Give your daughter confidence by teaching her to love her hair from an early age. I’ve partnered with Dove to encourage you and your daughter to #LoveYourHair
Hair is a funny thing. It can make or break an outfit, it can be an expression of who you are and it has the magical power to change the way you feel.
Earlier this year, Dove Hair found that 8 in 10 women feel pressure to wear their hair a certain way. As women, how we feel about ourselves and our bodies isn’t an opinion formed overnight or at the age of 13, 18, or 25. It starts far younger than that. It starts when we’re barely school age and it almost always starts at home.
A recent Dove study found that 82% of girls learn to care about themselves from their mother. This is why it’s on US to show our daughters how to love themselves. To love their bodies, love their talents, love their quirks and even to love their hair.
For me, hair love is a somewhat recent thing. I grew up not really knowing what to do with my hair and always feeling like it was more of a liability than an asset. It was neither straight nor curly. It was wavy and wild. It was nothing like my three sisters’ hair. Two have thick, straight hair and one has fine straight hair. Then there was me with my something in-between, neither here nor there hair.
I’d always describe my hair this way to the stylist when I’d get my hair cut and every single one always said that my hair was the kind of hair that stylists love. Huh? Mine? Yes. Because while it might not feel special or distinct at first look, it’s versatile and easy to work with. Oh.
Then one day a friend of a friend who happened to be a hairdresser showed me her technique to style hair like mine and I think it’s fair to say that it changed my life a little bit. Because suddenly my hair felt manageable. Actually it felt great! I was 27 and for the first time ever I felt like my hair and I were on the same page.
Kayla is seven and guess what? She has my hair. Well, sort of. Actually she has hair that’s filled with golden highlights. The kind I know ladies who fork over some serious cash to imitate. But beyond the color, it’s definitely the same hair as mine. It’s neither here nor there, gets tangly and goes everywhere.
BUT I want her to love it. And long before she is 27. Which is why I like to show her all of the things her hair can be. It can be a tumble of loose curls that swing as she plays. And makes her look so cute that you can’t even get mad at her when she hurls a snowball your way.
In just a minute or two it can transform into a fancy braid fit for a mischievous, giggly and silly princess. Not that I know anyone like that. Nope, not at all.
The moral of this story is that as I’m learning, if you want your daughter to love her hair, love the way she looks, love her body and love herself it starts with you. We ARE the example. What we say and do is what they hear, see and reflect upon.
If we can learn to love our own hair (and my goodness am I proof that it’s possible) then we can certainly instill that in our daughters, sisters, friends and maybe even our own mothers. Sometimes this psychology works its way up the family tree or across it instead of just down.
In a crazy twist of fate, it seems amongst my sisters I am now the one who has the ability to make the others feel good about their hair. After all the years of never appreciating my own I’m now the one who offers my limited but effective hair skills whenever we are all together to make everyone feel great about their hair. And damn, it feels good!
Dove wants you and your daughters to #LoveYourHair Show your love by sharing your own #LoveYourHair selfie on social. Want to make it extra special? You can customize and animate it by heading to LoveYourHair.Dove.com
