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A Curly Reporter Starts A New Investigation (Refresh + New Notes) · We Are Spiraling

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: Hi everyone, it's me, Priya.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_04: This is publishing on the one-year anniversary of We Are Spiraling.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_04: We dropped our trailer on October 29th, 2025.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_04: Since then, we've interviewed actors, comedians, members of Congress and state legislatures, celebrity stylists, hairstylists, academics, and people like us about their experiences and the role their hair has played in their lives.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_04: The New York Times called the show worth a listen.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_04: Business Insider wrote not one but two stories about us.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_04: And most importantly, you've sent me emails and DMs to share what We Aspiring means to you, and that is what means the most to me.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_04: It's crazy how much has changed in the last year, how much this show has grown, that I walked the production floor at my factory and held the Myura Hero Elixir and it's real packaging for the first time.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_04: Thousands of bottles got filled this week and we're launching in November.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_04: To commemorate one year, we're republishing episode one, and for a very specific reason, not just because it's our anniversary.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_04: I need you to know if you want something in life, if you're looking to start something, if you want to make a change, if you have a dream, if you believe in it, if you want fresh air, please listen to this episode.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_04: I hope it helps you remember that everything starts with just an idea, just a thought, just a dream, even a little one.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_04: And it's okay if you don't feel ready or know everything that's about to come, because truthfully, if you feel ready, you're wrong.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_04: Things will constantly come up that you haven't done before, and that's okay.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_04: The meaning of being ready is just acceptance that there's a journey you're about to go on.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_04: Especially if you do feel in your heart and mind that you believe in something.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_04: I'm telling you that I believe in you.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_04: If you haven't heard this episode yet, it's where I share the why behind We Are Spiraling in Myra.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_04: We'll have some behind the scenes on that when I have time later on to actually put together tape from the manufacturing floor, the printers.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_04: Basically, all the recordings I should have organized better over the last year.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_04: Back when we first published this episode, much of this show and what's about to come was just an idea.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, here's the episode.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_04: I'm Priya Anand.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_04: I was a reporter for my whole career, holding the biggest and most powerful companies like Amazon and Uber accountable.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_04: To me, journalism is about asking good questions so we can try to understand the world we live in.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_04: First and foremost, though, I'm a curly haired woman.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_04: I've spent my whole life thinking about it.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_04: I quit my newsroom job last year to start a curly hair care product line because I got tired of waiting for things that satisfy my needs.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_04: Products that make my hair look good, are easy to use, don't require long routines, and that are nourishing and that are beautiful.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm making this show because it's the kind of thing I've always wanted to listen to.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_04: We Are Spiraling is about what curly hair means to me, to other people, to our culture, what it means for both our personal identity and how the world sees us.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_04: Let me tell you a story that illustrates why I need this show to exist.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_04: In the Odyssey, Athena transforms Odysseus.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_04: Here's an excerpt.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_04: Athena then made him look taller and stronger than before.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_04: She also made the hair grow thick on top of his head and flowed down and curls like hyacinth blooms.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_04: Flowed down and curls like hyacinth blooms.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_04: That's so poetic.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_04: Odysseus's transformation is clearly a glow-up.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_04: More recently, this is how the New York Times described Carleman in Hollywood.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_04: His flopsy curls tumble like overcooked fusili.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_04: That was about Timothy Chalamet.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_04: How on earth did we get from hyacinth plumes to overcooked pasta?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_04: Especially when describing Timothy Chalamet, a man hot enough to be put on screens worldwide.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_04: Here's my view.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_04: Curly hair is so cool and chic, and I'm making this show because I'm obsessed with it.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_04: But I have to be real about the fact that these smears are pervasive in our culture, even if they're totally whack.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_04: Consider this.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_04: There are almost no curly haired people in national politics.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_04: Here's Congresswoman Debbie Watzer Minchel.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_04: She used to run the Democratic National Committee, and she's been in Congress for more than 20 years.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: When I first thought about running for the state House of Representatives, I was 25 years old, and every older woman that I met with for advice counseled me that I had to do something about my hair.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_04: Why are so many people secretly curly, glued to straightening their strands every time they wash their hair?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_04: My name is Ranya, and I was secretly curly for almost 30 years.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_04: Why are curly characters portrayed in Hollywood either jokesters, witches, psychos, or hookers?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: I have some clients that have very curly hair that have been in um like zombie, like uh Walking Dead and different things like that.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_04: The Walking Dead.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_04: When I asked a celebrity hairstylist who works on film and TV sets about a time he actually had to make his character's hair curly, that's what he said.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_04: We are spiraling is about unraveling all these issues.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm bringing you along on my own journey too.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_04: You'll hear what it's like for a startup supporter to jump to the other side and build something like the subjects I spent a dozen years covering.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_04: Like all my investigations, I'm starting from a blank page.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_04: I'm launching this business and this podcast out of my savings account.