Rare enough to fascinate people. I got mixed curls and very thick hair and strangers try to touch it sometimes. They're not even tight, but my tight-curled friends also have to deal with touchy people. It can also be a nuisance to find a good hairdresser, none in my area are specialised on curls and have a lot of prejudice (the one I go to once seriously started lamenting how sorry she feels for black girls for having "to deal with that". Now I'm sitting there whiter than snow trying to explain the cultural significance of hair to a professional hairdresser.) Although I see other curly people almost daily, it still gets treated like a bit of a rarity by some.