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 like we can take over the world. So why do so many of us spend so much time trying to change what we’ve been given?
If you’re a curly queen like me I bet you’ve spent many an hour flattening, straightening and smoothing. Caught between wanting what you haven’t got (in this case straight hair) and not actually knowing what to do with your curls. My curls have always been wild and they spent much of the 80s locked down in plaits! But as I’ve got older I’ve learnt how to properly embrace them. I’ve had them short, I’ve had them 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 encourage you to do the same.
I’m Anna and I’ve run my own hair salon on the North Essex coast for 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 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, don’t even get me started on products!
“Curls are not a trend, they’re a lifestyle.”
– Lorraine Massey, 1999
Motivated to do better for my clients I made it my ambition to go to New York City and train with the absolute Queen of Curls, Lorraine Massey – author of Curly Girl: The Handbook, founder of Devachan Salons, and cofounder of DevaCurl products. Lorraine now works independently, teaching the Curl-by-Curl™ cutting technique.
In 2022 I landed in Tribeca to be one of just five people on a course with Lorraine. It was here I discovered a completely new way of managing and caring for curls. I could do away with all the old ways of cutting, like the lines, the angles that, let’s face it, were never created with curly hair in mind. Instead I could adopt an approach that meant I would tackle every head of curls differently. That course turned everything I’d been taught on its head, if you can pardon the pun.
Now, I practice curl-by-curl cutting at my salon in Essex and I absolutely love it. Nothing beats educating curly people on how to embrace each and every curl. Our curls are our superpower, an extension of we are, and I do my utmost to ensure every curly client leaves my salon feeling just that.
