I have a white and Brazilian teen boy who has a huge mop of bonde/brown/reddish curls. He is extremely popular. The girls go gaga over his hair. I joke that if he does not start focusing on grades, I am going to cut that mop off. Lol.

My 16yr old son had slightly wavy hair when young and wearing a short haircut. He now has LONG flowing curly locks. Absolutely gorgeous and I tell him I plan to cut it while he sleeps & sell it for some solid $$$ (strawberry blonde/red with amazing highlights and lowlights).

His younger brother, now 14, had seemingly very straight hair when it was cut short. Turns out when it grows beyond 1” in length he had a curly mop that’s pretty phenomenal.

Both have Scandinavian/German/Scottish/Irish/pasty European heritage.

I have noticed that a reasonable percentage of the teen friends, once hair is longer, also have wavy/curly hair. Still plenty of kids with straight long shaggy hair but I see plenty of curl appear suddenly once hair is allowed to grow longer.

My DH has curly hair and he just always kept it really short so nobody would see the curls. Boys are just wearing their hair longer now because curls are "in" but this wasn't always the case which is why you didn't "see" as many curls before.

Anonymous wrote:I just googled 80s men's hair.
Here you go.

Waves and kinky yes, curly no.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't thing hair changes that much in puberty, except some start to lose it. If a kid kept is short and then grew it out, you might suddenly see the natural texture.

The only guy I knew who's straight hair became curly had lost all of it in chemo, and it grew back curly, but then it eventually went back to his usual straight hair.

In some genetic backgrounds, yes, it absolutely gets curly in puberty. It happened to both my kids, just their their father.

+1

Happens in my family too. We all had stick straight hair as kids and the most developed wavy to tight curls during puberty.

Anonymous wrote:It’s the current style to have a curly mop. Unless your hair is pin straight, it’s pretty easy to use product and scrunch hair to be somewhat curly, when it’s not too long. That’s what some of them are doing.
Until recently, most boys kept their hair shorter

+1 I've got 3 A/B curls. My oldest DS (19) has some wave to his hair but no curl. He uses product/scrunching/diffuser to get a 'mop'. My younger DS has curly hair similar to mine but minimized the curl until recently by having a 'non-curly' cut. Now that he's got a 'curly' cut, he's got a riotous mop even without product. He just, finger combs it when it's wet.

Another poster whose son hair’s went from slight wave to curly curly in puberty. I dislike his hair curly - it is very frizzy and puffy now. I wish it still had the loose wave.

Anonymous wrote:My 8th grade son's hair goes from straight to curly each morning when he spends 20 minutes in the bathroom spraying the crap out of it with products to look like Farrah Fawcet.

My 9th grade son too!! He’s killing all of us with the hairspray fumes. He goes through more cans than a Texas beauty pageant Queen.

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. Apparently, several things can cause hair to go curly, including getting a perm triggering a permanent change in the hair follicle (maybe why it was called a permanent).

https://www.scienceworld.ca/stories/can-hair-change-straight-curly/

Yep. A spiral perm in the early 90s ruined my beautiful shiny thick hair that never used to frizz. I was 20. Ever since then my hair gets super frizzy with even the slightest touch of humidity or drop of rain. It never did prior. I’m 52 now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Growing up I don’t remember so many boys with curly hair. Now that my son is 16 his hair went from straight to curly in the last couple of years. So many of his friends also had straight hair that turned curly. My 13 year old son lives his hair and said he hopes it doesn’t turn curly. Did I just not notice it in high school all the boys with curly hair?

Some have gotten perms (I know several) to get that curly mop of hair that they're all sporting. Not a fan. But it's better than the mullets boys sported in my HS days. So there's that.

Not a fan? Mine does this naturally - should I feel bad about myself?

There are many articles on how to get that Dev Patel/Jon Snow/Harry Styles/Chalamet look. I'm lucky to get it for free.

Good for you. You should not feel bad about yourself. But I'm entitled to not like the look of the overgrown mop of curly hair. I'm sure there are people who do not like my hair, or clothing, or shoes, or whatever. I can live with that.

Interesting. Apparently, several things can cause hair to go curly, including getting a perm triggering a permanent change in the hair follicle (maybe why it was called a permanent).

https://www.scienceworld.ca/stories/can-hair-change-straight-curly/

The shaggy curly look was all the rage for boys in the 1970s into early 80s. Hair became short in the late 80s into the 90s.

They had short hair. When I was a teen in the 90s, most of the boys kept their hair short.

It looks silly no matter the reason.

It is the style