I thought my hair was straight until a couple of years ago. I treated it like it was straight, and mostly made it look straight by unknowingly brushing and otherwise destroying my waves.
For people who have known me for longer than the last couple of years, it can seem to them like my hair became wavy after being straight. Most people aren’t very familiar with wavy hair and how it has to be treated delicately to maintain the waves in a lot of cases.
It’s complicated to try to explain to them that I am not curling my hair, didn’t have my hair chemically treated, and that my haircare products aren’t crazy-powerful wave-making products or something.
It’s common for people to think that when people who previously thought their hair was straight start embracing their natural waves, that they just wanted wavy hair all along.
For some, that’s true, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, for me, it’s not as simple as preferring wavy hair. In fact, most of my life I thought I wanted really straight, sleek hair. Instead, I had straight but poofy and frizzy hair.
I feel that there are advantages and disadvantages of naturally wavy hair. I’ve seen others list pros and cons of wavy hair that weren’t true to my experience. For example, I’ve seen people say that wavy hair is the best hair type because it can be worn straight or curly depending on whether you brush it or not. That just isn’t true for me.