Okay, uh I have the misfortune of having seriously curly hair, is there anyway that it will in any tiny way help with that?

Anyone? I keep looking for information but I can't find any...

Hair texture does change with hormones. Ask any woman who's been pregnant, for instance. It can affect curl or waviness to some degree, but I'm not sure it's predictable which direction that will go, since your own sensitivity to hormones can be quite variable in lots of different ways. About the only thing you can be sure of is that it will change in some ways (usually, getting a finer texture, that may allow the curl itself to have a greater impact).

This is why there are curling irons and straighteners, and a whole aisle of hair products in most drug and grocery stores.

For a long time I swore by Ouidad products to deal with my own waviness. They are a fairly expensive salon brand, though, tied into a chain of salons as I recall.  They haven't been a top priority for me since my 30s? But I did like what the products and the attitude of embracing curl did for me. I grew up wanting to be Susan Dey.

Mine went from perfectly straight, to nice and curly. I love my new hair!

Quote from: Brooke777 on January 15, 2013, 03:36:33 PM
Mine went from perfectly straight, to nice and curly. I love my new hair!

Not what Freya wanted to hear, I'm sure. But I was thinking this would be a common outcome, since hair often tends to get finer with the effects of higher estrogen levels, allowing curl that might have been weighted down to "come out", so to speak.  Still, hope to see some contradicting case studies in the other direction?

Quote from: Elspeth on January 15, 2013, 03:43:20 PM
Not what Freya wanted to hear, I'm sure. But I was thinking this would be a common outcome, since hair often tends to get finer with the effects of higher estrogen levels, allowing curl that might have been weighted down to "come out", so to speak.  Still, hope to see some contradicting case studies in the other direction?

I ment it as an example that your hair can change.

It's just that, my mom kept saying that when I was a baby I looked identical to her in that stage of her life. Like as babies we both had SUPER curly hair, and when she had Chemotherapy she had curly hair for a while. I'm just hoping that might happen.

Although a woman's hair is naturally wavy it is rarely as curly as mine. Maybe my hair will look nicer when long .

I went from perfectly straight hair to just the same!

Don't complain too much, curly hair rocks.

a hair's curl is caused by the shape of the follicle.  a straight hair has a circle follicle, while a curly hair has a circular, with 1 flat side, follicle.  The follicles may change a little, but who knows what for sure what they will do.... It tends to be a genetics thing...  something told those follicles to grow that way..

Quote from: HeatherR on January 17, 2013, 12:16:35 AM
a hair's curl is caused by the shape of the follicle.  a straight hair has a circle follicle, while a curly hair has a circular, with 1 flat side, follicle.  The follicles may change a little, but who knows what for sure what they will do.... It tends to be a genetics thing...  something told those follicles to grow that way..

I was assuming people knew this. My sense is, apart from the shape of the follicles, how much that curl or waviness comes out is also influenced by the thickness and weight of individual hairs. With those changes brought on by hormones to the strands and their continuing growth, I'm imagining the same shaped follicle would have a slightly different impact on hair, as do other factors, like humidity. I know during pregnancy (which involves major shifts in hormone balance) my partner's hair would change in subtle ways that would be hard to assign just to the shape of the follicles. And other pregnant women (and their friends hoping to become pregnant, or remembering their own pregnancies) would often compare notes during pregnancy about such changes.

I have never dug into the details of why this is, most of my observations are based on the conversations I remember.

Prior to hrt my hair was  very wavey/frizzy, it became much worse and almost uncontrollable when I hit 35. HRT has completely turned it around and now I actually dare to brush it. The hair on the crown which is completely new looks poker straight, which I've never had.

Whilst I can see that the waveyness would be caused by the follicle, if I looked at an individual hair before it would bend /kink in all directions along it's length.

The texture is the other pleasing change, now soft, silky and even quite shiny.

In my experience my hair did not get any less curly but I did learn how to better manage it and now that its a bit longer it fall nicer and it might be a little softer do to HRT. Hormones do effect hair though I unfortunately know from personal experience because when I was little I had beautiful wavy blond soft hair then when I went through Boy puberty AKA hell my hair turned red and very curly. I think that HRT has helped it some but it is nowhere near as beautiful as it was when I was little