Mixed Girl (or guy?) hair: what's yours like?

[MoonLover]

So I know I will most likely not find a mix like me but I thought it would be an interesting discussion: What mix is your ethnic background and what kind of hair do you have? How does it differ from your parents'/family members' hair?

I am half Moroccan (Muslim) and half Sephardic (Jewish from Greece and Turkey, originally from Spain).

My Moroccan side all have curly hair (black or dark brown) and my dad and uncles all had 'fros back in the day. My Mom's side has mostly wavy hair but my Mom had very straight black hair. I have light brown with sun-blonded highlights and 3a/b curls with nappy hair just in the front of my head.

My Mom never knew how to deal with my hair (the tangly mess that is was for many years) and before I came to be at peace with it, I used to shake my fist at mama Africa for giving me such strange hair.

How about you guys? Any of your parents not know how to deal with your strange mixed hair?

[Gem]

Not me, but my partner is biracial (European/West African) and has had problems with his hair. His hair is 3c/4a M ii - corkscrew curls with zigzag texture, mostly blue-black (he gets red highlights in the sun). He was raised by his mother, who is of German descent and has straight coarse hair. She used to just keep his hair as short as possible, or pick it out into an afro - there are pictures of him glaring at the camera like "Mom I hate you so much" :lol:
He started growing his hair out when he met me, and also uses gentle shampoos and good conditioners. He likes his hair a lot better now. It's about midback when it's stretched, shoulder length unstretched.
A couple years ago he got in contact with his dad's family. Apparently most of them have the same hair type as him, but the men keep their hair very short and the women all straighten their hair. Poor guy thought for months that the children all had curly hair and that it somehow straightened as they got older.
Our daughter has fine straight blonde hair - go figure.

[perkidanman]

My father's side is white (I traced his line back to Switzerland) but my mother is from the Philippines. My mother (when she was young) had long, straight black hair (it curled as she got older) and my father has brown hair with a little bit of red in it that used to curl into ringletts when he had a mullet.
When I was a little kid my hair was so black the teachers asked if I colored it (why would a 6 year old have dyed hair?!) and it was curly but once I cut it off into a china doll bob I only had a little flip to the bottom. Now if I leave my hair to drip dry I have stringy ringletts, just like when I was small. My hair ended up what I've called "coffee/tea" since it looks like black coffee unless it's back-lit in which case it's the red-brown color of tea. Also I have random copper hair throughout my head so I don't know WHAT'S going on with that, haha. I've learned to love my hair, since my ethnicity is unusual so is my hair and features. No one can really tell "what I am" and when I was in Arizona (and tan) most people assumed I was hispanic.

[CurlyCyndi]

How interesting! I am super mixed as well. I am Dominican, Spanish, Arab, Italian... yet accounding to most people around teh DC Metro Area (where I went to college and eventually made home) I look Indian.

I guess I'll start with my great grand parents on my mother's side... They were Spanish and Jewish and somehow ended up in Dominican Republic. When I meat them they were already gray... But they seemed to have had very fine straight hair.... On My Father's side I only met my grandmother's mother. She was amazonian women like (heehe) she was probably 6'2 at age 80! Anyhow she has very fine thin and very long gray hair... I have never seen a photo of them when they were young so I cant really say much.

My Grandparents on my mother's side. My grandmother is Spanish (possibly jewish as well). She had light brown hair. She has always kept it short she have 2a type hair... My grandfather is Dominican he has dark hair it seems pretty straight me...

My grandparents on my father side. My late grandfather was Dominican and I suspect he was mixed but don;t know yet (I am doing my ancestry tree). his Wive (my grandmother) have very fine 1a 1b 1c, 2a hair.

Now my parents... My father has 1a, 1b jet black hair. The type if hair yu would see in most arms.
My mother has Light brown 2b hair ..

I have 2c 3a hair... I am not sure why my hair is so much curlier but I guess maybe because my grandfather had kicky 4 type hair so I guess I got the in between all my family type hair.

My older sister who is 1/2 sister (we share the same biological mother) has 3c.

My younger sister (same parents) had 2c type of hair (until she messed with dies and all sorts of stuff) now her hair varies.

I will be so interesting to find out what my future children will look like. :) I am married to a man who is German, Irish, English and American. He has blond/ashbrown 1b type of hair and is ver pale fair skined. I have tan skin :)


sorry so much info :)

[CurlyCyndi]

Moon lover I find it interesting that we have similar backgrounds and have the same hair type. :) Very interesting. I forgot to mention my mother didn't have a problem with it because she would just take me to the professionals for both her hair and ours. lol. They would do roller sets and then blow outs.

[CurlyCyndi]

oh I forgot to mention my hair color... This is strange and happened to my father as well. The day I was born I had jet black hair... Like JET BLACK... By the age of 5 my hair was turning blonde... Eventually i ended up with dark brown and red hair.. But I die it jet black.

[MoonLover]

Everyone, thanks for sharing, it's so great to hear your stories :-)

Gem: I didn't grow up with my father either so my Mom also kept my hair short for many years and I rocked the Jew/Arab fro because it was the easiest thing for her to deal with. I can understand a bit how it was for your husband.

perkidanman: oh the joys of being ethnically ambiguous=most liklely Hispanic LoL I have a friend who is half Korean and half Haitian but has similar features to you. She gets Philipino or Hispanic guesses mostly.

