More Than Hair: The Mental Shift of Embracing Your Natural Curls

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Mental Health Awareness Week 2025 | Koru Curls

For many of us in the UK, Mental Health Awareness Week is a time to speak more openly about the things that affect our wellbeing but rarely get discussed. And one of those things surprisingly is our hair. Specifically, the emotional journey of embracing natural curls after years (sometimes decades) of straightening, hiding, or managing them into submission.

Because let’s be honest: going natural isn’t just a physical transition. It’s a mental one, too. And it’s one that can shake the way you see yourself to the core.

Who Is That in the Mirror?

For over 30 years, I saw the same version of myself in the mirror. Sleek. Straightened. “Tamed.” That version became my identity, how I saw myself, how others saw me, and what I believed made me attractive or “put together.”

When I stopped chemically straightening and started embracing my curls, something unexpected happened. I didn’t recognise the woman staring back. My face looked different. My features felt unfamiliar. I found myself asking, Do I still look like “me”?

Even now, years later, I sometimes catch a glimpse and still feel uncertain. And that’s what no one tells you, going natural isn’t just a celebration. It’s a grieving process too. You’re letting go of a version of yourself you lived with for a long time.

The Mental Load No One Talks About

There’s also a weird kind of hyper visibility that comes with curls. Suddenly, people look at you differently.

Strangers stare. Some ask to touch your hair. Others ask, “Is it real?” or “What’s your background?” as if your texture must be explained by your ethinicity. As a caucasian my hair confuses them, they just don't beleive that I am not mixed race, annd while it’s often framed as curiosity and innocent, it’s exhausting.

Even compliments can carry weight. “I love your hair like that it’s so wild!” (Is that a compliment or a warning?)

This kind of attention can make you question your place. It can feel isolating, especially if your curl pattern doesn’t fit the polished, influencer-perfect coils you see online. It’s easy to think: Am I doing this wrong? Should it look better?

Identity, Beauty, and Belonging

Hair is identity. Especially when you’ve spent years altering yours to fit in.

Going natural is not just about moisture routines or diffusing. It’s about unlearning shame. it's about realising your curls were never the problem, only the world’s perception of them.

And that process?

It takes time.

It can be confronting.....But it’s also deeply freeing.

You're not just growing your hair, you're growing your confidence.

You're rewriting what beauty means, for you.

You’re Not Alone

If any of this resonates, know this: you’re not being dramatic. You’re not alone. And your feelings are valid.

You don’t have to love your curls every single day to be proud of them. You don’t have to have it all figured out to be on the right path.

This Mental Health Awareness Week, let’s remember that embracing your natural self especially after years of hiding it is a powerful, emotional act of self-care. And you deserve support on every step of that journey.

Your curls deserve the best. Let Koru help you