FLOTUS: Please pass on the roller set

Put down your flat irons. First lady Michelle Obama may have just glamorized the roller set.

That's what I thought when I saw her curly 'do Saturday night at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

That spongy coif was reminiscent of the sausage-sized curls that have been a Sunday-best staple for many African American women - and girls - for like, ever.

That's not to say the first lady didn't look beautiful when she bared her flawless arms in a silver, sparkling Zac Posen gown this weekend. The clothes were emblematic of Obama's signature, modern-day princess style.

But those ringlets? They were styleless.

For decades, black girls have raced to abandon this straightened, then curled-within-an-inch-of-its-life look for trendier styles like chin-length bobs, Afros, bouffants, meticulously tapered short cuts, even box braids. For little girls, losing these manufactured curls is a right of passage.

But then they sometimes reappear. Around matriarch-age, those curls are embraced again. (OK on your favorite aunt because love always trumps fashion.) Who cares if they are crushed under Sunday hats?

Sometimes they are the go-to look when women need their hair done for an event that's more than a week away and need their hair "to hold." This is where sponge rollers and endpapers come in handy.

And sometimes it's an easy solution for women growing out a relaxer.

The curls are created many ways. The classic: Stylists roll wet hair on big plastic rollers and then sit the client under a dryer for an hour or two. Or, the more "modern" way, where varying widths are rolled around sizzling hot curling irons so hot they fry the hair.

I remember getting a mess of curls on special occasions - Easter Sunday, Christmas, First Communion - and then furiously combing and brushing them out as quickly as possible.

Like suits on men, or black patent-leather pumps, these curls are never questioned - but on a first lady, I must.

Nancy Reagan never veered from her signature short cut, and although Hillary Rodham Clinton may have changed up her look during her husband's presidency (starting with a headband and ending with a shorter coif), it was more consistent.

With Obama, as soon as we get used to one hairstyle - remember the perfect bob she rocked during her husband's first run for office? - she switches it up. Bang-gate made for a lot of fashion chitchat. She's flipped it under, flipped it out, pulled it back in a tight ponytail. . . .

But Obama is simply doing what black women have been doing for decades. We've been known to sit in our stylist's chair and emerge hours later with entirely new looks (and lengths).

It's just that I'd rather not see this particular one - the one I so staunchly rejected at age 12 - on my trendy, fashionable, and fabulous first lady.

215-854-2704

@ewellingtonphl