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If Your Curls Could Talk
Join The Curly Girl Methods founder, Lorraine Massey, on her new podcast, "If Your Curls Could Talk,” a podcast where we celebrate the incredible stories behind every curl, wave, and coil with a diverse array of Lorraine’s notable clients. From hair journeys that reflect resilience and self-expression to the deep-rooted connection between our hair and identity, we explore the human experiences that make each strand unique. Let’s unravel the beauty, struggles, and triumphs that coil us together—one curl at a time. Available on all major podcast platforms.
If Your Curls Could Talk
Curls & Pearls
Imagine being a teenager in Greece, where a single haircut at 13 dramatically alters the way you perceive yourself. That's what happened to our dear friend Marilena, whose curly hair journey offers an uplifting story of self acceptance, especially after meeting Lorraine, who introduces her to the Curly Girl Method. Marilena’s candid recounting of her story not only speaks to the struggle of feeling “defective” because of her natural hair but also underscores the liberating power of embracing one’s true self.
In our Calling all Curlies segment, Evey asks the question many of us are curious about as we travel through the chapters of our lives. How do we keep the shine of our youth in our hair, without having to use damaging products or a blow dryer?Lorraine shares curl altering tips that people of all hair types will want to know.
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Marilena is the founder of a new cracker company, “Marilena’s,” inspired by her Greek heritage. Made with simple, organic high-quality ingredients, her crackers are pure, guilt-free goodness crafted with love. @marilenascrackers
Lorraine Massey is a curl advocate whose lifelong dedication to understanding and caring for curly hair has helped drive a global phenomenon of curly acceptance. As the founder of the groundbreaking Curly Girl Method, she has empowered countless individuals to embrace their natural texture. Lorraine is also the author of three critically acclaimed books: Curly Girl: The Handbook, Silver Hair: A Handbook, and Curly Kids: The Handbook.
CurlyWorld website:
https://www.curlyworld.com/
CurlyWorld Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/curlyworldllc/
Host: Lorraine Massey
Producer: Susan Kaplan
Engineer: Dan Strong
Original Music: Cyrille Aimee
Show: If Your Curls Could Talk
Hi, I'm Lorraine Massey, founder of the Curly Girl Method. Welcome to If your Curls Could Talk. Join us as we talk to our very special guests sharing their curly hair journeys and take questions from you, our listeners. This is If your Curls.
Speaker 2:Could Talk.
Speaker 1:Today we'll be joined by my good friend, marilena. She has a traumatic hair story, as a lot of curlies do. Even though it happened when she was a little girl in Greece, it still lingers with her today. So this is where it gets interesting. Why don't we just let Marilena tell her story? Hi, marilena, thanks for being here and welcome to. If your Curls Could Talk, how long have we known each other now, marilena?
Speaker 2:Since 1992, 31 years. It can't be. It can't be because I'm not 31 years old.
Speaker 1:I always remember that day you came into Nymph, new York Master Practitioners of Hair and I think you were probably still straightening it then, were you oh?
Speaker 2:my God, did I have that look in my face as, please help me, like my hair was screaming. Please help me.
Speaker 1:So if your curls could talk, what would they say today, today?
Speaker 2:Thank you for introducing us to Lorraine. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:Tell us about that haircut that your mom gave you way back.
Speaker 2:Oh my God. So I was 13. It's awkward being 13 just by the simple fact that you are 13. But up until then I had hair down to my waist that was always, always braided. I had two braids and I had a nickname.
Speaker 2:In school I was the braid girl. I was a tomboy, didn't really care. And then I turned 13 and I started caring and I said you know, I just want a little bit of a change. What can we do here? My mom said I know I'll take you to my salon and we're going to get your haircut. And I said, yes, I would like a haircut, I would like not to have to braid my hair every day. I was in Greece and she said yeah, we'll go to my salon. And we go to her salon and they look at me and they say, yep, no problem, they take my two braids and they cut them. They cut them like I was braided, like that chop, chop. And then they kept cutting and cutting. And I'm thinking they know what they're doing. I'm just 13. And I come out of there and I looked like a boy with curly hair and I cried, I think for two months straight.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:I just could not believe what I looked like. It was so short I couldn't even straighten it. Nothing to do. I was like, oh my God, it's either braids or this Horrible.
Speaker 1:How was your mom with your hair? Did your mom look at your hair and go oh, marilyn, you have beautiful hair. Or what was your relationship? How did she treat you and your hair?
