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Why Most Stylists Never Learned to Cut Curly Hair · We Are Spiraling

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: This is Priya Anand, and we are spiraling.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about curly hair to learn more about our culture.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: From our personal identity to how the world sees us.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: This episode answers one of the most common questions we've received from listeners.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Why is it so hard to find a stylist who cuts curly or wavy hair?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: And because we'll be exploring a bit of history here, I wanted to get further to understand when did humans even start cutting hair and how did this evolve over time?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Craziest of all, starting this year, New York State law will require cosmetology schools to include training on textured hair.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, but that's insane.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's 2026 and there are people who are only now acknowledging curly hair.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: When I quit my job reporting on tech to investigate curly hair and launched this podcast at my haircare line Myura, I can't tell you how many people said, that seems super niche.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: What are you even going to talk about?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Curly hair for that many episodes?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: What is there to say about hair?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to address that before we get into this episode.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's not just hair.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: If it were just hair, why would so many people care about losing their hair as they age?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Why would more than a million people travel to Turkey each year for hair transplants?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: Why do we feel it so innately and viscerally if a haircut went wrong?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: You can say the hair care industry is partly existent and as big as it is because people need to get clean, but what about hair dye?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's tens of billions of dollars in the US alone.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Our last episode talked about the Native American philosophy that hair is an extension of your spirit.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's very similar to the ideas that underpin the show, that hair is an extension of your identity.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: But regardless of whether or not you share this belief, getting a haircut is something most people do.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, how did this begin?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: We know from archaeological evidence that prehistoric people did have sharp stroll tools, and anthropologists believe that they were likely cutting their hair as well, but the specifics are hard to pin down, so we'll fast forward to ancient Egypt.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Ancient Egyptians sharpened oyster shells and flint, a type of stone, to cut hair and shave.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Researchers say hairstylists were split into two categories: barbers and hairdressers, private and state.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Barbers mainly used razors and were also involved with surgeries, so working on razors with the head and body.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: And hairstylists used razors along with other tools, such as combs, decorative ornaments, etc., to cut and style hair and wigs.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: Barbers were responsible for shaving the dead before they were mummified, too.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: The Middle Ages brought further rise to the barber surgeon, which is incredible to me.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: The person responsible for cutting your hair was also responsible for cutting your body open.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: They were considered experts in handling sharp tools for bloodletting, amputations, haircuts.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: This is so wild to me considering haircuts are a more spolic experience now versus surgical, though of course they both require precision and expertise.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: But fun fact, barber poles are red to symbolize blood and white for bandages.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: There's some uncertainty around whether blue is added in the US to make them look more patriotic or if it symbolizes the color of a vein, but there you go.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Let's not dwell on bloodletting and amputations for too long though.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: By the way, you know I'm a journalist and I like to make sure we have our facts right, so we'll share the sources we used for the story in our newsletter at wearspiraling.com.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: You can sign up for free.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: By the 1920s and 1930s, states began passing laws to regulate the cosmetology industry, both to keep the public safe from disease, like I mentioned, but also from harsh chemicals and new instruments that had been created like perm machines.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Check out our episode on why so many boys and even older men are getting perms for more on that.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how we get to now.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Some estimates indicate that at least 65% of the world has textured hair.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Textured is defined as wavy, curly, coily.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I find it funny that we call textured hair that and not the other way around.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Why isn't the type of hair the majority of people have just hair?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Why do so many haircuts end with a blowout?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: And how do we get to a point where we need laws in 2026 to start pushing cosmetology schools to include curly hair training in their curriculum?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: I talked to someone who had a lot to say from her own experience in cosmetology school and played a surprising role there that I didn't know about until the interview.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: Roxy grew up in Southern California.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: She went to Stanford and studied communications, digital journalism, and Middle Eastern history.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't realize until we were speaking that we have so many parallels in our journeys.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a journalist and I studied Arabic for a couple of years in college.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Roxy graduated from Stanford in 2016, a time when the venture capital-backed startup scene was booming.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: She got a job in tech in the Bay Area the same year I moved here to cover Uber and self-driving cars for BuzzFeed.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: Funny that we have that parallel here where it was affecting both of us.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, I love that.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: That actually is so funny and like seems coincidental, but I think there's no coincidences.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Really beautiful parallel that exists between us because at that time, I mean, the privilege of being at Stanford was that those founders were coming to speak at my school and I had the opportunity to go listen to all of them.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Roxy says she didn't actually see herself as an entrepreneur, though, until later on when she was on her own path and working.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: I identify with this because honestly, for the vast majority of my career in journalism, I had no idea I'd be doing this.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: I had no idea I'd quit my job reporting on tech to investigate curly hair and start weird spiraling in my era.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Truly.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I studied entrepreneurs for a dozen years, and tech journalism was my business school, the same way going to Stanford gave her that education.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: So funny that at the time, the while their you know experiences were really inspiring and I found them really intellectually stimulating, I didn't necessarily see myself as potentially able to be in their shoes.