If you see my hair in its natural state, it’s an accident. Something has gone wrong. I’ve run out of time, someone has splashed water on me like the Wicked Witch of the West, or perhaps you’ve bumped into me just as I’ve come out of the ocean.
I have naturally extremely curly hair, but the above scenarios notwithstanding, you would never know it. I flat iron my hair every week, and I get blowouts regularly. I stretch and flatten and tame my natural curls constantly. I very rarely leave the house with my hair in its natural state. I’m quite certain that many of my colleagues don’t know I have curly hair.
I’ve long thought that I missed my era. Instead of the bouffant perms of the 1980s, I came of age in the 1990s and early 2000s, when stick-straight was the only acceptable style and GHDs were revered. All I ever wanted was what the girls from All Saints had and—like so many in my generation—Jennifer Aniston’s “Rachel” haircut.
In more recent years, I’ve learned to embrace my hair’s natural volume, and I opt for blowouts with movement, but I’ve still never convinced myself to go au naturel.
Then something changed. Or, rather, someone: Odessa A’zion. The young actress is currently making waves (pun very much intended) for her standout role in Marty Supreme, for which she was nominated for a BAFTA and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and the brilliant HBO comedy, I Love LA. The latter was where I first encountered her. She burst onto the screen with a dramatic head of hair that looked just like mine, only fabulous. Surely, I thought, my own lion’s mane could do this too?
To investigate, I headed over to Nicola Clarke Salon in Fitzrovia and was put in the very capable hands of Jonathan, the curl master. It was my first-ever curly hair styling appointment and a surreal experience to know that, when I emerged from the sink, my wet tresses, a mass of ringlets, would not disappear under the blow dryers and flat irons but would, instead, be enhanced.
I realized that I need to relearn, or rather, unlearn, everything I had ever done with my hair. “When you are drying your hair naturally, you want it almost soaking, like if it’s too towel dried, you need to re-wet it,” Jonathan tells me, as he combs through my dripping hair with a wide comb. “The products just don’t dry in the same way.”
The products were a spray-in conditioner and a volumizing mousse, which he gently teased through my hair in layers before we began diffusing. We used two Virtue products (a brand that is great for dry, curly hair like mine): the Volumizing Hair Mousse and the Strength and Shield Leave-in Conditioner spray.
“The former also acts as a heat protector, so put that on first to detangle and moisturize,” Jonathan explains. “Then, because we want to use the tongs later, we want a quick, evaporating, volumizing, light mousse. I run probably two good golf ball sizes through soaking hair, and then diffuse it or leave it to dry naturally throughout the day if you can.”
I had always naively wondered what exactly diffusing would be like and quickly realized it was a slow, laborious process. (“Pop on a good TV show when you do it at home,” Jonathan advises). Diffusing is essentially blow-drying with a muzzle on—the air is not as powerful, and as such, it is a much softer way of drying your hair. Because it is an even airflow, it doesn’t disrupt the curl pattern. As you dry, use your fingers to check for hidden moisture at the roots, massaging in product as you go.
There will, of course, still be curls that are lacking definition. That is where curling wands come in. Jonathan ends up using his “army” of tongs of all different sizes to add dimension to my hair. “You need to make sure the hair is almost 95 percent dry before doing this,” he says. “You also want to use them to get a little root lift in, too. Lift the hair vertically, then tong it. That way, you get a bit more body on top.” We end with a texture spray, this time the Easy Up Do by Sam McKnight, which gives more of a matte finish and locks in the shape without sacrificing its tactility.
I’m stunned by the result. It’s me—the real me—but I’m not flinching away from the sight. Instead, I see my curls have been given their moment to shine. They are not twisted out of shape or hidden, but defined and optimized. It is then that Jonathan gives his most salient piece of advice. “People want the curl with no frizz, but actually the frizz is part of it,” he says. “A lot of women see it as an imperfection, but I don’t think that at all. It says: this is me.”
His words stick with me as I leave the salon, take the tube, and make my way across London with my natural hair on full display without any embarrassment or unease. It reminded me that I would never try to hide who I am in any other aspect of my life, so why, for decades, have I treated my hair this way? I left feeling like I should be a lot kinder to my beautiful curls. They are, after all, me.
