If you grew up in a South Asian household, you already know the hair routine wasn't optional, it was tradition. A mix of coconut oil and amla oil, sometimes warmed, sometimes straight from the bottle, worked through every inch of your scalp to your ends. It didn't matter who was doing it whether your mom, dad, baa, dada, nani, dadi, or ammamma, the ritual was the same: patient, intentional, and rooted in care.
There was a tenderness to it, even when it felt a little… intense. Scalp massages that toed the line between soothing and slightly aggressive (like Iron Man himself had a hand in it), followed by tight braids or ponytails to keep everything in place. And of course, the comb, both feared and fought, that somehow always delivered tangle-free hair and a perfectly crisp part.
Looking back, those moments weren't just about hair. They were about connection, about being cared for in a way that didn't need explaining. In our homes, haircare wasn't a question, it was a given. A ritual. Something passed down without instructions, because it didn't need any. It just was.
But here's the part no one really talked about: what to actually do with our natural texture.
It's no one's fault, this knowledge just wasn't readily available. We were taught how to care for our hair, but not how to understand it. How to make it look good, yes, but more importantly, how to make it feel good in its natural state.
We had the oiling, the conditioning, the scalp massages. We had the discipline of taking care of our hair down to a science. What we didn't have was the language, or the tools, to style it as it naturally grew out of our heads. Why it frizzed the second humidity hit. Why one wash day felt like magic and the next felt like a complete reset. Why the products that worked for our friends never quite worked the same way for us.
And somewhere along the way, without it always being said out loud (though sometimes it was), we picked up on the message: curly hair was something to manage. To tame. To smooth out, straighten, or tie back into something more "presentable," more familiar, more accepted.
So a lot of us did exactly that. Myself included.
The Straightener Years
If you went through a phase of straightening your hair every single day, you are not alone. For myself (and I'm sure a lot of South Asian girls) the flat iron became a routine and on days I really wanted no frizz at all - the good ol' iron trick (iykyk). It felt like I finally figured out how to control my hair. It felt like fitting in. Fast forward to 2022, mastering the art of dyson-ing my hair. Chef's kiss.
But what it actually was for me, was years of heat damage layered on top of hair that was already struggling, dry, brittle - hair that had been oiled and conditioned so lovingly by generations who knew exactly how to care for it, but handed off to me a generation that had no idea what to do when it was time to wear it out and natural, resorting to every heat method available to me.
There's no fault to my parents and I absolutely don't blame my grandparents. They did what they knew. I did what I saw. And the beauty industry absolutely did not help - for a long time, curly hair was not considered the beauty standard and when it came to products it typically wasn't my curl type in mind.
What Was Actually Missing
South Asian hair is deeply varied. Some of us have loose waves. Some have tight coils. Many of us have multiple textures on one head - straighter at the roots, curlier at the ends, or the reverse. Our hair can be thick and dense or the quite opposite, with strands that need real moisture but can also get weighed down easily.
The traditional practices we grew up with were actually doing a lot of the right things - oil hitting the hair shaft and reducing moisture loss and scalp massages supporting circulation and growth.
What was missing was the styling piece. The "embrace your texture" piece. The "your natural curl pattern is something worth working with, not against" piece.
That conversation simply wasn't happening in our communities. And it still isn't happening enough.
To Anyone Still Figuring It Out
If you're reading this and you're somewhere in the middle, maybe still reaching for the straightener more than you'd like, maybe just starting to experiment with your natural texture, maybe feeling frustrated that your wash days don't look like the ones you see on your feed - we want you to give yourself some grace! Figuring out your curls can take time, especially if they haven't had the chance to breathe in it's natural state and actually see the world.
It took us time too.
Your hair has a history, literally and figuratively. And learning to work with it, understand it, and eventually love it, is one of the most rewarding things you can do! As someone that wore their hair straightened/ blown-out for the past 20 years, it's been a fun journey embracing my curls and finding the right products to finally help them thrive. Now I happily choose to rock my curls versus straightening/blowing them out 24/7.
Message us anytime! 💗 We're here for all of it.
From our roots, to your routine.
With love and juicy curls.
Natasha