Speaker 2:Almost as if I was a little defective and she was trying to help me deal with my defect. So she would brush it. She would brush it also dry Everything that now I know is just an absolute no-no for curly hair. And then her solution for the first 13 years was to braid it, so it just would kind of go away. You know, instead of just shaving my head, she would just really have two braids for 13 years. I don't remember a moment that I didn't have braids. And then, when I stopped having braids after that horrific event, she would always say you need, to like, do something with it, you need to put it up, or you need to straighten it, or let me help you straighten it, or put it behind your ears. Yeah, she didn't see it as pretty, it was just a fact. So, yeah, that was my first great experience about my curly hair.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that was my first great experience about my curly hair. Yeah, wow, even just you talking about it, you can still feel what you went through. It's so visceral and I don't think we ever forget those kind of experiences, do we? And with curly hair, when we grow it, it takes us years and years to grow it. It's not like, oh don't worry, I'll grow Our hair is like one year, two years, three years, four years it's shoulders probably five years, six years, seven years. I went without a haircut after an experience like that Seven years.
Speaker 2:I completely believe you and I don't know if I told you when you were in between your life choices I just couldn't trust anybody with my hair. I went four and a half years with no haircut, didn't think anything of it and I keep thinking about it. You know I'm a long hair girl, maybe because of that event. There's just no way I can think of myself as a short hair person. What you just said how long it takes for the hair to grow this hair is like 20 years old.
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, you'd be able to go to the website to look at Marilena's hair, because it's absolutely beautiful, and this has all been based on keeping it so simple. Your routine, right? I mean, you've really lived the simple CG routine just conditioner, very little sulfate-free cleanser, right?
Speaker 2:None, you've lifted it. I've drunk the lorraine kool-aid all the way, as I was telling you. You go to your doctor and you know nothing about medicine, so you have to trust your doctor yeah and you say, okay, you say this, I'm gonna have to do it once that doctor has gained your trust. You gained my trust and we'll talk about my first visit with you. Yes, and I was like okay, lorraine says that have to do it, there's no question about it.
Speaker 1:It was difficult for a while, wasn't it At the beginning?
Speaker 2:Well, when I showed up to your place the first time, I saw your beautiful curls and your wild hair and your stiletto shoes and I was like, oh my God, who is this person? She's not just a hair cutter. And then you talk like this and you feel like you walked into a psychologist's office and you're like your hair is the first defense of your face and I'm like you had me there.
Speaker 2:You were very pragmatic and you said okay, your hair is fried, you have like seven layers and you have curly hair. That doesn't work. Your hair can be like mine, you said, but it's going to take like six months to a year to get there. You can't ever, ever, ever blow dry it straight.
Speaker 1:I was much stricter in those days. I mean, I still am, but I don't say ever, ever, ever anymore. I just say, you shouldn't.
Speaker 2:No, you probably say you could do it, but I don't think that you will like that or you can't unfry a steak.
Speaker 1:Usually that's what I say Fast forward, fast forward. So when you started your job where you met your beloved husband, tell us about your experience in your world and where you worked.
Speaker 2:So that was right before I came to you, not right before a few years back. Another awkward time in one's life, right? You graduate from college and you're looking for a job and you think you know what you're doing and then things change and so I ended up in finance. I was interviewing at banks Back then, you know, the headhunters would prep you up and would introduce you. I also don't have a permanent visa. It's like an uphill battle here. That headhunter was a woman too. She looked at me and she said you know, yeah, you sound very interesting and you drive and everything will be fine, but you need to do two things. And I'm like, yeah, what do I need to do? And she said you need to buy yourself a string of pearls and you need to put your hair up. And I was like, oh, okay, so I had to transform myself because otherwise I couldn't do my job, potential job well. So you know, it always was you're ugly and fix yourself.
Speaker 1:Wow, you said you wouldn't be able to do it right if your curls were out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because I was defective. I had curly hair. It was too wild. It's funny because I ended up getting a job. I didn't even know if I wanted to go into banking and that job that I ended up getting, I interviewed with my boss back then and she was a German woman that had our curls in red and that particular day she was wearing a leather mini dress and she's heading the department and I was like, oh wow, there's hope there's life, yeah, so you went to work.
Speaker 2:After a while I had my hair up in a ponytail, then a bun. I did buy a string of pearls. Do you still have them? No, threw them out, will never, ever wear pearls. Really. You know, like with everything in life, you learn and adversity is the best thing for one, because one learns from adversity and it drives you to do better, to learn, to move onwards. And you know, like three, four years probably later, I said, okay, I just don't like this. Look when I look at myself in the mirror, it's just not me. And again, early 90s, late 80s, there was no pantsuits in banking and there was no, so not my style. So I said, okay, I have to do something about this.
Speaker 1:And I had a good friend, natalie, that also has really good curly and she's featured in Curly Girl the handbook. Actually, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:And she said that's where I go. And I was like, okay, I'll try anything. And I came to you and you said, yeah, it's feasible, but you need to have patience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's almost like what you're not going to do. You had to go away for a while and just let it grow.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it was really hard.
Speaker 1:And you know.
