Extreme curly/wavy hair as you get older?

Yep. I have always had wavy hair, but the last several years it has become curlier. I'm 48.

Yes, but not curly enough to wear curly and not straight enough to wear straight. It is, in fact, a real PITA because I either have to straighten it or curl it.

If anyone knows how that happens, please share! My stick straight hair has been the bane of my existence since I first knew what hair was.

Definitely! I've always had cowlicks and waves, but now, at 44, it's curly. Like Curly Girl curly. I'm learning to live with it.. good cut, no shampoo, sulfate free, dry with a tshirt, etc.

My youngest sister has always had hair like this, so I keep asking her what to use that will make it look decent.

My middle sister? Cotton candy fluff, poor girl.

Yes, this happened to me too. My hair used to be straight but it's gotten much waiver since I hit menopause. It's currently type 2C which is super wavy.

 I've learned how to take care of it by reading "Curly Girl-The Handbook" by Lorraine Massey. There are actually two copies of this book, but I much prefer the older version which was published in 2002. You can still get it through Amazon. It is WELL worth the cost, which is pretty low these days. I have both copies, but the first is much clearer and will teach you everything from what kind of wave/curl you have and how to treat it. Treating it well makes all the difference in how it looks.

I have tried MANY shampoos and hair products over the years (it started getting wavy 10 years before I hit menopause, but got much wavier 2 years ago), but finally landed on one company last year that is so much better than all of the rest. It's called "Curly Hair Solutions" and you can read all about them on their website at www.frizzoff.com. The best news is you can now buy their products from Amazon. I have no affiliation with this company. I just like to tell people about the products because they work so well and they really are different.

On the website you can buy kits to try out a few products in small sizes to see how you like them. The products I ended up liking best and still use are actually in the tight curl kit, even though I have wavy hair. I think it's because I color my hair at home that my hair needs the extra moisture that these products provide. I really love the Curl Keeper which is a clear fluid which is like a gel but much thinner. You only need a little bit and I rake this through my hair when I am finished putting some leave in conditioner in it-this is my last step. Then I scrunch in my curls and let my hair air dry. The Curl Keeper takes away all of the frizz, and the best thing is you can reactivate it the next day with a little bit of water. How much do you need? Well you want to hear a squishing sound when you scrunch your curls. I usually use a handful myself. It also does not dry hard but soft and flexible. If it does dry hard you've used to much and can scrunch out that hardness by simply scrunching your curls after your hair has dried.

One of the best things you can do for your hair is to keep heat away from it! Try to not use that flat iron and embrace your curls. I even threw out my hair dryer years ago, although you can use a hair dryer with a diffuser to finish of the drying of your hair. I first scrunch out the water with my hands and then wrap a long sleeved T shirt around my head as soon as I get out of the shower. You can read how to do this at this sight http://www.naturallycurly.com  This absorbs a lot of the water. I never use a towel on my hair-that creates frizz too.

I hope that helps! Oh, a great haircut will make a world of difference too. Try to find a stylist that knows how to cut hair. You don't necessary have to go to a Deva stylist. I have and it wasn't all that great. My current stylist has curly hair too so she knows all about it-how to cut it and what the challenges are. She's the one that gave me my best cut ever.

Debbie in MD.

PS. And it is not "Old people hair"!!!  I think it is the hormones that is changing our hair. With menopause my hormones are all over the place.  Makes sense to me. When my sister hit puberty her hair went from stick straight to super curly.

My hair definitely has much more wave now than it ever did when I was young. As a kid and a teen, I had stick straight hair that my hairdresser mom would perm all. the. time. Until tons of it started breaking off at the scalp after I'd get it permed when I was in my 20's--then I pulled the plug on that! I would rather have straight hair than no hair, LOL. The grayer my hair gets the wavier it gets and I refuse to color it, I don't have the time or the patience to keep up with that too. I switched to a shorter cut that requires takes almost no time to style daily but it does mean I have to go in for hair cuts a couple more times a year.

My sister said that when she hit her mid-30's her hair started getting much curlier too.

I had wavy hair growing up. I'm in my 40's and it just keeps getting curlier by the minute! And frizzier too. I have a lot of white hair mostly at the crown of my head (that is slowly spreading) and that hair seems to be more curly and frizzy than the rest of it.

Well I thought it was just me!! Into my 40's and all of a sudden I have frizzy, wavy hair!! Would have liked that in the 80's when I kept getting my hair permed.

wahhhhhh my hair has done the exact opposite I used to have really curly hair, but now... its stick straight, just in the past year or maybe 2 its changed to being completely straight ... I miss my curls