“I’ve always had a lot of hair,” says Ayla Lujan, a 17th-generation New Mexican who splits her time between Santa Fe and Seattle. “It's the first thing that anybody ever notices about me."

As a little girl, her thick curls were a handful, but her mother loved her long, dark hair nonetheless. Then, everything changed on an otherwise ordinary day. Her grandmother was babysitting and decided it was too much to take care of.

The two walked into a salon, and Lujan walked out with a mushroom bob. “That's my earliest memory of hair. I remember feeling distinctly different after that, like this big piece of my identity had been cut off.”

It marked a shift for her, and in the years that followed, Lujan continued to experiment with her look. “I’ve had a bleach blonde period, a red period, a blue period, an extension period, a short period. I've had every possible haircut,” she says. The throughline for her was always anything but her natural texture. 

microaggressions hiding in plain sight

Growing up in the ‘90s, curly hair was far from sought after. Even in Lujan’s home, she watched her mom straighten her hair every day. “My mom had gorgeous, kinky, coily ringlets, and all my life she straightened her hair,” says Lujan. “Watching her do that kind of set the example like: okay, I need to be doing that too.”

So she did. Every day since she was eight or nine years old, amounting to decades of straightening (read: damaging) her hair. She remembers getting ready for big life moments or job interviews and asking friends what she should do with her hair. The response? “Definitely don't wear it down. You should definitely straighten it or wear it back,” remembers Lujan, who works in the beauty and wellness space as a copywriter. “Now, I’m realizing these were microaggressions that, at the time, felt harmless.”

Our culture has always put Western beauty standards above all else, leaving so many women of color in a state of constant conflict with their curls and coils. It was not until this year that Lujan decided to let her natural texture shine, societal expectations be damned. 

embracing her natural hair—curls, grays + all

“I feel more myself now when my hair is natural than when I don't. When I straighten it, it feels wrong, like it doesn't look like me,” says Lujan. This has also extended to her grays, which she is growing out proudly. 

“As a woman of color having societal pressure to do something and kind of bucking that norm, saying, ‘No, I'm not I'm not doing that, actually, I have gray hair and I'm gonna let it do what it wants to do.’”

This new era is all about embracing her hair and in turn, her heritage and all the women that came before her (her mother has also stopped straightening her hair in recent years).

“It’s a beautiful thing to see her do later in life,” says Lujan. “To [both] realize it’s a privilege to have textured hair.”

tradition of full-moon trims 

Lujan’s family has lived in New Mexico for 17 generations, and this tradition is one that goes way back (as in, ancient agricultural customs and folklore).

“My maternal grandmother is a curandera, which is like a traditional witch doctor. You would go to them in the community for holistic medical care,” says Lujan. “A lot of the traditions are kind of superstitious…but the one that has always worked for me personally is trimming my hair on the full moon. I have hair-cutting scissors at home, and every full moon, I give it like a half inch, maybe an inch snip at the bottom.”

It’s this ritual that Lujan credits for her healthy, fast-growing hair. 

feeling like her true self

Now, Lujan has mastered her curls. As her routine shifted, so did her priorities. No more days sitting by the pool protecting a fresh blowout. No more fear of rain ruining her hairstyle (in large part, thanks to K18 molecular repair hair oil, an essential part of her curly routine). No more trends to try on, just Ayla, exactly as she is. 

“I've never gotten more compliments in my entire life than when I've worn it natural,” says Lujan. “Maybe I should have just been doing this all along.”