PICTURED: MICHELLE BREYER (LEFT”> AND HER STRAIGHT-HAIRED SISTER (RIGHT”>
Erica:
Hi NaturallyCurly,
I am a Jewish young woman who has been using your website NaturallyCurly.com for some time. My hair is mixed texture and definitely has a few types of kink. It’s been very interesting to discover that my hair type is not included in the current texture typing system. I think that talking about Jewish hair and its related issues and history could be a valuable contribution to the natural hair conversation.
Because NaturallyCurly.com has been such a valuable resource for me on this journey I wanted to touch base with TextureMedia first. Perhaps you could give me some guidance on how to start talking about Jewish hair? Or perhaps we can figure out how to work on the conversation together?
Any and all thoughts are appreciated and I thank you for your time.
Best,
Erica
NaturallyCurly:
Hi Erica,
Thank you so much for your message. Love this topic, I actually started the site 15 years ago because growing up curly I was similarly frustrated by the dearth of information on curly hair, the lack of conversations happening around curls and the scarcity of curl-specific products and stylists who understood how to work with curls and kinks. After 15 years in the industry my insight would be that there’s no such thing as Jewish hair. Some Jews, depending upon their background, have kinky or curly hair. Some have straight hair.
I think there are definitely issues related to how some Jewish women feel about their hair. I know when I went away to Jewish camp in the summer, I was so envious of the girls who had the long, silky hair. Some of us did have Jew ‘Fros. There are Jews from Eastern Europen and Jews from Spain. I have an Orthodox Jewish cousin with stick straight blonde hair. My own sister has totally straight hair, and I always envied her feathered Farrah Fawcett hair growing up.
Because two siblings with the same parents, in the same immediate family can have completely different curl patterns and hair textures (much less porosity, density, width etc”>, we found other ways to describe our hair besides ethnicity or race.
We’ve found that the most comprehensive way of identifying curl pattern is to use the Texture Typing system, but I get that you feel your hair type isn’t included in the Texture Typing system. More often than not, curlies have multiple curl patterns and hair textures on their head, so while your hair is not likely to fall entirely under one curl pattern, it is at least a jumping off point to understanding the products and regimen that’ll work best for you.
We’d love to open up the conversation to our readers in the comment section too. Curly community, weigh in!
Best,
Michelle
