Teri LaFlesh

Teri LaFlesh came by her super-curly hair being half-black and half-white. She grew up both as a mulatto in Kentucky (it was stamped on her school transcripts) and as a black kid in an all-white family in California. She even spent some months in early childhood living among the Moonies with her mom. Teri experienced how very curly hair is dealt with in both her black and white households. Like many people of mixed-African heritage, she has curls of various sizes, ranging from waves to coils narrower than the width of a pencil. Because her hair was so varied, and so curly, it was chemically straightened ever since she could remember. And since it was relaxed, she had short, crunchy hair that fell apart. She didn’t know what her natural hair looked like for nearly twenty-five years. Most of her life was spent fighting with stiff and broken hair, once even accidentally dissolving it all with a relaxer. Through nearly thirty years of trial, error, and research, she figured out what her hair had desperately needed all along. Finally understood, her natural curls now reach well past her waist. One of her big goals is to see that no one else with hair like hers ever has to go through with theirs what she did with hers, so she created TightlyCurly.com and wrote Curly Like Me: How to Grow Your Hair Healthy, Long, and Strong (due out May 17, 2010 from Wiley—and available now for pre-ordering). She lives near Seattle with her husband Jon Crump, two cats, and (probably too many) giant houseplants. Her hair is often rained on, and now it doesn’t mind at all. Teri has been writing and illustrating since childhood. While painting and putting together freelance books after high school, she worked various odd jobs, including a factory in Kentucky. Years later, she created freelance botanical illustrations while earning a bachelor of science in botany from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To check out some of Teri’s artwork, you can visit TeriLaFlesh.com.