B003YL4KS0 EBOK (41 page)

Authors: Lorraine Massey,Michele Bender

BOOK: B003YL4KS0 EBOK

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Once the hair grows in, many women take this opportunity to try something with their color that they might never have done before. A little red, burgundy, or copper highlights throughout can offer a very stylish look, and can help give your complexion a lift since skin may look sallow right after chemo.

Robin Roberts, co-anchor on
GMA

CURL CONFESSION

Vickie Vela
hairstylist

A Sister’s Legacy of Curls
My sister, Laura’s, hair had always been straight, but grew in curly after she lost it all during cancer treatments. Though she wasn’t sure how to manage her new curls, she embraced them and learned to work with them much like she did with cancer. In fact, Laura was one of the rare people who saw this disease as a gift and an opportunity to help others with their struggle and journey.
Laura lost her battle with cancer, but since I am a hairstylist, I have made it my mission as a tribute to my sister to get as many curly girls as I can to embrace their hair—especially the new, postchemo curly girls.

Vickie

CHEMO CURL TIPS

I asked Elizabeth Cantor for some ideas that could help other women going through chemo, and she offered these tips:

•
If the type of chemo you’re having will make your hair fall out, I strongly recommend getting a really, really shorter-than-you-dare haircut. Or if you are brave enough, shave your head completely. As awful as a cancer diagnosis is, the process of your hair falling out is horrifying. I didn’t listen to this advice when it was given to me, and the experience was traumatic.

•
Even though you’re certain that your hair won’t fall out (I thought that only happens to other people), prepare in advance by buying a wig, hats, and bandannas, or decide that you are going to walk around bald. Whatever you choose, make sure that you have something on hand that will make you feel comfortable in public. For cold weather, have some soft hats to cover your head to maintain your body heat.

•
Once I complained to a bald friend of mine that my head looked like a ping-pong ball. He replied, “Well, at least your hair will grow back. I have no choice.” He was right! Once your chemo is finished, your hair will start growing back immediately. Within a month after chemo, I retired my wig. I looked like I had a buzz cut, but I didn’t care.

•
Formerly curly locks can grow in straight and straight hair can come in curly. It took a couple of months before I had evidence that my curls were going to return.

•
Buy clips, barrettes, and headbands to get through awkward growing-out stages. Find a good stylist who can cut your hair well, so that it grows in nicely. Have fun with each stage, and remember, it’s a sign of health when your hair starts to grow back.

CURL CONFESSION

Noelle Smith
owner, Ellenoire Unique Indulgences

It’s Curl in the Family
Last year, I got breast cancer and lost my waist-length curls from the chemo. It was hard, but I knew that it was more important to get the right medicine to get rid of the cancer. As my hair grew back, I used a sulfate-free cleanser and botanical conditioner, and took supplements for hair growth, and now my soft, beautiful curls are twice the length of other people’s whom I finished chemo with.

Today, I use my store and experience to help women going through chemo and to educate those who have become chemo curly. I think my desire to help others came from my mother, a former hairdresser, who cut everyone’s hair in our neighborhood (including my own until I was fourteen). She didn’t charge them because her view was that if she could do someone a favor and help out, she would.
When I started selling DevaCurl products in my store, clients kept asking where they could get their hair cut the curly girl way. Frustrated that no one in the area could do it, my mother decided to set up a little place in her house where she could cut hair based on Lorraine’s method. Throughout the five years that my mother did this, she had cancer and was going through chemo herself. But even when she didn’t feel well, having a client gave her something to get up for. She was passionate about the Curly Girl way of caring for hair. In fact, she cut hair the Curly Girl way until about six weeks before she died.

CHAPTER 17

A TWELVE-STEP RECOVERY PROGRAM FOR CURLY GIRLS

ONE CURL AT A TIME

It’s not enough to admit that you’re not straight. The compulsion to abuse products and your precious curly locks is deep-seated and hard to shake. To help curly girls in recovery, we’ve invented a Twelve-Step Personal Hair Growth and Recovery Program. Since sharing is a necessary part of the program, curly girls are advised to shift their obsession from product abuse to telling others about their curly conversion. When you feel the urge to shampoo, blow-fry, or flat-iron your hair,
stop
, and call a curl-friend sponsor.

Nature versus Nurture. The nature just is and the nurture is you.

The following steps are to be used only as life styling tools. Interpret them in the way that is most helpful to you personally and then follow them as a commitment to yourself. The steps have worked for millions of others who knew they were not naturally straight. They can work for you. In the process of uncovering your curls, you may uncover other parts of yourself long since forgotten.

STEP 1

I admit that I am powerless over my true nature—and that my curly hair will continue to be unmanageable if I deny and abuse it as I have in the past.
*

STEP 2

I will stop torturing myself with blow-dryers, brushes, straighteners, rollers, flat irons, and other diabolical ways to straighten my hair, and I will regain my sanity as a curly haired person. I will search my bathroom for such items and throw them away.

STEP 3

I will admit my addiction to going straight and attempt to discover why I have wasted so much of my time in this pursuit. I will accept the nature of my hair and celebrate it rather than fight it.

STEP 4

I will make a decision to turn my curls over to a higher power—the power that created me and my hair—and I will find a curl sponsor to mentor me as a recovering curly girl.

STEP 5

I will give in to the forces of nature, embracing humidity, rain, and wind, facing the elements confidently because I am no longer attempting to go against nature by controlling my curls.

STEP 6

I will make a list of relatives and friends who encouraged my curl denial with compliments about my unnaturally straight hair. I will forgive them as well as the hairdressers who abetted my habit.

STEP 7

I will accept that the scalp and the hair are two different entities with two totally different needs, and I will treat each accordingly.

STEP 8

I will give up shampoo dependency forever and learn how to gently cleanse my curls without turning to products that harm them. No Lather = Soap-briety

STEP 9

I admit that it is my responsibility to take care of my hair in the best way possible. I will learn how to dry it without burning it or harming it, and I will let my curls grow to their full potential.

STEP 10

Whenever I am tempted to go straight, I will call a curl mentor or friend who has embraced her curly destiny and seek her encouragement in living an honest curly life.