I LOVE my Cotton Candy Hair!

In 2008, my 3 year old came home from a playdate, crying and begging us to make her hair “straight & yellow.” My husband and I were stunned. How was it that our perfect little girl had already found something in herself that she felt wasn’t good enough; something that needed to be “fixed”? We told our daughter she was beautiful and her hair was perfect but it she was inconsolable. She cried herself to sleep that night. Immediately, I went online to search for books, not about hair, but about absolute self love and acceptance. Books that said to children, “You are absolutely perfect just the way you are, no matter what they way might be!” The problem was, back then they really didn’t exist. If they did, they weren’t age appropriate for three year olds and they definitely didn’t have characters that looked like my daughter. I searched for more than a year, during which time I came up with a way to describe our daughter’s hair which would shift her perception. We couldn’t just call it pretty, or beautiful, that wasn’t enough; but Cotton Candy?? Not only was it appropriately descriptive, but there are few things in the world more universally beloved that cotton candy. So that’s what we called it, her Cotton Candy Hair, and after about a year and a half of searching for books and coming up empty, I decide to take matters into my own hands and wrote and illustrated, “I LOVE my Cotton Candy Hair!”

This one little girl’s love letter to her hair (and in turn, herself) has encouraged thousands of children, including my own 😊, to delight in their own magic.

This incident predated the natural hair movement and the beautiful shift that has happened, and continues to happen, as more women and girls learn to celebrate themselves. Today, there are so many wonderful options to choose from ❤️. My hope it that you buy them all for the little ones you love and that mine will be included in your library.

I have no doubt your little ones will love it as much as mine do!