Who are you, where do you come from?
Hello, my name is Inès Leonarduzzi, I am an author and entrepreneur. My father is of Italian and Croatian origin, and my mother is Berber from Algeria. I grew up in Normandy in a small village and now live in Paris with my partner and our son.
Here, we talk about hair, tell us about yours. Their nature, their state, the relationship you have with them?
My hair is very important to me, it is a powerful feminine heritage in Mediterranean culture, as it is in many cultures. You can tell so much about a woman just from her hair.
As a child, my hair was very thick, very dry, and very curly, even frizzy. It was difficult to style to the point that my father, without consulting my mother, cut my hair himself when I was 5 years old to spend less time on it. I ended up with a thick, irregular, and unmanageable bowl cut.
Do you love your hair a little, passionately, or not at all?
Unfortunately, I developed a complex very early on. Like other young girls of North African or African origin, I was influenced by Western beauty standards. To be beautiful, you had to have "smooth and disciplined" hair. I remember hairdressers touching our hair in front of other clients, exclaiming, "But we can't style this!" I felt so ashamed. Interestingly, the word "disciplined" implied that we were rebels by nature, that by essence, we didn't fit into the molds. And our reflection in the mirror reminded us of that daily.
I thus long harbored a dislike for my hair.
During my higher education, I repeated my father's gesture, going further. I shaved my head. And I liked it. It was a phase in my life where I felt my personality emerging, my way of thinking becoming firmer, me who had been shy and lacking confidence until then. I started having political opinions, opinions about the world, many things were changing in my life, and I wanted to free myself from collectively accepted beauty standards. You could say it was my Britney moment.
Has your relationship with your hair evolved over time?
I then wore my hair long, then in a bob like in the 1940s. By gaining confidence in myself, exploring my abilities and other beauty assets that I could develop (humor, friendliness, knowledge, my relationship with my body, with my skin, with others...), my hair became less of a stressful obsession and more of a care that made me feel good.
Today, I straighten my hair because I wouldn't know how to find the time to work with curly hair as I desire, I'm too demanding, but I dream of it! And paradoxically, I am less and less in control. I would never have thought I could leave my house without blow-drying my hair or sleep with wet hair and manage it the next day. Yet today, it's no longer a problem. I think that's the beauty of getting older: you learn to love yourself as you are, and the people around you find you beautiful because you find yourself beautiful.
Do you have a little hair tip, a grandmother's advice?
I would like to tell little girls with frizzy, dry, and "unmanageable" hair that it's not up to them to adapt; it's the others who need to understand that beauty comes in a thousand and one forms. A massive effort to denormalize beauty is still needed.
As for my hair, I do a lot of treatments. Living in a polluted city, I have to be doubly careful (as I do with my skin). The priority gesture is not to neglect shampoo, which is often done too quickly. Taking care of myself is part of how I treat myself. These rituals are structuring mentally and even spiritually. When my skin and hair are clean and healthy, I am more disposed to think better, be more creative, and be more serene. It might be surprising, but a healthy mind works better in a healthy body, an expression dating back to ancient Greece. My mother, a Muslim, taught me that God loves beauty; beauty begins with cleanliness and body care.
I apply sunscreen to my hair every day in summer. And I also try not to overuse heated appliances.
In summer and winter, on vacation, I take the opportunity to use an argan oil bath on my hair, a habit inherited from my mother.
We often tend to confuse the need for fat and the need for water. Oil nourishes, but hair, like skin, also needs hydration. Both are essential. To hydrate, you need to drink water regularly. I also like, for example, to apply aloe vera gel as a treatment.
Shaeri means "my hair" and also "my poem"/ "my motto": do you have a little "word" to share with us about hair in general?
Take care of your hair, they protect an even greater beauty asset: your brain.
