Entangle ✔

Hey guys!

I have been given the amazing opportunity to work with Aussie, who have teamed up with Wattpad to present to you their #AussomeHair contest. I have come together with them to create this #AussomeHair story about my own personal hair struggles, which has been inspired by Aussie's initiative to celebrate our individuality through our hair!

You can find more info on the contest on the teenfiction profile and here: https://www.wattpad.com/938338234-aussomehair-short-story-challenge

Entangle

    When I was younger I wanted to be bald.

    I had the fantastic genes of my mom's curly, thick waves and my dad's even better Indian genes of five layers of frizz and hair so dark that bleaching it blonde would make it fall out.

    As a kid, my school made us tie our hair back or have it cut short. I despised having my hair tied back so I had my hair cut to hang around my neck my entire childhood. My hair soon became the thing I felt I needed to get rid of. It wasn't something that I put effort in to look pretty because no matter what, I never felt like it made me look pretty. I'd see friends with blonde highlights and perfect waves but just looking at my wayward frizz would upset me so much that I'd constantly hide it behind my ears. Anything to make it invisible.

    When I changed schools, I could grow my hair out, but by then I was so sick of having messy waves that I rarely brushed through them because combing my hair just made it look worse. So I grabbed the flat iron and began straightening. Each time it took thirty minutes to get the hair to flatten and only three hours before I would see the frizz coming back and the 'straight' hair curling back up.

    When I left home I bought my own hair products and went through them all. I get intense dryness on my scalp so when we add that to even drier, frizzy, wavy hair, it's really just a disaster. I'd be lying in bed at 3am searching for ways to 'fix' my hair. I was using shampoos, conditioners, deep conditioners, frizz gel, anti-frizz sprays - the works! I hadn't even realized my hair was screaming for help.

    However, I decided one day to braid my hair like my mom did when I was very young, and the next morning when I took the braids out, my hair was frizz-free and curly again. I suddenly couldn't stop looking at and touching my hair. I didn't want to tie my hair away anymore, I wanted to have it in my face and around my neck - I wanted people to see it. It wasn't that I thought I had hair like the others girls, but that my hair finally found it's own identity - one that made me feel pretty. I looked at myself in the mirror and for the first time, there wasn't a single part of me that I wanted to ignore and hide away.

    My hair didn't overpower me, it empowered me.

    This hair that I had resented for so long is a part of my family. A perfect mix between my parents and the converging lines of my heritage. Hiding my hair was hiding me. But now I braid it every night like my mom did, so my hair can finally be loved, just as I now love myself.

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Hope you enjoyed, and let me know if you'll be writing this short story challenge!