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: Like I said, I was a career journalist, so that Piggy Bank is finite.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_04: So please subscribe to my newsletter at wearspiraling.com.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_04: We're gonna see how this goes together.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_04: Since we're asking other people to share their stories on this show, it's only fair that I go first.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_04: And to be honest, I'm not used to talking about myself.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_04: My job was to tell other people's stories, not mine.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_04: Putting together this episode felt really unnatural and took me forever and made me anxious for months.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_04: But here's who I am.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_04: I grew up in New Jersey in the 90s.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_04: My parents moved here from India to build a better life, the classic immigrant story.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_04: My dad had super curly hair when he was younger.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_04: When I was a kid, I looked like his mini me.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_04: Meet him, my mom, and my sister.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_06: My hair was so, so, so curly and thick and heavy.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_06: When I came here first time I went to Barnaburg, he refused to cut my hair because he wanted me to shampoo and blow dry, and then only he will agree to cut.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_03: He wanted to blow dry your hair straight before cutting it?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: Wait, was this when you first moved to the US?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_06: In New York.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: Where?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: In New York?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_06: Flushing.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_06: Flushing.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, one person saying flushing, the other person.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: Five months?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: So you never got a haircut in New York?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_06: No, I got in New York.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, but then person New Jersey refused.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_04: In our house, there's never just one person talking at a time.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to my family circus.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: What was your hair care routine?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: What did you do to it?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_03: What did you put in your hair?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_06: There's bathing soap.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: Bathing soap as opposed to what soap?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: Bathing soap as opposed to laundry soap.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: You washed your hair with bathing soap instead of a laundry detergent.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for that information.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_04: By the way, you'll hear my parents call me beta throughout this show.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_04: That's Hindi for child, and technically it means son, but it's used by anyone older to address someone younger.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_04: So given my dad's own routine was to wash his hair with bar soap, I guess it's a good thing he played zero role in doing my hair when I was a kid.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_04: My mom didn't know much more, but she loved that I had curly hair.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think I got a single haircut at a salon until I was a teenager.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_04: She would just trim off the ends and give me hot oil head massages, which are popular in Indian culture and seen as a way to keep your hair growing thick and long.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_04: I always felt like the odd one out, but my mom always saw my hair as something that made me me before I even could accept that.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_04: Here's what she says about my childhood.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when Priya was younger, her hair was curly and also very long.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: She did dance shows, and there would be like a 15-20 other kids on the stage, and I used to tell my family, hey, that is Priya, because they were not able to recognize, then I'll tell them to pay attention when she goes spin and spin, look at her hair, and that was very unique.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_04: One day in middle school, I asked a girl on the bus how her ringlets stayed so perfect all the time, when mine definitely did not, and she looked at me like I was so clueless, and I'll never forget this.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_04: She said, Well, it's clear you're brushing your hair.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, wait, you're not supposed to do that.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_04: And she said, No, not while it's dry.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_04: That moment changed my life.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_04: Shout out to Mouse Kuba if you're listening.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_04: I went through phases and I've tried basically everything on the market right now.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_04: As a kid, I used LA Looks, Tresme Mousse, anything you could find at CVS, which was my favorite store.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_04: In adulthood, I shifted to higher-end salon quality stuff, and I've always felt like there's something left to be desired.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_04: I knew almost immediately what my values would be for my product line.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_04: I only want to make things that I myself love and can fully wholeheartedly stand behind.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_04: That's why I'm doing this in the first place.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_04: That's why I quit the career I built brick by brick, working my way up from clickbaity sites to investigative magazine reporting.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_04: I wouldn't be doing all this if I didn't want to make things that I love.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_04: Number one, I want good, effective ingredients that improve the health and quality of my hair over time.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_04: Number two, the products should actually work.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_04: I know that sounds obvious, but talk to any curly person and they will tell you that that is not the case with a lot of the stuff they've tried.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_04: I want as few steps as possible with each product doing as much as possible for me and anyone else.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_04: I don't want to have to put in three products every time I style my hair after washing it for my curls to stay all night.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_04: Number three, I want my products to be buildable.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_04: Curly hair is a vast genre.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_04: To quote Linda Martell and Beyoncé's song Spaghetti, genres are a funny little concept, aren't they?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_04: In theory, they have a simple definition that's easy to understand.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_04: But in practice, well, some may feel confined.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_04: And that is definitely true for curly hair.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_04: Think about it.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_04: Beyonce has curly hair, some people have really thick, coily hair, others, like Taylor Swift, have fine strands.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_04: It's all still technically curly.