I still comb my hair and look in the mirror. It's a different mirror than the one I grew up with, in a country half a world away from where I was born. But it's the same face.
The little girl in that first mirror hated what she saw. This is her story, and how she came to love it.
The girl in Bangalore
Growing up in India, straight hair was the ideal. I had thick, dark, curly hair that no one had ever taught me how to work with. My mother was loving and empathetic, but on this she had no answers for me. Her hair was long and beautifully wavy. Mine was mine.
I combed and combed and combed. I stood in front of the mirror hating what I saw. I wore ponytails so tight my scalp ached. I cut it short like a boy, envious of my mother's waves. At school, they noticed. They said things. Not the kind you forget.
What we tried
I resorted to everything. Henna. Paste-soaked fenugreek seeds. Eggs. Hibiscus leaves. My grandmother's remedies, my mother's ideas, anything I could read about or ask about or try. Nothing worked. The frizz didn't leave. The curls didn't relax. The mirror didn't change.
America
Years passed. I made my way to America, and over time I discovered options. Real ones. Products that worked with curly hair instead of against it. Extensions that let me have my hair full and long the way I'd wanted since I was a girl. Keratin treatments that quieted the frizz without straightening the curls out of existence.
That discovery is the reason Perfect Locks exists. When I couldn't find something I needed, I built it. The Curl Care line, the textured halos, the range that starts with kinky-coily rather than treating it as an afterthought - all of it is that little girl in Bangalore, still asking where the options are for hair like hers.
What I understood about my mother
Here's the thing I didn't understand as a child. What made my mother beautiful to me wasn't her hair. It was the way she carried herself in a room. The way she loved openly and freely. The way she looked at herself and didn't apologize.
I was watching her waves. I should have been watching her.
The mirror now
I still comb my hair and look in that mirror. What I see isn't something to fix. It's the features my mother passed down to me. It's the road that got me here. It's a woman who took a long time to arrive at herself, and who's still arriving.
Some days I wear my curls. Some days I straighten. What changed isn't how I style it - it's why. Back then, straightening was hiding. Now, it's just Tuesday.
If you're on that road too, I hope this reaches you somewhere useful. Your texture is born from generations of beautiful women just like you. Loving it is honoring them. Embracing it is honoring the road they paved so you could stand in the mirror and see something worth loving back. And however you choose to wear it on any given day, wear it because you love it - not because you're hiding from it.
Stay gorgeous,
Priyanka Swamy
