Welcome to a week celebrating curly hair!
Now you know why your hair is curly but what if your hair changes?
That’s exactly what happened to my hair.
For years I had long, straight hair. Maybe it was a little wavy, but never frizzy. Then one day it started to change.
All of a sudden I had curly hair.
And I had no idea how to style it.
It took a long journey of trial and error to work out how to style my curls. I slowly fell in love with my curls and they are the reason I started Hair Romance.
Now I know from your comments and questions that I’m not alone in this hair change and I have found some reasons why this happens.
Why did my hair change from straight to curly?
There are several theories as to why hair changes texture.
Hormones, stress and ageing as seen as the common causes for changes to your hair texture and quality.
You’d think, with the size of the hair industry, there would be a conclusive answer to this question, but research is still underway and there are no decisive results.
One interesting fact about curly hair is that the gene for straight hair is recessive but that the curly hair gene is not completely dominant. That means you could have the curly hair gene but until it’s activated, your waves and curls will be dormant too.
The most likely theory, in my opinion, is to do with your hormones. Hormones are a possible trigger for the curly hair gene.
As well as affecting the quality of your hair, hormones can change your muscle tone too. This includes your scalp. The change of muscle tone could affect the shape of your hair follicles and their direction of growth. Straight hair follicles grow straight out but curly hair follicles have a hook shape.
With my hair, puberty was the when my curls decided to appear and this fits with the hormone changes. For many women, pregnancy and birth have a significant impact on their hair too.
So if you’ve noticed significant changes to your hair texture, check your hormone levels and talk to your doctor and hairdresser about it.
How to cope with the change to your hair
If like me, you’re finding your new curly hair difficult to handle compared to straight hair, help is at hand. Start here with my guide to styling curly hair and check out my other curly hair posts.
On the other hand, if you had curly hair and it’s starting to go straight, find out how to get your curl back.
Have you experienced a major change in your hair? Has your hair gone from straight to curly, or the other way round? Tell me about it in the comments.
PS. Have you seen Hair Romance’s new curly hair ebook?
Learn how to master your curls and manage your frizz with the 30 Days of Curly Hairstyles ebook. Inside you’ll find over 35 different tutorials with hairstyles for all occasions.
Make your mornings easier and never worry about straightening your hair again with this ebook that will help you to love your curls.
Click here to get your copy of 30 Days of Curly Hairstyles.
My sister’s and my hair went curly back in 2013. I was 48 and living in California. My sister was 38 and living in Virginia. I suffer from health problems such as prediabetes and hypothyroidism. My sister doesn’t suffer from any health problems. I wish someone could give me an idea of why our hair changed at the same time.
My hair used to be straight from the roots and would only curl at the ends. 2022 has been an unbelievably stressful year for me and as the year progressed I could see how my hairline receided a little bit but the most intersting thing is the more I stressed the more the texture and amount of curl and friz changed in my hair. I observed that at times when I did better to control my stress levels my hair would become fuller again and the texture would also improve.
My hair has gone from straight my whole life to curly for a few months back to straight again.
My hair is starting to get wavy. All my life I’ve had very thick straight course hair. The only thing that’s changed is I started taking semaglutide injections to lose weight and it started right after I got Covid for the first time in June 2022. Now my hair is very wavy mostly in the back. It’s so weird. I’ll be 62 in February
I have to concur with your analysis. Since acquiring Covid in January 2022, i didn’t notice it at first but now that i have 9 months of growth, it’s gone from curly as a baby, straight for 99% of my life until now. I have about 6” of regrowth and it’s wavy. If i air dry it it’s curly. WHY!!!!!!????
I came here to find out why my hair changed from straight to curly, and I found your comment!!! Thanks!!!
Because I recently taken semaglutide as well for weight loss and this is the only thing that I think is changed in the past three months!
My hair is shockingly curly while before I couldn’t even curl it with a curling iron!
This is the same thing that happened to me as well. Always had straight hair with a bit of wave in back. Got Covid…light case, but also had only brother die which was very stressful. Today, I was told by hairdresser that they hear it alot….after Covid went curling. I did not know how to even handle it so have been trying so many things. I kind of like it but it is difficult or different to figure out and how to deal with it.