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_04: I know striking the right balance is going to be really hard to make sure my products can work for as many people as possible within this genre, but I really hope to get there.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_04: I figured out what I wanted to call my company nearly immediately.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_04: This concept that I keep bringing up, that hair, especially curly hair, is part of someone's identity, part of my identity, is so central for me.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_04: I wanted a name that conveyed that belief.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_04: And I want it to be something that inspires me.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_04: Peacocks are known for their elaborate iconic feathers and they're captivating.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_04: And in the same way that their feathers are a defining feature, the way I feel curly hair is a distinctive feature for us.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_04: They roam around with pride.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm going with Myura.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_04: M-A-Y-U-R-A.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_04: Mayura.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_04: It means peacock in Sanskrit.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: And to me, Mayura embodies my philosophy around both this product line and this show.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_04: By the way, sign up for updates on my products, launch details, the wait list, pre-orders, and become a sample tester at MyuraBeauty.com.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_04: So, how do you build a hair care line from scratch?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_04: I approached this like a reporter.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_04: I called everyone I had met with who worked in retail and e-commerce and asked if they'd be down to connect me to the smartest people they knew who had made personal care products.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_04: And there were two things I needed as soon as possible.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_04: A team of chemists to help me craft formulas that are effective, powerful, nourishing, and of course safe, and a manufacture.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes those two things come together.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_04: I did a research deep dive, what my first editor after college used to call investigative Googling.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_04: I read so many niche beauty industry websites to see which manufacturers were quoted and talked to dozens of people.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_04: I want to make things in the US so I can control the quality and also be close to the process.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_04: This is personal for me.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_04: Wittling down that long list of manufacturers was actually a lot easier than I expected.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_04: I filtered for expertise with clean, high-quality ingredients and in hair care.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_04: My first challenge, MOQs.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_04: That stands for minimum order quantity.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_04: Every manufacturer has a floor for what the smallest batch size is that they'll make, and it's the minimum quantity you can place an order for.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_04: Hence the acronym MOQ.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_04: Every dollar I spend is coming out of my pocket, so I need this MOQ to be low.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_04: Some manufacturers only work with businesses that are already scaled up.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_04: For example, one told me that their minimum launch order was 10,000 units, and then every reorder has to be 50,000.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_04: Bye.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_04: I did find a manufacturing partner who met my criteria on quality and gave me a reasonable MOQ, but before handing over my savings account, and reminder, subscribe to my newsletter.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_04: I need testimonials.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_04: You can take me out of journalism, but you can't take the journalism out of me.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_04: I like to check my facts, get multiple sources before anything is confirmed.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I asked every potential manufacturing partner for referrals.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_04: Connect me to someone who's currently working with you so I can hear what it's like from them.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_04: This weeded out a lot of people who didn't seem trustworthy from the jump.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_04: There were these guys from Jersey, and look, I'm from Jersey, but they kept telling me that they'd connect me to someone, but only if I paid them first.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_04: And they were giving me the runaround on leaving me voicemails for weeks.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_04: Ultimately, I found the manufacturer I'm working with now, and I'm happy to say they're based in California like me.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_04: On our first Zoom call, the guy who runs the show there told me, come down here, meet us in person before you pay me a dime.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_04: And I already had Google Flights open on my screen when he said that, so I thought we were at least on the same page.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_04: He sent me some other folks to talk to for referrals nearly immediately.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_04: And now the chemist team I'm working with is top-notch.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_04: My first product will be a hair oil.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_04: I use oils regularly to keep my curls moisturized, and I've never been fully satisfied with what I could buy.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_04: After many rounds of samples, I'm loving where we've landed.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_04: You'll hear more about ingredients and formulation in a later episode.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_04: We're still making some tweaks, but I'm excited about it.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_04: After months of investigation into what ingredients offer the most benefits to curly hair and at what levels, how much of each type of juice needs to be in each bottle, I realized I had skipped over a fundamental question.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_04: What even makes hair curly?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_04: Obviously, our genetics play a role, but what else is happening on our heads?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_04: I found a research paper with the title, Why is Hair Curly?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_04: Bingo.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_04: Franz Wortmann, the first name on the author list, agreed to speak with me over Zoom.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_04: Franz is 72.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_04: He told me he didn't set out to consider curly hair.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_04: He was researching wool fibers and textiles, but eventually people knew enough about wool, so the market for that work dried up at the end of the day.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_07: How to straighten or retexture textured hair in a way that doesn't damage the hair is pretty much the holy grail.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_07: So uh we're working on it.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, this is crazy.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_04: Firstly, one of the premier researchers of curly hair only started doing it because nobody cared about wool anymore, and curly hair was similar enough to make a pivot.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_04: Secondly, most of the research people want now is about how to straighten curly hair.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_04: I feel like this reinforces the point of the show that we have so much to unpack here.