Speaker 2:I always tell you oh, you changed my life. And it's not like, oh, you changed my life, you really did. Because in many ways there were so many teachings in that I felt ugly. For like six months straight a year I wanted to blow dry my hair straight. It looked horrible, it was frizzy and everybody doesn't have to be the same. Everything. It's not like a dogma. This is right and this is wrong. Even just moving to the states, you know I'm very dark haired and dark skinned and in Greece you need to have straight hair and blonde hair and it's what they don't have here.
Speaker 2:I was viewed very differently. It's funny I'm the same person, just put me in a different continent and I'm perceived differently. I don't fall under the traditional categories. I'm not African-American, I'm not Jewish, I'm not Latina, but I have lots of features that could be construed as part of all these ethnicities. So, funnily enough, I'm viewed as exotic, which is weird, like so stupid. I'm sorry, but because you know, we're 11 million people, you don't have a lot of Greeks, so they just don't have a category for me yet. But I told you the story about my children.
Speaker 1:Yes, Marilyn has two beautiful children.
Speaker 2:Thank you. But my children? I have a 21-year-old son who is very curly, very red, very light-skinned green eyes and I have an almost 20-year-old daughter who has almost straight strawberry blonde, green-eyed girl. So I was always the nanny, of course, when they were babies, and back then Dina DeLuca was still there. There were babies and back then Dina DeLuca was still there. I remember having a dinner party and I went and got like a big piece of tuna. I was going to make a tartare, it was raining. Okay, you know I've looked better. But I remember going to pay at the cashier and they looked at me and they said does your boss have an account here? And I didn't realize. I said, well, she's my boss. She was sleeping on the stroller and I said she doesn't have an account here. Yet Back to my hair. When I think of my hair, it's so much more than hair.
Speaker 1:Yes, you're living proof of keeping it simple, keeping it natural, just being really true to yourself.
Speaker 2:I was lucky to have you as my guide. No, seriously, and it's also seeing somebody like you that believes in what you preach for so many years and lives it. You haven't changed one bit in 31 years. Well, you've improved now. You moved from telling me not to blow dry my hair, like a decade later you said stop washing it too, just rinse it with water.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Marilena does the minimal and her hair is abundant and gorgeous. A lot of people don't want to believe that they could be the culprit as to why their hair is in distress and a lot of the times people will say what treatment should I put on? I think the moment we're born, we come out of the womb and we go straight into a sulfate bath. They wash us with detergent the moment we're born and then I think from then on, that's it. We're in the chemical landscape.
Speaker 2:Also, interestingly, you said the other day that FDA doesn't regulate those products. How is that possible? Skin is our biggest organ and we just constantly feed it chemicals. Like people dye their hair, they shampoo it, they condition it they silicone, they blow fry Same with like creams and I can't believe how resilient we are.
Speaker 1:It's funny you say that because I was just thinking about our hair. So once I cut your hair, it falls on the floor. It still contracts and expands, even if it's not attached to you anymore. So hair is immortal. So I went to Egypt a couple of years ago and if you see the hair on the mummies 2,000 years old, they look exactly like your hair Really Intact, 2,000 years old.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:It's in an agroscopic environment, but if that was taken out of that, it would still contract and expand the hair. Back then there was lots of resins from trees, so a lot of the hair was mummified too. Waxes but the thing is what we're doing today. We're offering these kind of things for our hair too. You know, too many waxes, too many silicones and it's almost mummifying the hair to the point that the hair's not breathing anymore and it's fine for a while, but then over time it starts to erode. So we don't want mummification hair. And in those days they wore wigs anyway. So they wore wigs a lot of the time, but they were made with real hair. Everyone shaved their hair because of lice. I actually think everyone who has hair can have the most beautiful hair as long as they look after it. Whether it's straight, curly, fractal, wavy, if you can go with it and nurture what you have, everyone has the potential to have their own individual look. I believe.
Speaker 2:But when you say look after their hair, what do you exactly mean? Because you need to clarify that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We've been told we're not clean unless we're using detergent, shampoo, fluffy chemicals. We think that is clean. That is not clean at all. It's not only ravaged our hair, because our hair's naturally dry anyway. This is like drinking salt water when you're thirsty, basically. So we've been doing that on a daily basis. It used to be rinse and repeat too, so at least we're coming away from rinse and repeat, but we're not that dirty. That's another thing. We're not that dirty at all. So gentle cleansing with a sulfate-free cleanser or conditioner will definitely wash away any of your impurities, whatever.
Speaker 2:I know we've lost a lot of people that are listening to us now. They're like okay, it's just. I'm just not going there, yep, but I have to tell you. I have stopped. I rinse as you say, I wash my hair with water every day pretty much, and then I put conditioner. For the last 20 years. You work out, yes, but my hair I invite anybody it's really yes, but my hair I invite anybody, it's really really clean? I don't smell.
Speaker 1:You're living proof of the simplicity of it all.
