Laura Bibbs, the 29-year-old trumpet player and composer touring with Harry Styles, said a damaging 2022 balayage became the start of what she calls her "curly journey," according to Allure. Bibbs, who performs in Styles' band during his Madison Square Garden residency, said the balayage lifted her natural color to an extremely light blonde in a single session, calling the result "devastating." About a month later, she said she found a stylist who used keratin treatments to revive her curl pattern despite the damage, and who taught her to style her curls with a dime-sized amount of gel combined with a quarter-sized amount of leave-in conditioner.
Bibbs said she had straightened her hair throughout high school and college, partly shaped by her years training for orchestra work, where she said Western classical music's conservative, Eurocentric norms made her feel pressure not to stand out as a Black woman in the field. She began experimenting with her natural curl pattern around 2022 while on Styles' Love on Tour, but didn't wear her curls out on stage for the first time until 2024, while touring with Mumford & Sons. Bibbs said she considers herself a longtime fan of Shea Moisture's Jamaican Black Castor Oil line.