A Less than Curly, More than Straight, Brown Mane Anonymous

Two broken brushes and an empty spray bottle of water later, I am left with a less than curly, more than straight, brown mane. I turn to my mom's drawer of worn-away labels of mostly expired, nearly empty bottles of ancient hair products. I conclude that a concoction of "Smoothing Serum," "3 Minute Miracle Straight," and a hodgepodge of other nameless formulas will do the trick. I pour the array of styling formulas into an empty bottle and immediately become nauseous from the fake watermelon and flower scent cascading from the bottle. But beauty is pain, and I've been told straight hair is beauty. I dump copious amounts of the cottage cheese textured mixture into the palm of my hand and begin sliding the mixture from root to end as instructed by one of the few, still readable labels. Unlike the pin straight locks that I had been promised, I still had a frizzy but now greasy mess. Like trying to remove the wrinkles from a shirt using friction from one's hand, trying to remove curls from a mess of hair is nearly impossible. But the "hair hate" of a seven year old girl with curly hair is inconsolable.

This struggle continued for five years until I discovered something that would not only change my hair's texture, but my views of...