To Straighten or Not to Straighten /That is the Question

You know,  some days I probably should just stay in bed and cover my head.  Kalisha is going out for some fun time with a new 'community staff' on Thursday. I have never met this young lady, but Kalisha really likes her and as soon as I started hearing about straightening hair, I knew she must have straight hair.

I asked Kalisha, "Does Ashley have straight hair?"  She replied, "Yes, but that isn't the reason I want mine straight. I'm just tired of curly and I want to see how I look with straight hair."  R-I-G-H-T

I'm sure that sounds simple enough to you, but I can assure you..nothing is simple if Kalisha grabs hold of it. She is like a dog with a bone; only in this case, the bone is a hair straightener.

She started with the usual: search online for every straightener known to man. Brand, size, price, etc. She wrote them all down in a notebook which she showed to me. I told her she needed to try it and see how she liked herself with straight hair before buying one. I also reminded her they get VERY hot and she would not be able to use it herself and I would do it once in a while, but not every day.

First, she posted on FB asking if any of her friends were available to straighten her hair. Then she called 2 of her nieces to see if they still owned straighteners and if she could borrow one. One of them told her she didn't straighten her hair any longer. She had decided to let it be it's natural curly self. The other one still had a straightener, but did not usually use it anymore.

They both warned her that continual straightening tends to harm your hair and they get very hot. Kalisha finally texted Elizabeth, the niece that lives here, and asked to borrow hers for just a trial run. Okay, so far, so good. I should state that Kalisha's hair is not naturally curly. Her siblings all have very naturally curly hair but I guess I ran out of the curly hair gene by the time I had Kalisha. Hers is not 'stick straight' but is fairly straight. If you have read older posts you know how she begs for a perm so she can have curly hair.

Then you have me, who has natural curl and I keep it short, so when I exit the shower, all I have to do is maybe run a comb through it; sometimes I just shake my head and I'm ready to go. All the 'tools' needed by most people are not used by me. The last hair tools I used were the bristley rollers when I was a teen, and now she wants me to straighten her hair?!/?  The first thing I can tell you is when they say a straightener gets hot, they should probably put HOT in capital letters.

I straightened her curly locks and Kalisha, who doesn't like 'smells' is about to fall off the chair because it smells like burned perm. Now there's a name for a new fragrance, don't you think? I did not hold the straightener in one spot and her perm is at least 4 months old, so ...... now we know how hot the
da---- thing gets.

When it is all done, she puts a head band on and of course, since I was adamant about the fact that she wouldn't like it, it looks really cute. (She always looks crabby when she is reading and someone..me.. is interrupting her to take a picture)

The next hurdle was trying to convince her not to buy one. "Wait a while. Maybe you won't like it straight after a few days." Absolutely not. She found one at WM for only $9.99. Perhaps at that price, it won't be so hot.

Oh, we're not done yet. She washed and conditioned her hair last night, but it still smelled: eau de burned perm. She couldn't stand it..called everyone to ask about getting rid of the smell.  Went to Google and You Tube to see and find answers. She found she should put a protective spray on her hair before straightening. Elizabeth had a nearly full bottle which Kalisha promptly bought from her.

I believe my very 'motherly' words to her as I went to bed were: "Perhaps all your hair will fall out and we won't have to worry about it any longer."

*This morning we went to the library where she asked the curly-haired librarian if she ever straightened her curls. The librarian said, "No. I like my hair this way."

Kalisha looked at me and said, "Well, I guess straight hair just isn't in style anymore.