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_04: What is it even that makes hair curly?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_07: It's not very simple.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_07: Well, I'm a nerd for me simple.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_07: So you have the hair follicle.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_07: The hair follicle is an organ that grows hair.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_07: You have two types of cells.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_07: One is called OSO and one is paracortical.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_04: Franz was right.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_04: The scientific explanation is not that simple, but let me break it down for you.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_04: Think of each hair as if it's a piece of pasta.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: Have you ever seen a pasta extruder?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_04: Dough comes out of the holes on a metal surface in whatever shape the design indicates.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_04: The hair follicles on your scalp are those little shapes on the metal surface.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_04: Your cells, influenced in part by your genetics, in part by hormones, that's why some people see their hair change a lot during puberty, pregnancy, menopause, all those things send messages to your hair follicles.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_04: They're like, hey, I want the pasta to be smooth long spaghetti.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_04: So the follicle forms a little round, tight hole.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_04: Voila, you get the spaghetti out of the extruder.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_04: When your genes want curly, the cells are a bit more distributed.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_04: The middle hole the pasta is coming out of creates room for the dough to spread out more, and the pasta comes out curly, like fusili.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_07: I love to look a YouTube videos on ladies with young ladies with structured hair and straighten the air in their hair through all sorts of things.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_04: Franz, you're out here watching Get Ready With Me videos on YouTube of women with curly hair for your research.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_07: I'm not a good example of managing uh curly hair because I got I got straight and reasonably short hair.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_07: When I look YouTube videos, there are obviously women who want who love their textured hair and just needs to want to have it manageable.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_07: And the other the the other group wants to have it straight or wants to have it straighter and wants to more reduce frizz.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_07: All of this is perfectly uh corrig.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_04: Curly hair is uh often considered to be more prone to frizziness, to dryness, needs a lot more hydration than straight hair.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_07: Why is that there's uh much higher forces when you try to groom your compare compared to straight hair, which leads to more damage and you need more lubrication.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_07: So you need more conditioning effect.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_07: If you have straight hair, you use a conditioner and you get fabulous lubrication and it goes straight through.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_04: Franz says that part of the reason curly hair needs a lot more moisture and is more prone to frizz, a concept we'll unpack in the next episode, is because we manipulate curly hair more.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_04: So then we have to give it more TLC.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_04: Have you ever tried to curl your hair?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_04: Are you curious about what the experience is like of having curly hair as a person with short straight hair who's been studying it?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_07: It has been half an inch for the last 50 years, so no.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_07: And my wife has she got curly hair.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, your wife has curly hair.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_07: Oh yeah, she has curly hair.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_05: And she has collaborated with you on a lot of this research, right?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_07: Oh yes, we've done what, 100 papers together?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_07: Oh yes, she no, we have been working together for longer than we were married.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_07: So we're married 40 years now.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_07: So uh and uh so when I was in Manchester, she was actually the head of the research group.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_07: I'm just a marketing man, you know.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_07: The real work by the woman in the background.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_05: Did she inspire the journey to start researching curlier?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_07: Well, she uh always managed all the PhD students and the postgraduate researches for for this research group.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_07: But she's more into archaeological fiber, so she works on on mummies and uh mammoth and all these hairs.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_05: I should chat with her too.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_07: Well, we have lived in the in in in the UK for 16 years, but uh she doesn't like well, she doesn't like to give interviews.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_07: No, not in English.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_07: Unless you speak perfect German.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_04: I do not speak any German, unfortunately.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_04: When we were finishing up our conversation, Franz told me something about his wife that made my jaw drop.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_04: Even though she has curly hair and studies curly hair, she straightens her hair.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_04: That's right, the premier researchers into curly hair straighten their hair and are looking into new ways to straighten hair.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_04: You might not realize how widespread this phenomenon is.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_04: Next time on We Are Spiraling, why so many people are secretly curly.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_04: Episode two is out now, so keep listening.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_04: And this is a call for your stories.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_04: What questions do you have about curly hair?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_04: Send me your lingering curiosities, thoughts, and feelings.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_04: Do you have a curly kid?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_04: Who's your favorite celebrity or film character with curly hair?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_04: Email or voice note me at priya at weare spiraling.com.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_04: That's P-R-I-Y-A.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_04: Sign up for our newsletter at WeAresPiraling.com too.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_04: You'll find updates on the show and behind-the-scenes details on what it takes to build a hair care line.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_04: This podcast was produced by Citizens of Sound and brought to you by Myura.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_04: Theme music by Lop Gun.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_04: Special thanks to Nico Grant, Ellen Hewitt, Anna Burna Sabramanian, and Fuja Anand.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_04: By the way, I asked my parents if they helped me out by telling all their friends when my products launched.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_04: Here's what they said.