Curly-haired girls, I promise you this video is going to solve your biggest problems. For those of you who are new here, my name is Xiomara—welcome to my channel Xo Curl No Mo’. Some girls have a slew of products meant to uplift, defrizz, add a glossy sheen, and remedy your sadness after your boyfriend dumps you because he can’t stand looking at your hair that looks like a home for angry guinea pigs rather than soft strands to run his fingers through. Anyway, I used to spend my days fighting frizz and coaxing my curls to have the perfect bounce, but eventually I realized there was nothing I could do. Then I discovered the CurlNoMore Extra-Strength Flat Iron for Unfortunately Curly Hair™️. You can find it at Ulta in the “ethnic hair aisle.” The CNMESFIFUCH is one of the cheaper straightening products on the market, running at only $799.99—excluding tax. It’s worth the investment to tame your hair and ramp up your racial ambiguity. Let’s get started. Before you do anything, you’ll want to start with clean hair, which brings me to our curly hair sponsor for this week: CoilFoil™️ relaxing shampoo and conditioner. It’s filled with curl-flattening chemicals, which gives you a nice head start on straightening. You’ll definitely lose some hair when you initially start using it, but I began using CoilFoil™️ about a year ago and it only took my hair six months to adjust. See, right here, where it’s still thin in my part? You should’ve seen the clumps in the drain, like small pets swirling away. My mom was mad because I kept clogging the sink and my boyfriend said “ew” but now everyone says it’s beautiful. You can get CoilFoil™️ half off if you follow the link in the description and use my discount code, XoCurl50. Anyway, once your hair is clean, put your flat iron on the highest setting. It’s this one, called CurlBLASTER™️. Just press this pink button, and now we wait for the heat.
Notice that the hot plates are searing orange and billowing with smoke, which is how you know it’s ready. Clip your hair into multiple sections to make sure you can access the bottom layers. Grab a piece of hair, stretch it out until it’s as straight as that guy in your political science class who always compliments how good your English is, and then pinch it between the two hot plates, and slide it down to the ends of your hair. Sure, it smells like something burning, but just ignore that. And the smoke. You might want to take the batteries out of your smoke detector before you do this, because I’m speaking from experience when I say the fire department will not be happy with you when your neighbors call because your smoke detector’s been beeping for two hours straight. I actually just got rid of my smoke alarms altogether since I have to straighten my hair every day. No fires yet. Anyway, keep repeating this over and over with each piece of curly hair you see. Make sure you grab these tricky ones in the back, too. Don’t leave any curl untouched. When you get to the pieces closest to your head, your scalp might singe a bit, but that’s fine. Also if you pull a chunk of your hair out in the process, that’s fine too. Your hair was probably too thick anyway. Fuck! Sorry, I just clamped my ear in the hot iron. It’s fine, it happens a lot. If you look closely at my ears, you’ll see a bunch of small white scars, but when my hair is down, which it always is because curly hair looks even worse in a ponytail, you can’t see them. Sometimes you’ll get a forehead burn too. It’s kind of cool to watch your brown skin turn to puffy white. Anyway, just keep fighting your hair. This usually only takes about four hours. If your iron stops smoking, touch your finger to it to make sure it’s still hot. If it smells like burning flesh, it’s working. Anyway, keep straightening until each strand rolls down your back like silk. Until you can’t tell your hair was curly in the first place, forgetting what you looked like with that unruly, ethnic hair. Until your coworkers stop asking what you are and your boss starts calling you Mara instead of Xiomara because it’s easier to pronounce. Keep straightening until the CNMESFIFUCH corrals each curl, makes each strand identical to the next. They might fight back a bit, but watch how they fall in line anyway.
Header photograph © Hanna Komar.
Téa Franco is an MFA fiction candidate at Bowling Green State University. In her writing, she attempts to connect with her culture and the world as it exists around her. She has previously been published in Redactions: Poetry & Poetics and Heavy Feather Review.