High Maintenance

I love me some products, and I'm not afraid to use them. I will do my make-up for 45 minutes before going out, combing my eyelashes with a metal comb and lining my eyes with a pencil and then a brush dipped in shadow...I will exfoliate in the shower and then use one moisturizer for the really dry parts (knees and elbows), then use the self-tanner on the rest of me, carefully washing my hands and scrubbing my cuticles (and then moisturizing them, for goodness sake) to get the tanner off, and then walk around nekkid for ten minutes so no tanner strays...I will tweeze something on my brows nearly every day, and I am slightly obsessed with my toes and how the polish looks on them, and I have WAY TOO MANY nail polishes...I am high-maintenance in those ways, and totally fine with it. I love using and trying all that stuff.


For a long time, however, I had low-maintenance hair. It was so short that I could blast it with a hair dryer for three minutes, throw some pomade on, and be done. I could wash it with whatever I wanted, and it never was damaged because I didn't (and don't) color it and I got haircuts so often there was no time for ends to split. I was into all the other stuff, but not into doing my hair.

And then I started the growing out process. Sigh. It's become such a time-consuming obsession. First, I would pounce on any photo I could find of Victoria Beckham, Rihanna, or Katie Holmes, because they all had or have a version of what I was going for, and I would really think I was looking a lot like them. Then I passed that stage, and had a funny little bob. During both these phases, I would carefully blow-dry with a round brush and then straighten with a straightening iron. I bought several round brushes. I bought new goopy stuff to protect my hair from all that heat. I used an awesome olive oil product that I got in the Black haircare section...made my hair look super sleek and shiny.

Now I'm just at a loss. I am letting the natural curly hair on my head do it's thing, and boy oh boy is it hard. No more cool shiny wave over my eye. No more slightly sassy look. Now I have curls springing here and there and strange dry ends and sometimes it is super curly, almost in a Jheri curl way, and sometimes it is flat and barely wavy...but it takes so much work!! I am now devoting about 20 minutes to my hair in the morning...for someone who hits the snooze alarm for 45 minutes (remember?) that is too much hair time.

Anyhoo, what I do like, and what has made me feel a bit better for a while now, is this shampoo and conditioner, Matrix Sleek Look. They are designed to make your hair straight and smooth, and there are two other products in the line...some sort of setting stuff and then a finisher, I think. But I do think the shampoo and conditioner do what they say. They make my hair easier to style and flatter if I want it straight, and hopefully a little smoother and less fly-away-y when I want it curly.

When I wore my curly natural hair to school the first time, I had kids from my class and other classes running at me across the playground (seriously!), yelling about my hair. It was pretty fun. But not quite pretty, if you know what I mean. We'll see.