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, so then you're up, Buzzfeet covering these companies.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm there finally working at one of them as a fresh new grad.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And something that's really cool about the startup ecosystem, I think, is how because it's a bit more untraditional, unlike some of these more traditional industries like law or medicine, that tend to have really strict, whether explicit or implicit expectations around how you look, I feel like the beauty of that like startup ecosystem and that tech world was that like it kind of didn't matter too much.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, as a woman of color, personally, I felt really liberated by it.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was always very expressive with my fashion, and I just decided not to compromise that.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Even as I was walking into this environment, I would walk in with like my crop tops and mini skirts and however I wanted to do my hair that day and my little booties, and I would be right alongside them doing what I was doing.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it in that case actually felt quite nice.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: During that same time where I had some range of freedom of expression physically, I was interested in learning how to embrace my natural hair.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was making this pivot from having actually always straightened my hair and feeling, you know, compelled to always align with this Eurocentric standard of beauty with my hair, you know, straightening it as many of us grow up doing, to wanting to actually learn how to embrace my natural hair.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I found that in San Francisco there weren't that many places and resources or, you know, stylists equipped with the knowledge to understand how to help me make that transition.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: What Roxy is saying reminds me of what my dad said in episode one about one of his earliest experiences trying to find a barber in the US after he moved here from India in the 80s.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: My hair was so so so curly and thick and hairy.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: When I came here first time I went to Banburg, he refused to cut my hair because he wanted me to shampoo and blow dry and then cut.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: When Oxy says she always straightened her hair until then, she means it.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: She started at age 10.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: She's half black and half Iranian.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Her mom is the Iranian one and also has curly hair.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's twofold.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: One, I personally wanted that, right?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: I went to her and I was like, mommy, everyone around me has straight hair.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I want straight hair.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Two, I want to be like everyone else and not necessarily be as much of an other in this environment that I'm growing up in.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was very much bullied and othered for my textured hair.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then beyond that, she went to her community of women, which many of them were black, in fact, and they were like, this is the solution that we also do.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is what you do, this is what we do, this is kind of what we all do, and here's where we recommend going.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you are a tech employee in your 20s in San Francisco, and you're like, why can't I find any resources to work with my hair?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: Was it that when you went to salons, people didn't know, people didn't always know how to cut curly hair or what products are best for curly hair?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, walk me through that experience.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Surely, yeah.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, all of the above.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: It could have been maybe anxiety of me coming in and then being like, I don't know how to work with this.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should probably just straighten it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the best case scenario is straightening it.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Why would you not want to straighten it?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: So there was that camp of experiences.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: There were the other kinds of experiences of folks, I feel like, who just didn't have the right products and tools to understand to like work with my hair.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: So then they're like, okay, we understand that you have a certain hair type and it needs certain needs.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: We're not equipped.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Or what we have doesn't necessarily work for, you know, you.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then even those who did cut curly hair wanted to morph it into one specific style with perfectly defined, almost unreal-looking ringlets that could have been made with a curling iron.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what I found later on in my life was that my definitions of my hair in its most beautiful state is big and free and bouncy and it takes up space.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: One day while Roxy was working at her tech job in LA, she got into a terrible car accident.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: She got a concussion, her car was totaled.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: She was actually on her way to a salon to get her first haircut from a stylist who specialized in curly hair.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I had this moment where I was like, oh, you know, I could have not made it out of this car wreck.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And what if I just abandoned the fear of like all everyone who discouraged me not to do it or felt like it was not a practical idea and just went for it.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I just maybe a few weeks later, maybe a week or two later, packed up my bags, came back to San Francisco, and enrolled at Central Veda Institute.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: So 2019, you enter there.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: What's the curly hair education like?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, great question.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean honestly for you, there was none.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: There was no curly hair education happening.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: None, really none, even in 2019 Avada.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Even at 2019 Avada, it was perhaps two hours of a nod to their curly hair products.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they did have a line called Be Curly.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: And were we encouraged to play with it for sure?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Were we taught how to use it?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: So that's crazy because I know the following year, I was doing some research ahead of this interview.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: The following year, they launched a whole like textured hair series, but that it was basically nothing until then.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: 2019 is very recent.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I was part of that series.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was part of that series.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was part of the people that advocated for that series to happen.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: I remember in 2020, actually, towards the very end of my tenure at that school, launching like a whole petition for Aveda to create and incorporate curly hair education.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember it receiving a lot of pushback.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it was really interesting to kind of be yeah, part of that initial advocacy for that kind of texture education.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, it was happening across the company as well, too, maybe quietly at the same time.