I struggle to follow the directions of the YouTube tutorial, scolding my mom to stay still while I gather the hair tools I begged her to buy. Every night in elementary school, I would practice different hairstyles on my mom’s shoulder-length, black hair, placing a dozen hot pink butterfly clips to accessorize. And every night, my tiny hands would fail miserably at managing the strands it takes to do those styles. However, my mom never minded how chaotic she looked — in fact, she looked forward to those 9:30 p.m. sessions. For as long as I can remember, she has suffered from a form of alopecia, so the fact that I was able to do anything with her hair served as validation that she wasn’t completely hairless. She would always leave the chair feeling beautiful again.

For me, I did her hair so I could get better at doing my own. My mom and I have the same hair type — poofy, thin, shoulder-length — and it was frustrating that I couldn’t learn how to manage all the hair I had on my own head. In contrast, everyone around me had silky, pin-straight hair, and I envied their easily kept locks. 

No matter who I met, the first thing they noticed about me was my hair. My peers and the adults I met at parties would pass comments about my appearance. “Your hair looks like a bush. It’s like a bird’s nest.” Or, “She looks like she just rolled out of bed. Does she even use conditioner?”

I swallowed the urge to yell back that I wasn’t unhygienic. It wasn’t conditioner I lacked — it was confidence in my appearance. I begged my mom for more hair products — hair dryers, shampoos, coconut hair oil, brushes, anything that would make my hair look as tidy as my peers’ in a desperate attempt to feel beautiful. But nothing I did made the frizz and knots disappear.

Ashamed, I started to loathe my hair more, developing the same sentiment toward myself and my overall appearance. My hair became my biggest insecurity — I couldn’t look in the mirror without feeling the urge to buzz it all off.

I carried this hatred and desperation to fit in with me, which worsened upon starting high school with people I had never met before. I realized using a straightener would give me the same hair as my peers — my prayers were finally answered. I woke up at 7 a.m. every morning, burning my hair to a crisp as I ran the 350-degree tool over each and every strand. I received dozens of compliments at school, but there was a lingering pit in my stomach. I didn’t understand why I felt this way — I finally fit in, which is what I had wanted for all my life, but it wasn’t truly me. Burning my hair felt as though I was burning a piece of myself — the same piece I thought I wanted to keep hidden.

Desperate to find a solution, I revisited the YouTube tutorials from my childhood. As I frantically scrolled through the millions of videos, a thumbnail of a girl with frizzy hair — hair that looked exactly like mine — caught my eye. I clicked on the video, and by the end of the tutorial, she had beautiful, bouncy spirals. Every comment underneath praised her for her hair, saying, “I wish I had curly hair like yours.”

Longing to feel like myself again, I begged my mom for another round of hair products, this time specifically for curly hair. My arms hurt from the amount of scrunching I had to do, and I impatiently fiddled my thumbs as I waited for it to dry. After three hours, I mustered up the courage to look in the mirror, and all I noticed were the imperfections. Half of my hair was wavy, the other half curly. I wasn’t satisfied whatsoever. It was disappointing, knowing that after all this time and money on products, this wasn’t the answer either. Ready to give up, I went to my mom’s room to confide in her. Upon entering, she said, “Wow! I wish I had hair like that. What did you do to get it so beautiful? Can you do it for me too?” 

I stared at her with a blank expression, trying to process what she had just said. I ran back to the mirror and took another look at myself. This time, I observed how each lock was unique, each spiral framed my face in a way I had never seen on myself before. Even though it wasn’t perfect, I realized it never would be, and I was OK with that. All that mattered was that I felt like myself again, and I needed to keep trying different methods and products to find what works best for me. It wasn’t solely about my confidence anymore — I had to put in the effort for my mom’s too.

With every routine, my curls became more defined, and simultaneously, I got used to seeing myself with ringlets surrounding my face. I was able to look at myself in the mirror and be proud of what I saw, instead of picking on the imperfections. At school, I received hundreds of compliments on my curls — more than I ever did with my straight hair — and this time I felt deserving of them. I was being my true, authentic self. I realized my confidence was never tied to fitting in — it was about strengthening my perception of myself and feeling proud of the hair I was born with, rather than hurting myself both physically and mentally trying to hide it away.

My peers would come up to me to ask me to do their hair, confiding in me that they hated their frizz. So I invited them over, gathered my products, sat down behind them and did their hair too, leaving them feeling more beautiful and confident in themselves as my mom watched us with nothing but pride in her eyes.