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Acurly crown Anyone with curly hair will know all about the hours that are spent trying to straighten it. But these days more people are making peace with their curls. Elsa Krüger shares advice on how to make this ʻnegotiationʼ a bit easier.
st yling HANNES KOEGELENBERG photos ED OʼRILEY
There was a little girl, Who had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, She was very, very good, But when she was bad she was horrid.
‒ Nursery rhyme attributed to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
126 IDEAS May/June 2022
H
ow many times have these words flitted through my head as I have stood, hands in hair, tussling with my curly locks that have a will of their own? When my hair is ʻbadʼ, I feel ʻhorridʼ. When I lived in Johannesburg, the curls and frizz were restricted to rainy weather and humidity. Otherwise my hair was blow-dried straight. But now that I live at the coast, I have had to make peace with my curls. It remains a struggle. After a lifetime of trying everything to straighten my hair ‒
from a hot iron on an ironing board to Brazilian keratin treatments ‒ I am now learning to love my curls again. Fortunately the timing is good. In recent years, there has been a worldwide shift towards natural hair, a giant ʻcurl-naissanceʼ movement so to say. Natural and especially curly hair is stepping up into the spotlight. And have you noticed how much shelf space is being given over to new haircare products formulated specifically for curls? Curly hair has unique require-
