Texture Perspective is a new series of discussions involving the perspectives of four different women of different hair textures and types, of varying ages who are in different stages in life. We invite you to meet them and join in the discussion and interact with these ladies and the rest of the NaturallyCurly community by commenting. If you missed the first part of Texture Perspective, be sure to go back and meet Tracey. In this second introductory portion of Texture Perspective, meet another one of the four ladies, Quinn.
Quinn Smith: 3B
NaturallyCurly: Please, introduce yourself! Where are you from? Where do you live?
Quinn Smith: My name is Quinn Ryan Smith. When I was younger, I hated my name, because when people saw it, they always expected me to be a boy. As I got older, I began to appreciate the uniqueness of my name and grew to love it.
I live with my family north of Atlanta in Buford. I love it here. Though I am definitely not an outdoorsy kind of gal, I love that we are surrounded by nature and that my girls will have adequate exposure to God’s creation.
I’ll be 31 in August. For the most part, I’m okay with where I am in life, so I don’t have any particular issue with disclosing my age. My weight is a whole other story. Right now, my main occupation is wife and mother. Blogging is my side gig, and I am actively pursuing its growth and success.
I had my oldest daughter, Peyton, a month before my 19th birthday. While I got into my fair share of “trouble,” I effectively became an adult when the doctor came back with the results of that pregnancy test. My husband and I have been married for four years now. We have two daughters together: London, who will be 4 in June and Kensington, who is 17 months old.
NC: What’s your curl story? Have you always loved your hair? Did you just start embracing your curls? Why?
The biggest factor to change how I view my hair is my husband. I knew he was special because he preferred me just the way that I was; he was the first man who did not prefer my hair straight.
QS: When I was a little girl, my mother took such great care of my hair; it sort of set a precedent for me. I didn’t go to a hairdresser for the first time until I was in high school, but even after that, my visits to a salon have always been few and far between. I was always given kind of a hard time when I went to salons to get my hair done, like it was so bizarre that I didn’t have a relaxer and it was a huge hassle to straighten my hair. I’ve never had a relaxer. My mom always told me that I didn’t need one, and when I expressed any desire to have one, she put me off by telling me that I could get one when I turned 13 (I chose not to get one, a decision I’m very grateful for to this day”>.
Even when I started to do my own hair, it never even occurred to me to wear my hair curly until high school when I became good friends with another curly girl. Seeing my friend’s beautiful, curly tresses gave me the courage to finally wear my hair in its natural state. I still preferred to “tame” my mane until it was bone straight. I felt more “me” with straight hair. Curly was simply an alternative when I wanted to do something different, or felt too lazy to tackle the daunting task of straightening it.
And then there was Peyton. Let’s just say it’s hard to find the time to regularly (and painlessly”> wield extremely hot objects when you have a little one knocking you in the knees every five minutes. Curly finally became my regular state of being, but only by default.
The biggest factor to change how I view my hair is my husband. I knew he was special because he preferred me just the way that I was; he was the first man who did not prefer my hair straight. Then there was the discovery that our daughter was a curly girl too. To see the time and effort he (yes, HE does our daughter’s hair”> spends on making sure her hair looks its best, from researching new products and washing and taming those tangles. The two of them have really helped me to embrace the texture I was born with.