CurlyCyndi: you're right, we do have similar backgrounds and similar hair. I also had jet black hair when I was born but by the time I was one it was already turning dirty blond. And I want black hair and have dyed it so a few times but it's not quite right on me. Also, I just hennaed my hair today for the first time and it is really red! I think I like this too.
I just noticed that our hair is the same length now! I also kept my hair short for awhile (under 2") but I've only started measuring it this week. It's been about two years of growth with some trims, mostly hack jobs by me :-/

If dbf and I get married and have kids, oh how confusing it will be! He's Chinese and I sometimes hope they don't get my hair. I'd like to live straight, easy hair vicariously through them :-p

[ouseljay]

Not me, but my partner is biracial (European/West African) and has had problems with his hair. His hair is 3c/4a M ii - corkscrew curls with zigzag texture, mostly blue-black (he gets red highlights in the sun).

Your partner sounds pretty close to my s.other. He is Jamaican (from Africa), Spanish (Galician), German, and Irish. His hair is about 3c, but he keeps it shortish. When it gets long (6+ inches) it does a floppy afro thing that's very endearing. The color is black with red highlights, especially in his beard!

His parents always hound him to keep it short. His dad (Jamaican/Spanish) has what would probably be 4b hair if there were more of it, originally black, and wants him to keep it less than an inch long. His mom (German/Irish) has 1b hair, originally dark brown, and is happy with 1-2 inches. Interestingly, his brother has black, 2b hair.

He has stories from highschool about trying to find out how many pencils he could fit in his "afro" at one time. I think his record was 13?

My ethnic background isn't really a mix, straight up Northern European. What's interesting is that I can't think of anyone in my family who has hair much like mine. My dad had fine, straightish black hair (mostly German), my mom has fine, straightish medium-brown hair (Dutch and Scots-Irish), and my hair is mediumish, wavy, and that funny blonde color I can't identify with reddish highlights. Apparently the color is a lighter version of my maternal grandmother's. (Her hair is now a gorgeous pure snow white.)

[noelgirl]

I am a mix of Portuguese, German, Russian, and Tunisian, and the hair genes in my family are pretty much all over the place. Some light, some dark, some thick, some thin, some curly, some straight . . . I think my hair type most resembles the Portuguese side of my ancestry, since it's dark and wurly, but the strands are a bit finer.

[Katze]

Well, I'm not 'mixed' in the sense you are describing but my hair sure is! My dad has M thickness, wavy hair that is still not really grey at 67, my mom super fine 'Scandinavian' hair. I have almost straight baby fine hair on the crown and coarser, even 'C' texture spiral ringlets underneath.

LHC (and advice from a super curly haired friend who had gone 'natural' and dreaded) has allowed me to learn that both my hairtypes need different kinds of care, and that the appearance of my hair - often messy, frizzy, unkempt - is really influenced by how many products I use, how often I wash etc.

This friend's teaching me about 'African-American hair' (her words) many years ago really opened my mind to the idea that there are MANY different hairtypes out there, and that most of the 'professional' advice I had gotten did not fit my mixed-texture, wavy hairtype any more than it did her 'kinky', coarse hair.

[MoonLover]

ouseljay: I love that tidbit about the pencils! He must have really strong hair.

noelgirl: North African mixed <3

katze: I also came to the conclusion that "professionals" never really know how to deal with curly/mixed textured hair. Unless the professionals have that hair themselves. That's why I'm starting to love Dominican salons and I trust them so much more than regular salons.

[trolleypup]

Dad is (more or less) Welsh/English (3,m/f,ii), Mom is Chinese (1b,super-c,iii), the genetic lottery decided that I would tend more towards Mom...which is fine, and generally easy to deal with. Also, not bald like Dad.

[PhillyGirl1978@]

Oooh...wow....ok...me too! I am black, white, irish, indian and german...my hair is difficult to type...i have some fine strands in there that tangle easily, and I have some course smooth tough ones. Very curly...but parts in the front dont have as strong of a curl pattern and they are definitely finer than the back. My canopy is the curliest and most difficult part to deal with.

[Yozhik]

I'm half-American-born Chinese (mom's hair is black, 1c/c/ii), half-Caucasian (mostly Dutch; father's hair was brown, 2a/f/ii). My hair is very dark brown, 2b/c-m-ii/iii. I'm not sure where I got the curls or thickness, but I had no idea what to do with my hair until about college; I used to brush out my wurls, which made my hair really poofy and unmanageable. :p

When I was young(er) and foolish used to say that I only wanted to date Asian guys so that my children would have more manageable hair, but then I went and fell for my SO. :)

[spidermom]

I'm an all-American mutt. I have straight, wavy, and curly hair. I have fine, medium, and coarse hair. I have every color, including black, very kinky hairs. I used to manage it by keeping it short because as it grows, it gets wide long before it gets long, and the curls don't appear until about APL; they are fluff or poof before that length.

So I know what you're talking about.

[rena]

I'm an all-American mutt. I have straight, wavy, and curly hair. I have fine, medium, and coarse hair. I have every color, including black, very kinky hairs. I used to manage it by keeping it short because as it grows, it gets wide long before it gets long, and the curls don't appear until about APL; they are fluff or poof before that length.

So I know what you're talking about.

I don't think I could have said it better myself for myself. This is pretty much me too.