Curly Hair Emojis #LoveYourCurls #pmgdove

This post is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group® and Dove Hair, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #LoveYourCurls #pmgdove http://my-disclosur.es/OBsstV

Hey curly girl friends! Have you seen the new Dove Love Your Curls Emoji Keyboard, filled with emojis for curly hair of all kinds? These days I celebrate my curls, but it wasn't so long ago that I was not into the idea of having curls. I had a very bad case of wanting the straight hair I didn't have while the little old ladies in the hair salon wanted my curls.

Straight hair remains the “one size fits all” hair type for women in the current Unicode Emoji keyboard, which leaves curly women and girls unable to accurately express themselves. Dove Hair is introducing the Dove Love Your Curls Emojis – the first emoji keyboard designed to represent curly girls everywhere! There is this pressure sometimes that I think we can't even put our finger on, to conform and get straight hair. Once I stopped all that and embraced my curls, I started being alot happier. I learned and am still learning which products work best with my hair, like Dove Quench Absolute, how to style my hair, and how to care for my hair as it has changed as I have grown older. When I was in Elementary School I had soft waves but now, 30 years later, I have ringlets that form. 74% percent of people use emoji every day – why not give them more accurate choices to represent who they are?

This is my spirit emoji. A few weeks ago I posted this fun photo (below) of my hair after a rain … it was pretty crazy! And fun. But I wasn't always this confident about my hair.

When I was a kid I dreaded going to the hair salon. I had super straight hair until I was in third grade. My mom had braided my hair across the top of my head and I could not get the braid out the next day to brush my hair. I identified the hairs holding the braid in place and cut them. I have no idea I totally looked like Alfalfa at school all day. When I came home, my mom took me to get my hair cut short to disguise the cut hairs. And from then on, my hair decided to curl. As I have gotten older, it has gotten curlier and curlier and now forms Shirley Temple style ringlets.

In those days, the struggle was real. I didn't know how to do my hair. My family would take me to these mom and pop hair salons with women who had straight but permed hair. All they wanted to do was fluff out my hair and make it big and poofy with blow dryers. To this day, I only use a blow dryer for drying my kittens after they get a bath. I am still “blow-dryer-scarred” from that experience in my youth. I would go to the salon, get a cut, the women would fluff and heat and frizz out my hair and I would leave in tears, rushing to the bathroom to put some water on my hair so it would calm down. It was horrifying.

It wasn't until I was in eighteen and in the Army that I got the first hair cut that I loved. It was a pixie cut at a fancy schmancy salon that cost me $130. I worked with the same stylist for about a year. From her I learned that many of the cuts I wanted, were best for straight hair. She helped me choose cuts that worked for curly hair. About ten years later, I struggled again with my hair as I got an office job, gained some weight, and a pixie cut wasn't going to work anymore. I got into straighteners and got a blow dryer with a diffuser. I was trying to make curly hair into straight hair.

These days, curly hair is here to stay! I #LoveMyCurls and have already donated 4 ponytails to various wig-making programs so those in need can enjoy my curls too. Dove Hair makes it easy to embrace your curls with their products and with the new Dove Love Your Curls Emojis. Dove Hair is partnering with Twitter so each time women and girls share a #LoveYourCurls moment, a custom Dove Curly Emoji will appear in the tweet. Download the Dove Love Your Curls Emojis in the App Store and Google Play Store to show you #LoveYourCurls!

Which of the Dove Love Your Curls Emoji are your favorite? Tell me in the comments!

Thanks again for stopping by! Click HERE to sign up for my monthly newsletter, full of creative goodness. See you again soon!