“Only 4 out of 10 curly haired girls think their hair is beautiful”
The beauty and skin care brand Dove never seize to amaze me when it comes to their beauty campaigns and the Love Your Curls may have hit home for a lot of women. The commercial begins with a statistic stating how ‘Only 4 out of 10 curly haired girls think their hair is beautiful.’ As women of color who struggle with a variety of image or self love conflicts, we know this to be an alarming fact (even thought it may seem like this would be a much larger ratio) as African American women have been ridiculed from the hair on their heads down to our innate curvy figure until this day. What I love even more is how Dove was able to capture the diversity of such a self-esteem issue ranging in age (from 6-11 years old) and ethnic backgrounds as you can see girls of all shades: Black, White, Latina and more likely bi-racial. These little girls talk about how they wish they could have straighter hair instead of their curls because its smoother and prettier when straight. Sounds familiar right? This is not only a issue for our Black and Latina children but of all races and even Caucasian girls (believe or not!). Having naturally curly hair is not only a ‘black’ thing which also means this issue is much larger than the box we have been assigning it to. It’s important to know that girls at a young age absorb what’s within their surroundings so if we as women don’t feel confident about our image, especially in its natural beauty, and love ourselves then how can we teach our daughters, nieces, cousins, and those we care about to do just that? We can’t because the overall change of how one views their self starts with YOU!
