didn’t know any better.
Fast forward a few years later, I had my first Devacurl haircut at a local salon and that started the second part of my hair journey: discovery. Now I had a name for how to take care of my hair, it’s the curly girl method. I was strictly using Devacurl for a while but just like any beauty or skincare product sometimes you have to switch it up when the formula is no longer working for you. Over the years, I have used SheaMoisture, OGX Coconut Curls, Ouidad, Bumble & Bumble BB Curl, and Briogeo as my hair texture changes, beauty sales pop up, and the change of seasons (I wear my hair curly mostly in warm months and blown out in colder months). I take advantage of any hair products sample that I receive to keep variety in my haircare rotation.
Currently, I’m using TRESemmé Flawless Curl Shampoo and Conditioner, Carol’s Daughter Curl Quenching Deep Moisture Mask in Coco Creme, Trader Joe’s Vitamin E Oil, and Carol’s Daughter Mimosa Hair Honey. I don’t use mousse or gel as much as before, I kind of embrace the unruliness of my hair out of comfort in my own skin or possible laziness…either way, I now have pelo bueno (good hair) despite what I was taught as a child.
With all the endless hair products out there, what are some of your favorites?
[…] journey and how I learned how to embrace my “bad hair”, check out my original blog post here. You read that right, people have the audacity to call my hair […]