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When I was younger, I went through a phase when I didn't like my hair. Because the school I went to was primarily Caucasian, there wasn't anyone who had my hair texture. I remember one day I straightened my hair, and that was the first day that people gave me compliments on it.

As a young girl, I definitely struggled with knowing what to do with my hair. I was just in a neighborhood that had mostly white people, and the hair norm was long and sleek and straight. My hair naturally was curly, and I didn't have that many references.

When I grew up, you needed to have straight hair. It's symbolic of needing to be like everyone else, needing to look like everyone else. And what that meant was looking like the dominant ruling class in America.

I grew up in a predominantly Caucasian community, and most of my friends had blonde hair and blue eyes. So I was always straightening my hair, wearing colored contacts, and I never tanned, if I could help it.

When I was a teenager, I was really into hair; I dyed it different colours and had loads of haircuts. I shaved my head when I was 17 - it was pretty radical!

I have so much hair, so straightening takes a long time. I mean, if I look at photos of myself with straight hair, it's hilarious. I look like a different person.

I think the '90s is the reason why I recently had to find natural haircare products to allow my hair to grow. That was a time where they were processing your hair, and it was a time when African-American women wanted that straight hair.

I have a friend who wanted to practise on my head because they wanted to be a stylist. So I offered what hair I had left to turn white.

My hair journey involved a lot of trying to figure out how to deal with my hair as a bi-racial girl in a white community living in Long Island, N.Y., where no one had a clue what to do with it.