When I was a small child, some aeons ago, Australian mothers used to tell their children that if they ate their bread crusts their hair would turn curly.
Well IT WORKS!!!!
It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.
Some Australian children didn’t give a damn, but I did because my sister had curly golden hair and everyone used to comment on how beautiful it was. I secretly wondered if my mousy hair would not just become curly but golden too.
That’s my sister on the left. My mother used to do clever things to my hair which made it a little bit curly, but left to itself it was just like this …
So I dutifully ate my crusts … for five decades and more. I actually quite liked bread crusts, so eating them was no hardship and even though my hair turned neither curly nor golden I persevered. By the time I was a teenager the mousiness had given way to dark brown, and there was a suggestion of a wave. I didn’t realise at the time that a slow transformation was taking place.
Meanwhile, in the 50s, smooth glossy hair a la Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn came into vogue. My sister hated her curls which wouldn’t go straight no matter what she did.
Straight hair never really went ‘out’ after that … except during the ‘Afro’ period. I had my first perm then, and when I came back from the hairdresser (feeling quite sexy), my infant son said, “I HATE curls!” Luckily, grown men liked it, so the small fortune I paid to the hairdresser wasn’t entirely wasted.
From time to time I’d have another perm, but most of the time I settled for the straightish look, though it took quite a bit of work to control the wayward waves.
And so it continued, until one morning a couple of months ago I just couldn’t be bothered going through my usual blow-drying routine and just for the hell of it I decided to let my hair dry naturally, with no more manipulation than the occasional scrunch. Eureka! CURLS!!!
Picture on left shows my hair as it’s been most of my life, while picture on right shows my current curly state.
So, boys and girls, if you want curly hair, eat your crusts.
FOOTNOTES
1. There is a downside … I’m having a bit of an identity crisis. Curly hair seems to demand a different personality and I’m not sure that I’m up to it. I’ll have to exercise or start being outrageous or something.
2. I do have some niggling doubts about the crust theory too. My hairdresser, for instance, says he’s ‘cutting for the curl’. But no, I’m sure it’s the crusts. Mothers don’t lie, do they.
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