I have thick, naturally curly hair that always felt a little out of my control. I grew up with a mother (and a grandmother, and a great-grandmother) who had thin, straight hair. My mom wasn't able to help me learn to style or care for my hair. She didn't know what products I should use, how to do a blow-out, or really anything about curls at all. We lived in the suburbs outside of Houston, which is one of the most humid places in America. Not long ago I was helping her digitize all our family photos and looking back at my school pictures was like looking at the evolution of my learning how to style curly hair. I went from perfectly coiffed as a toddler to a child with straight and long hair. When I hit adolescence my curls kicked in; there's some pretty hilarious evidence that I clearly forgot it was school picture day once or twice and was caught with my mane looking wild and unkempt. It's super obvious that I started going to an expensive salon (and finally got some professional advice on which products to use and how to properly dry curly hair) during my sophomore year in high school, because in photos my curls suddenly look like the perfect spirals that most girls get perms to achieve. By my senior year, it seems like I finally have curly hair figured out, aside from my unfortunate, straightened, thin line of bangs.