Curls Week – Why did my hair change from straight to curly?

Welcome to a week celebrating curly hair!

Now you know why your hair is curly but what if your hair changes?

That’s exactly what happened to my hair.

For years I had long, straight hair. Maybe it was a little wavy, but never frizzy. Then one day it started to change.

All of a sudden I had curly hair.

And I had no idea how to style it.

It took a long journey of trial and error to work out how to style my curls. I slowly fell in love with my curls and they are the reason I started Hair Romance.

Now I know from your comments and questions that I’m not alone in this hair change and I have found some reasons why this happens.

Why did my hair change from straight to curly?

There are several theories as to why hair changes texture.

Hormones, stress and ageing as seen as the common causes for changes to your hair texture and quality.

You’d think, with the size of the hair industry, there would be a conclusive answer to this question, but research is still underway and there are no decisive results.

One interesting fact about curly hair is that the gene for straight hair is recessive but that the curly hair gene is not completely dominant. That means you could have the curly hair gene but until it’s activated, your waves and curls will be dormant too.

The most likely theory, in my opinion, is to do with your hormones. Hormones are a possible trigger for the curly hair gene.

As well as affecting the quality of your hair, hormones can change your muscle tone too. This includes your scalp. The change of muscle tone could affect the shape of your hair follicles and their direction of growth. Straight hair follicles grow straight out but curly hair follicles have a hook shape.

With my hair, puberty was the when my curls decided to appear and this fits with the hormone changes. For many women, pregnancy and birth have a significant impact on their hair too.

So if you’ve noticed significant changes to your hair texture, check your hormone levels and talk to your doctor and hairdresser about it.

How to cope with the change to your hair

If like me, you’re finding your new curly hair difficult to handle compared to straight hair, help is at hand. Start here with my guide to styling curly hair and check out my other curly hair posts.

On the other hand, if you had curly hair and it’s starting to go straight, find out how to get your curl back.

Have you experienced a major change in your hair? Has your hair gone from straight to curly, or the other way round? Tell me about it in the comments.