British Curlies

Curl Drama

Multi-Racial Curls That Just Couldn’t be Tamed

by Ellageorgina

This is a true story!

You see, I grew up with my mother and my grandmother – my gran is Chinese and as my father was not around when I was young and my mum was very busy working, my Grandmother was left to take care of me, which was great, we had so much fun. My grandmother, being fully Chinese from Hong Kong LOVED curly hair. In fact, she had regular perms. You just always want something you don’t have, right? She would marvel at my curls when she visited me and my mother, but boy, did this change when she was the one who had to look after them. 

I have fond memories of bath time, the water cascading onto my skin, mounds of iridescent bubbles to play with. That was the good part. Then the fun was over. I always knew when it was coming. My gran would tip-toe to the bathroom cupboard and reach in, proceeding to wield out what can only be described as something of a spiky, metal torture-device like appearance! This was to be used for my hair. It was a metal scrubbing brush. Now in theory, this may seem like a good idea, I mean, my hair did look like a brillo pad, so why not use something of a similar persuasion to ‘tame the beast’? She did this with the best of intentions but this hurt beyond description! She did not wet my hair, she would scrub at it and scrub at it and then wet it and probably used the amount of shampoo in one bath time intended for about a months’ worth of hair washes!

This went on for a few weeks, or maybe months, I can’t quite recall. It was, quite frankly, a nightmare. Upon my mother’s return, she was shocked. I apparently looked like, and I quote ‘the Wild Woman of Wonga!’ My hair was beyond the point of return. It really was past saving. So there was only one thing to do... Shave it all off! Once the clippers were finished on my matted mess, I think everyone was relieved.

As my curls grew back, they were beautiful, coils and ringlets, shiny and healthy. Luckily, my Mother was able to maintain this and learnt a lot about how to handle my type of hair from friends who had mixed race children and my Aunt (my father’s sister). Yes, I was bald for a while, but luckily it grew back in time for my first day of school! 

New Growth: A New Chapter

So, from experience, I know that it can be very difficult to care for young curlies’ hair if you do not have curly hair yourself, but here are a few things that my mother learnt:

Firstly she learned never to brush my hair dry; doing this would cause what can only be described as a frizz bomb! 

She learned only to comb my hair (with a wide-toothed comb or a denman brush) when it was wet and completely saturated with conditioner, this made it easier to remove any knots and detangles effectively and in an ouchless way! She also did this when I was in the bath – I think she thought I would be far too distracted with my Barbies and bubbles to notice any snagging!

She always used a gentle shampoo and conditioner specifically developed for children. I remember mine smelled lovely and it was pink and had really pretty packaging so I would actually look forward to hair wash day rather than dread it – clever, huh?

After shampooing and conditioning my mother would always use a spray detangler then comb through again with a wide-toothed come and either allow to air dry naturally or do little braid outs. She always used to use little coloured hair bobbles and pretty clips so I really did look forward to having my hair done!

We religiously used Dark and Lovely on my hair, (long before we knew about the CG method) but it worked fantastically. I used it up until I was about 14!

So it can be quite simple to try to make hair-washing and combing a fun experience for your children by using fun products, bright colours, nice smells and if you have a girl, you can always win her over with pretty accessories