My heritage is southern Italian.  All my life, I’ve struggled with too much hair.  Those cute dark curls I had as a little girl became increasingly problematic as I grew up. My brother quickly learned my weak spot and could bring me to tears with just a few words: “Cousin Itt”, “unibrow”, “mustache”. By the time I was in high school, I was doing daily battle. It was the late 60s and I wanted hair like Mary Travers in the folk group Peter, Paul & Mary (long, straight, optionally blonde).  Instead, I had hair like Alice the female engineer in the Dilbert comic strip (wavy and wide like a pyramid).

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