My mother had always wanted a daughter with European features.
Luckily, I was born with European features.
People couldn’t even tell that I was Egyptian.
But, unfortunately, I had curly hair.
I got all sorts of comments from my family and people I wasn’t even related to.
“Poor thing. She’s beautiful but she has bad hair.”
Can you imagine a 6-year-old getting her hair done at the hairdresser’s almost every week?
I tried every hair straightening method there is just to meet their beauty standards.
My mother-in-law had only one thing to say about me, and it was that my hair was ugly.
“She’s extremely beautiful and even has blonde hair, but it’s curly, not straight,” she said to her son.

This whole curly hair thing was very hard on me.
I always had my hair in a bun, like people would tell me to do.
I didn’t take care of it at all.

When I got married my husband told me,
“Your hair is beautiful. It suits you.”
Who said it’s ugly? It looks better curly than straight.”
I wanted my husband to see my hair in its natural state.
I refused to listen to them and have it straightened.

I’ve been taking care of it ever since.
I haven’t straightened it in a year and a half.
People were amazed by my hair when it got healthier.
But I still get comments like, “It would look better if it were straight.”