FameFlynetDespite her tendency to straighten out her type 3 curls, Anne Hathaway is a curly girl at heart. From runway shows to the red carpet, her straightened strands nearly always show some form of texture (perhaps unintentional?”> from a slight wave to the natural re-curling that we all have experienced, she might not always embrace the lifestyle, but boy does it want to embrace her!
And, recently, due to her role in “Les Miserables,” she has chopped off her long locks in exchange for a pixie cut. Anne’s role in “Les Miserables” is of Fantine, whose beauty continuously decreases as she attempts to care for both herself and her child, turns to prostitution and then ends up extremely ill with tuberculosis. A short crop, I suppose, is what the director’s are seeing as the proper depiction of a sickly woman?
Okay, social stereotypes aside, we’ve all been there. Once you make the decision, or perhaps have it forced upon you, to chop off a large portion of your hair, there is something about the experience that changes your relationship with your texture. Whether you big chop because you are tired of long-term transitioning or if you just go in for a trim and end up with five less inches, short cuts change your life, especially for women with textured hair.
When our hair begins to regrow, we see, for often the very first times is our conscious or memorable lives, our true texture. For example, before I got my curly cut (which took off more inches than I have ever cut before in my life”>, I thought of my wavy hair as just that: hair. There was nothing special about it, there wasn’t much I could do to revive it. It was a dead conglomerate of cells coming out my head, in the most literal of ways.
Whether you big chop because you are tired of long-term transitioning or if you just go in for a trim and end up with five less inches, short cuts change your life, especially for women with textured hair.
But, that curly cut changed something within me. Suddenly I had to learn how to deal with short hair. I had to understand shrinkage. I had to find new signature styles. I had to figure out why there was no root volume, and what the heck I could do to get it. Suddenly I realized that my wavy hair was not something that was separate from my daily life, it was part of me, and that by it being a part of me, I was part of a community of people much bigger than my self.
Next thing I knew, I was deep conditioning and reaching out to all types of textured hair women asking them for tips and advice, whether or not they had a texture type anywhere near my own. See, this community is about education and helping other textures however you can. And this transformation that I honestly believe takes a big cut to realize is what I think is around the corner for Ms. Hathaway.
Whether or not she knows it, that short cut and her curly hair are going to create a different hair care experience for her than ever before. Sure, she has celebrity stylists to take care of her, but when she’s at home and what worked with her long hair simply just doesn’t work anymore, the revelation is going to hit her.
Now, I am no psychic, and while she may turn to wigs and weaves during her transformation, I truly hope she doesn’t. It is rare to see naturally textured hair in Hollywood, and even rarer that we get to witness the transformation from not-so-in-to-my-curls to I-actually-have-the-best-hair-ever!
Viola Davis did it, and now it’s time for a type 3 to do the same.
You go Anne! We’ll be watching and supporting, even if it is only from afar.
