In search of curl power
Who was it that said our hair is the crown we never take off? They were bang on! Our hair is one of our best accessories and on a ‘good hair day’, we feel – and look – like we can take over the world. Curly hair is a lifestyle and I’m here to teach you to love and embrace your curls like never before.
Embracing the curl
If you’re a curly queen like me, I bet you’ve spent a lot of time in the past flattening, straightening and smoothing your hair, caught between a desire for something you haven’t got (in this case, straight and always-obedient hair) and a lack of knowledge about what you can actually do with your curls.
My curls have always been wild… they spent much of the 80s locked down in plaits! But as I’ve got older, I’ve learnt how to properly embrace and appreciate them. They’ve been short, they’ve been long, but I’ve always tried to resist the urge to ‘tame’ them, preferring to twist, plump and shape.
I want my curls to live their best life – and I’m here to transform your curls so that you can do the same.
About my curly hairdressing journey
I’m Anna and I’ve been running my own hair salon on the North Essex coast for over 17 years. I was never taught to cut curly hair as part of my hairdressing training. The expectation was that you would cut it just as you would do straight hair: by lifting it up, pulling it taut, snipping and dropping. But if you do that to a curl, you have no idea where it’s going to land, and therefore what shape you’re going to end up with. And that’s just the cut – to say nothing of using the right kinds of product.
Every curl tells a story, and I’ve made it my mission to help others embrace theirs. Whether your curls are loose, springy, wild or soft, they deserve to be seen, set free, understood and loved. Curly hair isn’t just a style… it’s a way of life.
A mission to train with the queen of curls
Motivated to deliver better results for my curly clients, I made it my aim and ambition to get myself to New York City to train with the pioneering ‘Queen of Curls’, Lorraine Massey. Over 30 years ago she developed a pioneering method for looking after curly hair and called it ‘The Curly Girl Method’. Soon after, she published her first book which has become a bible to many with curly hair – Curly Girl: The Handbook. She went on to become a founding member of DevaChan Salons and co-founded and created DevaCurl Products.
Today, Lorraine can still be found behind the chair doing what she loves the most, cutting hair a curl at a time and still finds time to be generous in passing on her trademarked cutting technique to people from around the world.
In 2022, I was selected as just one of five people to join Lorraine’s sought-after course in Tribeca. Here, I discovered a completely new way of managing and caring for curls, which did away with the old techniques – the lines and angles that were never created with curly hair in mind. Instead, I adopted an approach which would mean that I would tackle each and every individual head of curls as uniquely as the person who grew them.
Training with Lorraine turned everything I’d previously been taught on its head – if you pardon the pun. Having brought this new-found knowledge home, it gives me great joy to pass this on to my clients from my salon in Essex. What a privilege to have obtained that knowledge from such a curl icon.
Our curls are our superpower, our crown, an extension of we are… and I do my utmost to ensure every curly client leaves my salon feeling transformed.
