Dear Nicole Kidman, Mariah Carey, and Julia Roberts’s curly hair from the 1990s,
Hello! Can you hear me in there? The rest of the world may have forgotten your existence, but I want you to know that I acknowledge you while your handlers Brazilian blow and keratin and weave and formaldehyde and stomp you into flattened, blonded sheets against the scalps of your people. You may be melted and ironed and chemically un-bonded within an inch of your existence, curls, but they cannot break the disulfide bonds of your soul. And it is time for you to come out, because the world needs you. More specifically, this broke-ass, tired, curly-headed mom of two who lives in a somewhat tropical climate needs you.
Because this is what we know about curly hair in the time of your absence: curls belong on babies. And those hypoallergenic dogs that don’t shed. And maybe that one actress on Game of Thrones, but she’s from Dorne. And we know about Dorne, amiright? We all know from movies that people with curly hair are not to be trusted with responsibility or other women’s husbands, cannot be in management positions or in suits. People with curly hair are your slutty best friend, the mom that always fucks up carpool, or a cult leader.
When ringlets appear on the good adults citizens of America, we have an epidemic that needs stamping out. Like Ebola. I have Follicular Ebola, curls. When I look in the mirror, I am staring at Public Enemy number one, the target of a multimillion-dollar industry dedicated to eradicating its existence. So we’re clear, I’m not talking about those carefully beachy forever-coitus, Giselle-salon I’m cumming! “waves.” I’m talking about motherfucking curls. Spaghetti as hair. Inexplicable, string-theorized spirals. Pubes our great-great ancestors tried shoving down into a pouch before they retaliated, horrifyingly, by evolving on your godforsaken head, curls. And the men! Picture a mugshot of a sex offender. Ringlets. Who lost the Johnson account? Motherfuckin Curly Joe. Weird Al’s career choice? Curls.
But there was a time, Mariah’s curls, when you were paired, proudly, with a scoop-necked bodysuit. It was raining Grammys. Julia’s hair? You got the guy! You had to be a hooker sometimes, but when you took him back in the end? No blowout for you, girl. Back to curls. And Richard Kinda Curly Gere. Nicole’s curls! You made my own ‘90s hair sexy, ‘90s Tom Cruise socially acceptable, pasta pronounced with a short A sound adorable. You lived and ruled a time where straight-ironed women would tell you sincerely that they wished they had your hair, instead of telling me the same in 2015 and excusing themselves before I punched them with my eyes, or so that they could go light a candle in thanks to their flat-ironed god.
I do not currently employ a staff to straighten my hair into socially acceptable straightness, nor will the 86% humidity permit me. I do have two young children who draw portraits of me where my hair seems to resemble something from the ocean floor. My curls are capable of ensnaring kittens and joy and baby pacifiers. My hair is a nest of crazy. Perhaps crazy eggs are hatching in it right now. I checked it for Grammys but they are conspicuously lacking.
I don’t want crazy eggs, Mariah hair. Nicole and Julia’s curls? Help! Time for you to rise up and re-emerge, like a curly-headed phoenix. Just picture that – a phoenix with curly hair. We can even reclaim mythology! Yes! Rise up from underneath that lace cap that is keeping you down, because there are curly babies doomed to become living, breathing Before photos, salons named not entirely un-ironically “Blowjobs,” and an entire world without snake-haired protagonists that could really use you in it. I mean, yes, technically there is that one chick from Dorne. But c’mon. It’s motherfucking Dorne!
Sincerely,
Melissa Sweazy