In case you’ve been spending too much time hanging out in blowdry bars, highly textured and curly hair is having a mo-ment. May we just say, it’s about damn time. These days, brands catering to girls with curls are making serious bank, signaling a change in the hair care industry, and letting people know that it’s officially time to embrace your natural texture.

While the process of getting gorgeous hair can be a struggle, the results are totally worth it, as Redditor capslockramen proved with a killer before and after post that's gaining major traction on the web. “I hated my curls and my boring not-brown-but-not-blonde natural color all through my teenage years, so I did my best to destroy all of that,” she wrote of her frizzy, damaged, before photo. “I got a relaxed curl perm, bleached it blonde, and straightened my hair 5-6 days a week, without using quality heat protectant.” In college, she ditched the damaging styling tools for a healthier hair routine, forgoing hot irons and growing out the bleached, relaxed hair. Four years later, with a mess of gorgeous wild curls, she’s “never felt more in love” with her locks. Talk about a hair transformation that goes deeper than your roots.

“A lot of women in the early 2000s were straightening — nobody wanted curls, they wanted what was trending. Slick and shiny straight hair,” celeb stylist Brittan White tells Allure. “Things have changed a lot.”

Capslockramen credits the methodology of her hair transformation to people of color with textured hair who taught her how to take care of her own tresses. “I'm not a pioneer in this method,” she wrote of her curl care routine. “Other curly-haired people, particularly people of color, have been using these techniques and products for years. I owe my success with this method to them, specifically my college roommates, who have shared their techniques and products with me over the last four years.”

After years of a damaging style routine, getting your natural texture to look on point is a process. “The first step to recovery is to stop washing it so much,” White says. “The reason why your hair produces oil is to keep your scalp and hair healthy. The more you over wash, the more your scalp freaks out and produces double the oil to try to recover from the shampoo stripping out what your hair and scalp need.” To combat this, cozy up to dry shampoo (or make your own) pronto. Next up, “invest in a good deep conditioner once a week for moisture, and always make sure you're putting in a leave in conditioner,” says White.

The real key to pulling off your natural texture is just to embrace it. The healthy hair journey is a real one, but it pays off in the form of confidence — and the cash you’ll save on all those professional blowdrying sessions.

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