It’s not uncommon we catch you all on social media exercising your rights to be Funky + Fabulous… and it brings us much joy and excitement to our daily work lives here on the inside of Uncle Funky’s Daughter! You keep us going, Funky Junkies! We love to hear all the great things you have to say about not only our products, but your health, your well-being and your progress!
We stumbled across this sassy Funky Junky, Tamara, on Instagram one day after her post had us erupting in laughter:
Guilty we presume, but we love the effect Curly Magic has on her curls, TOO! Fortunately, we know gorgeous curls when we see them! We also know a few more things about Tamara, as she is our Funky Junky Feature for the month! Tamara’s a sassy, successful (Senior!) Financial Analyst from Dallas, Texas. She currently lives in the state’s capital, Austin, and is the mother of two sons, 26 and 14 (shocked us, too!). She’s been in the accounting and finance game for over 25 years.
As if this lady couldn’t become even more interesting, she also rides bikes, a Suzuki GSXR600 to be exact! (Bada**, much?)
Tamara started her natural hair journey almost in protest of what she had known society to do: push African American women to comply with its beauty standards. She took it upon herself to make a change and grew from it (pun intended).
“In summer 2016, I was at the mall and I saw a girl who had extremely kinky hair. Afterwards, I started looking on Instagram and noticed all different ethnicities who have kinky hair, too. So I asked my husband, ‘Why do people of other races get to rock their curls but when it comes to black women, we have to kill our hair with a perm?!’ He then asked me why I wear a perm and I could not respond. The only thing I could tell him was because my hair is so thick and my family members always complained about my hair… They gave me a jheri curl, and when I got into high school, I was told to perm my hair.”
Often times, we become frustrated with our hair because we haven’t taken the time to learn it: what it reacts well to, what helps it grow, how to moisturize it, etc. Our parents can also be the start of this frustration. We find that as we mature and learn to love our hair, the previous angst was well worth it, and those who love us will love our curls, too.
“[My husband] then said, ‘Then go natural baby! Stop killing your hair and let your kinks fly!’, she said, later stating she was completely opposed!
“He said if I didn’t like going natural I can always perm it back, so I agreed.”
On June 16th, 2016, she decided to transition her ‘chili-bowl’ hair style and go natural (which she was not a fan of).
“I went to work and cried all day until one of my coworkers encouraged me to big chop — so I found a natural hair beautician and I big chopped on June 17th.”
Because of the spontaneous way she went about freeing her curls, Tamara had a bit of research to do, which led her to us! She wasn’t sure which products or methods to use, but that soon changed. She was in a hair forum and told other attendees she was newly natural and couldn’t find products for her curly hair and someone suggested UFD. She purchased the Ultimate Curly Girls Travel Kit and instantly fell in love!
“To date, UFD has been the ONLY product to define my curls the way I want them,” she said. “Because of my YouTube channel I try different products but my first love has been and will always be UFD, which I still use on a weekly basis to this day. I even created a Uncle Funky Prayer [for hair health]!”
As a faithful Funky Junky, Tamara can teach us all a thing or two! Her advice to other Funky Junkies is simply: “learn to love your hair.” She did! See more of our inspiring Funky Junkies on our ChatBox, posted every month!
2 comments
Love the article! Keep it up Badazz Tamara Curly gurl!
#Naptural ♡
Very nice article. I have seen Tamara’s hair take off. We belong to some of the same FB natural hair groups and when she posts pics of her hair I am always amazed at how lovely her hair looks. The curls are always popping.