Post cancer hair

[maeveiscurious]

I finished treatment in 2021 it's now about 5cm long and I look like Dennis the menace. It's naturally curly but not in a good way. I keep thinking of having it cut short again. Any tips welcome

What style are you aiming for in the longer term? Probably need bit more info as well.
Do you want to grow it in the long term or stick with a short style? If you are looking for. longer style, I think you will need to ride it out. Do your curls drop out as your hair gets longer? Is your hair thick/thin.

My only immediate tip would be don’t wear black shorts and a red and black stripe top (I’m really hoping you have a sense of humour!)

I feel your pain. Mine grew back with tight curls it was awful. I used clips and hairbands to try to tame it. It seemed to take forever. Good luck.

Mine grew back with “Chemo-curl” but nearly 3 years later is virtually back to its normal wave.
But I loved my curls while they lasted. I used a lot of conditioner as it was very thirsty.
It was difficult to find anyone to cut it properly when it was curly so I used to pick up a curl at a time and chop it!

You could try the curly girl method and see if you can make them behave?

I'm on a group called sensible curly people UK, some of the other groups can be very inflexible.

I'm shelving any Breton sweaters for a while😂 I feel worse about it now than when it was first growing back

It's probably about 4 inch's now and Mrs Brown has nicer hair than me. It goes straight out above my ears and I look like a mushroom

You could shave it back and it should grow out normally or get a selection of velvet hairbands/ear warmers for the winter and use those to hold in the mushroom sides until it grows long enough for the curls to drop.
For most people they do drop if your hair was not curly before.
I'd recommend the Philip Kingsley elasticiser and a leave-in castor oil conditioner to get it in better condition if you want to keep growing it.
I had curly hair before chemo but I shaved it when it was still very short a few months after finishing and it came back as it had been without the perm set look.
Still have to be careful about the mushroom look though when it's short, joys of curly hair!

My Df's hair grew back with curls, we loved them!

They don't last so this won't be forever. In the meantime I would suggest insane quantities of conditioner to sort the curl.