The word "curly" is completely correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to hair that has been curled or is naturally curly. For example, "My daughter has long, curly hair."
He nods to a photograph above his desk of his 22-month-old son – curly locks, impossibly big brown eyes.
Pat, with his (or her) chubby body, fluctuating voice and short, curly hair, was supposed to be the butt of a joke for being unidentifiably male or female, but instead wrested control of every sketch by forcefully confronting anyone who tried to figure out his (or her) gender.
Mallory meets at Charterhouse "an ancient amour of mine... a young man of 17 but still only just past the moment of puberty & with a fair skin & fair curly hair & red enticing lips!
The advert in question was for butter and featured both men sporting wide grins, cream dressing gowns and their trademark (but mercifully saliva free) curly hairstyles while seated at the breakfast table.
He gazes softly, wisely, from falling curly locks – another Leonardo trait is a love of ringlets and spirals – and raises his right hand in benediction.
Her biggest hit songs were On the Good Ship Lollipop, from Bright Eyes (1934), which describes a child's dream of a candy shop, and Animal Crackers in My Soup, from Curly Top (1935), sung at an orphanage while skipping between tables at lunch as the kids beat time with their knives and forks.
From 1934 to 1938, when she was at the height of her fame, Shirley Temple (later known as Shirley Temple Black), who has died aged 85, appeared in films as a bright-eyed, curly-topped, dimpled cherub, whose chirpy singing and toddler's tap dancing were perfect antidotes to the depression.
The curly-haired great-grandson of impoverished Russian aristocrats and an Abyssinian boy given to Peter the Great, Pushkin was a down-to-earth, outspoken man with long fingernails and slovenly habits who liked to write best of all in bed.
Mr Tendulkar, a curly-haired and diminutive Mumbaikar, has long been known as the "God of cricket" in a country almost maniacally obsessed with the game.
The curly-tailed animals have proven extraordinarily useful to human development and have been present from the earliest permanent dwellings to modern metropolises.
The adorable dancing, singing, curly-haired moppet, the world's top-earning star from 1935 to 1938, surely shed tears once the cameras were off.