Speaker 2:And you know, hydration, hydration, hydration. I came to New York City in 1987, and New York was very different than what it is now, and I just said, ah, I'm home, I'm home.
Speaker 1:Marilina, that's what I said too in 1987. Really, I was just passing through and I said I'm home. I said the exact same thing in 1987.
Speaker 2:It was just like there was no question that I would ever be anywhere else but New York City, here, here.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for coming today, and I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, thank you, Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Next I love this section is called Calling All Curls. This is where curly girls from all over the world call in and ask me any question they want about curly hair.
Speaker 2:they want about curly hair.
Speaker 1:We have our Curly Girl caller coming in. And what is your name?
Speaker 3:My name is Evie and I live in the Berkshires in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1:Oh lovely.
Speaker 3:So what is your question today? So my question today is I had very soft, shiny curls, and so I was always a girl that could come out of the shower, crunch my hair a little bit and air dry my hair. And in this chapter of my life I noticed that if I try to do that, my hair looks really dry and really the only way to get it to look shiny is to very slowly and carefully blow it straight. And I was just wondering, like if you have any recommendations for either how to wash it or for product to get that shine back in the curls.
Speaker 1:okay, so do you want the truth? Can you handle the truth, do you? Really want to know the truth well when you were talking about your shine. How long ago? Was that years ago? Can you give me a rough estimate? Um?
Speaker 3:I would say I really started to lose it like five years ago but the shiny when you would just get out the shower.
Speaker 1:And it was shiny, was this before you colored your hair? Do you color your hair?
Speaker 3:I do some highlights about once a year, but I didn't color my hair for most of my life until I was over 50.
Speaker 1:Okay. So color does play a difference in that too. And the thing is, your hair is not recuperating after being blow-fried slowly. Sometimes a slower blow-fry is probably more damaging than a faster blow fry, because it's slowly simmering and you can't unfry a steak, you can't unfry hair. So when you then go to try and be curly, your hair's so dehydrated from what you've done before.
Speaker 1:Our hair is a little bit like a book, but we're reading it backwards and it has history in it. And the more you treat it with beautiful products no more blow-frying, take away sulfates, take away silicones your hair will come back. I promise you, the natural essence of your hair will be there. The thing is with shine, with curly hair, our hair is Cs and troughs, so we have curves and concaves and usually the shine only hits the crest of the curl and the concave is a darkness. Curly girls don't really get a shine in their hair.
Speaker 1:Natural shine. We get it when there's a light on us and a photograph has been taken, but in essence our hair is not naturally shiny. Just because of the undulating movements of the curl and the wave, the light doesn't reflect as much, and that's why sometimes a lot of curly girls that don't love the hair or haven't started to love the hair. They think the alternative is blow-frying it straight and you're only going to get that shine just for a little bit, and it's a superficial shine. The silicone is melded into your hair. It's laminating your hair temporarily and it is not a great outcome. I promise you that your hair will not thrive. That's kind of sad to hear, I know, but it's not really, because if you do want the shine, you can have it. You just don't want to. You don't want it enough. Your hair knows what to do. Your hair knows exactly what to do.
Speaker 3:How long do you think it takes if I stop blow fronting? Give me three weeks to start.
Speaker 1:You will see a difference so fast I can't tell you how forgiving curls can be. Once you stop dehydrating it with sulfates, laminating it with silicones, the hair will start to regain its own natural consciousness. I don't think we realize that sometimes we are the culprit as to why our hair is becoming a little bit more damaged and dried out. Got it?
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Stay away from shampoo. Yeah, three weeks doesn't seem like a long time.
Speaker 1:No, and just be gentle. Get in the shower, slow down, connect to your hair. Don't use any brushes. I don't know if you use any brushes or combs, because that also fuses the hair and stops it from looking as shiny as it could. Use your fingers. Your fingers are attached to you. You're more connected with your hair when you're only using your fingers to detangle, but just allow your curls to be. Just slow down. Start to love them as they are, not as the hair that you want, as the hair that you really have. That sounds great.
Speaker 3:And I'm sure there's a deeper message in there somewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our hair is just metaphor.
Speaker 3:Okay, take care.
Speaker 1:Take care. Thank you so much for your question, no problem. Bye. Thank you to our listeners and thank you so much, maralina and our call-in, evie. Be sure to follow and share. If your Curls Could Talk wherever you get your podcast, it will mean the world to us and it really makes a difference. If anybody would like to submit a question, please send it to info at curlyworldcom or visitors on Instagram at curlyworldllc. Thank you so much and I'll see you next time. This podcast is produced by my favorite producer, susan Kaplan. Thanks to Dan Strong, our engineer, and to Michael Schubra and Chea Ponte, and a very special thank you to Sorrella May for writing and performing our original theme music talk. If your girls could talk if your girls could talk.
