return to the curly club
As Kate turns heads with cascading curls after years of sleek blow-dries, will she inspire the A-list to make a...
SURELY I can’t have been the only curlyhaired girl to cheer the Duchess of Cambridge’s sideswept ringlets when she attended the Royal Variety Performance last week?
It was a gorgeous throwback to the natural waves she used to sport while a student at St Andrews, before she became the poster girl for the smooth and bouncy ‘Chelsea Blow-Dry’.
And, inevitably for Kate, who never puts a foot wrong in the style stakes, it was bang on trend. To the joy of women who have spent years wrestling their kinks into submission — and I’m one of them — curls are back.
For years, I’ve felt my naturally curly locks had to be tamed. Like Kate, as a student I rarely bothered straightening my hair, happy to let the curls do their own thing. But once I’d entered the workplace, my corkscrews felt distinctly unprofessional. If I didn’t flatten them, I felt unkempt and feared I’d be taken less seriously.
It didn’t help that, in 2001, GHD launched its game-changing straighteners, making it easier than ever to smooth wayward tendrils. And so, for decades, I attempted to do exactly that. It never really worked. Nor did professional blow-dries — a hint of moisture in the air and my hair would revert to its natural state.
The only thing that seemed to do the trick was a costly keratin straightening treatment — it worked fleetingly, before my rebellious ringlets would make themselves known at the roots.
But a few years ago, things started slowly to change. Social media feeds began to fill with posts talking about the #curlygirlmethod — an approach that was about nourishing and embracing your natural curls. Impressive before-and-after pictures showed women who’d managed to rehabilitate their hair from reluctantly straight to enthusiastically curly.
Meanwhile, a host of product ranges dedicated to enhancing curls launched; small independent brands, such as Trepadora and Imbue, and more recently, established brands, such as Living Proof and Kerastase, have started to sit up and take notice.
Then came lockdown. When we weren’t going anywhere, there was the opportunity to let curls dry naturally, to experiment with different products, to let hair just be.
Transitioning from heat-styling to healthy, happy spirals doesn’t happen overnight. But thanks to new product discoveries, including Cantu Define & Shine Custard and Centred Unwind Detangling Primer, as well as techniques such as ‘squish to condish’ (a way of applying styling product) and ‘plopping’ (using an old T-shirt to take the water out of hair while keeping the waves intact) I am well on the way to rediscovering my own lost curls. And I couldn’t be happier.