Not the DNA results I expected

[Greenday]

I could have been making money for stuff I did in my college genetics labs? Damnit!

[Food Lady]

My mom's family came over from England in the 1600s and generations later 2 people in her ancestry married natives. I have a picture of one somewhere, I think. Her family has had the research done while my dad's side hasn't, that I know of. Who knows what's going on there; his mom was born in secret because her father was a travelling salesman who didn't marry her mom.

[Dreamstalker]

I'm Irish and Polish from my mom's side, and solid Slovak from my dad.

Fun fact: some of my great-great-etc-grandparents on that side were involved in most of the coal mine safety disputes in the eastern US. Miners all in the early days...maybe that's why I always liked tunnels and small dark spaces

[KiaKat]

Mathnerd-

I'm going to guess your Irish ancestor with the name change came from Galway. The Spanish Armada crashed there and, the story goes, some survivors intermarried with the local population. Given the Moorish ancestry dominant at the time, there's a decent dose of North African/Middle Eastern tucked in there, and evident in the dark curly hair and specific traits associated with the Black Irish.

*waves*

Edit- stupid iPad. Twisting my photos.

[Food Lady]

Maybe that explains my curls. My dad and his siblings all have dark curly hair. Mine's only med brown. I've been asked if my dad was Spanish. Kia, how did you get such perfect, super-shiny spirals?!? It's like a Pantene commercial!

[KiaKat]

Combination of the right cut, the right product, and having sat under a salon dryer! They don't normally look quite that subdued, but that was taken right after I got home from a cut & colour.

Curly hair needs special treatment. I go to a Ouidad-trained stylist, but Devashan is another good system. It's all about making sure each curl is independant from all the others. Not difficult, but takes some learning and experimenting.

[mathnerd]

Most of my family have red or redish hair, though there's a fair amount of brown and reddish brown. As for the curls, I keep my hair very long so I can throw it up in a bun and not have to worry about it.

[KiaKat]

My hair is actually easier like this than it is long. When it's long, my entire morning routine is nearly an hour, due to washing my hair and pinning it up. At this length, it's less than half that- including time for choosing clothes, doing makeup, and winding curls around my finger for better definition.

It's a little shorter than I wanted, but that's because both my stylist and I forgot just how springy the damned things are. Normally I go for more of an Alex Kingston look. It's still long enough to pull back (I'm a runner), and if I really can't handle it, I can clip it up, though that's not the easiest method.

That's not quite my natural colour. The white hairs are starting to band together and form colonies in weird areas, so until they either take over fully or give me some awesome streaks, I'm going to keep on with the deep violet. It makes my hair look more auburn than normal, which is awesome.

[mathnerd]

Yeah, mine's the exact opposite. It takes forever to manage when it's short, but when it's long I only have to wash it every 3-4 days and even then, I just brush it out, throw a little anti-frizz product in it and let it dry. Then it goes into a bun for a couple days and I don't think about it at all. If it's short I need a lot more products to keep it from looking like I got hit by lightening and has to be styled and that takes more time than I'm willing to invest.

[Jester]

Mathnerd, what decade was your hair last short in?

I shit you not, folks, when Mathnerd was down here for the powerboat races, we were talking to a friend of mine on the catamaran we were watching from, and Mathnerd let her hair down from where it was pinned up. And my friend's jaw dropped so hard, the crew could have used it as an anchor!

[mathnerd]

I cut my hair to right above my shoulders while I was pregnant with my youngest (who will be 12 next month). The weight was contributing to nasty headaches. I'm fairly certain though, that the aggravation of managing short hair with a newborn in NICU was NOT worth the trade off. Never again.

As for your friend's reaction, yeah, I get that a lot, and I warned you, but you didn't believe me. You are one of the few people who met me for the first time when my hair was down.

[wolfie]

Mathnerd, what decade was your hair last short in?

Trivia tidbit: hair grows at roughly 1/2 inch per month.

I cut my hair to right above my shoulders while I was pregnant with my youngest (who will be 12 next month). The weight was contributing to nasty headaches. I'm fairly certain though, that the aggravation of managing short hair with a newborn in NICU was NOT worth the trade off.

Right above the shoulder is SHORT? When I get REALLY lazy about cutting my hair, I occasionally let it go so far that the above-the-ear hair is earlobe length.

[Jester]

Right above the shoulder is SHORT?

For Mathnerd? Yes.

[mathnerd]

Actually, right above the shoulders is *really* short. Normal short, which I do every couple years, is about mid-back. Then I let it grow for a year or two before cutting it again. Have I mentioned I'm lazy? It's currently about waist length.

[Food Lady]

mathnerd, my routine is similar to yours. I've spent almost 2 years at the Long Hair Community, so to me, shoulder is short. So I think the general consensus on curls is that they don't happen in certain populations, such as in scandinavian groups. But I've seen a Swedish lady with super-tight curls. She says it runs in her family, but she sees it so rarely in her country. Genetics is an interesting subject.