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think it wasn't really until like 2020 racial reckoning of the United States until Aveda decided that they wanted to formally incorporate this.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, it was kind of probably up to the instructors at each individual location of the institutes whether or not they were going to incorporate that education.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And because of how few POC teachers and like stylist teachers existed at that institution when I was in school throughout all of 2019, not only was there no textured education, but when I was a voice that was constantly advocating in like school meetings or like our school town halls about textured hair and including them in the like incorporating them in the conversation, there was so much pushback and so much like curly hair is just like straight hair.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of that.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: Even in the cutting.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that was I was gonna ask, like, what was the pushback in the first place when you were advocating for these programs and people were just like, we don't need it, it's all the same thing.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hair is hair.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's a little bit both.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I remember a lot of messaging being like, one, like it's all the same thing.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, so it's all the same, just treat it exactly the same.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: And two, there was even more, unfortunately, this like implicit, not even implicit, explicit idea that everyone with curly hair actually wants straight hair.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to make money in this industry, learn how to straighten and blonde the hair.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna learn or make any money, and a lot of it was a little very much economically, like you're not gonna make money, you're not gonna do well if you don't focus on helping people with textured hair straighten and blonde it.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: This is something I hate so much.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: This implicit idea that you are right 100% exists across American society in particular, that people with curly hair must just want straight hair.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: And if you do once in a while straighten your hair, it's like, wow, you look amazing.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, sorry, we looked amazing before, too, you know?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it's this idea, it drives me nuts.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: It drives me absolutely nuts.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know going into this interview that Roxy was such a driving force behind Aveda launching a curly hair curriculum.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: I looked up the program as part of my research because so many styles have told me that hair school doesn't actually teach you how to cut different hair types.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess it shouldn't be surprising that even in 2019 this type of education was lacking.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because New York only now has this law requiring cosmetology schools to teach people about textured hair and its different needs.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: So 2019 wasn't that long ago.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of what cosmetology school is about is less aesthetics and more teaching to pass the state board exam.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very much like it's very much like safety standards driven or I mean there is some techniques that are tested upon or like in the curriculum, but for the most part, it all has to do about teaching to a certain exam and certain standards, and less so about actually equipping people with training to be successful in the industry as a whole or to like meet the needs of consumers.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like meeting the needs of consumers is not the top priority of cosmetology schools as is.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, like other things, they're teaching to the test rather than to actual life experience.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so when you were at Aveda and you get there, you're like, okay, no one is actually teaching how to work with textured hair of any sort.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: We're just doing a plug-and-play for everyone, no matter what their hair type is.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: When did you decide, like, I'm gonna petition for them to create some kind of program?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Walk me through that process and how that went.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it was like through quiet, or not even quiet, daily advocacy while I was at the school for sure, in terms of constantly being the one like raising my hand and being like, but what about for curls?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because I knew when I went to cosmetology school, when I, you know, entered, I was older than the majority of people there.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was in my mid-20s, and I very much specifically went because I wanted to start this textured hair oasis.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it was very much my focus the entire time that I was there, and it was constantly something that I was bringing up in the classroom setting.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: How did you educate yourself on how to best cut curly hair, textured hair, coily hair when there was so little out there?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, the good news is like when you are in cosmetology school, you do have the opportunity to source clients and you know, work on them in a classroom setting, or like, you know, as it's called, like I think like a clinic floor.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is true of majority of cosmetology schools is that you have some sort of clinic floor and you're, you know, they make revenue on bringing in clients and you get experience.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I would try to source as many people with textured hair as I could find to come in.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then also the good news is that, like, because so few people were interested in working in textured hair, anyone who did come in with textured hair would immediately, yeah, it was immediately signed to me.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was yours, which was great.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: To find the kinds of clients she wanted to work with, she got a part-time job working at the Wing, a women's co-working space that has since shut down.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: Roxy would ask women who came in if they wanted a free cut, and everyone said yes.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, well, what's you have curly hair, you seem like you won't mess me up.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know where you work if you do.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: So they were willing, and a few other people had like better alternatives.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, not only would it save them money, but a few other people even had experts that they trusted to do so in the first place.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Roxy says she does see hair education changing to become more inclusive, slowly but surely.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: And since some of you asked for tips on how to figure out if a stylist is right for you, like everything else in life, it's about finding the person who feels like a match, Roxy told me.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Do they understand what you want?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Do you like their work?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Many people cut curly hair while it's dry because if you cut while it's wet, you might not see just how much your hair will spring up once it dries.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's called shrinkage.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: But she says dry cuts aren't always the holy grail if you're looking to do a big chop and reset.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: What else do you want to know about hair and how we live?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Email me at Priya P-R-I-Y-A at we are spiraling.com.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: Please share us on social media and subscribe on whatever podcast app you use to listen, and it helps us a lot as a new show.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: We are Spiraling is produced by Citizens of Sound and hosted by Meira.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: The music by Lopgun.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to you soon.