Growing up, I could not wait to get my first relaxer. I begged and begged my mom to put a Just For Me boxed perm in her shopping cart whenever we passed by the hair-care aisle at the drugstore , and sang the catchy jingle ad nauseam around the house. And every few months I watched with wide-eyed marvel as my grandmother, a licensed cosmetologist, would give my aunts relaxer touch-ups in the kitchen. It was fascinating to me. After applying a magic, smelly concoction on their curly roots and washing it out, they'd emerge from underneath the kitchen faucet with silky straight locks, just like on the front of the box. Naturally, the fictional role models I was obsessed with had straight hair, too. Belle, Anastasia, and Arielle were all my heroines with long, smooth locks.