Ariana Grande just posted a rare shot of her natural thick, curly hair on Instagram

Au natural!

Ariana Grande is known for her signature super-high ponytails, but it's no secret that the pop star relies on oodles of hair extensions to create the look. In fact, Ariana is sporting faux hair just about any time she's seen in public: As fans well know, her hair has suffered serious damage from years of chemical bleaching, and she rarely shows off her locks in their unfiltered state.

But rest assured, her hair is growing in just fine, as evidenced by a rare Instagram story Ari posted this week. In the black-and-white video, the songstress records herself in the mirror as she tousles her (real!) ponytail. "The most hair," she captioned the clip.

Fans also noticed that Ariana not-so-subtly covered her hand with a heart emoji, conspicuously hiding her rumored new hand tattoos.

Although Ariana almost never shows glimpses of her genuine tresses, this isn't the first time she's given fans a peek. A select few selfies taken in recent years show her hair growing in over time. When left in its natural ringlets, it didn't quite reach her shoulders in a snap taken a few months back.

Ariana has occasionally spoken about her hair-related challenges: The saga began a decade ago, when her role as Cat on Nickelodeon's "Victorious" required her to constantly use harsh chemicals on her hair to turn it a vibrant shade of red.

"I had to bleach my hair and dye it red every other week for the first four years of playing Cat," she said in 2014, explaining that she'd since taken to wearing wigs. "I wear extensions, but I wear it in a ponytail because my actually hair is so broken that it looks absolutely ratchet and absurd when I let it down."

In response to critics who find it boring that she so frequently wears her hair in a ponytail, she added, "It's all that works for now (and I'm comfortable for the first time in years) ... And trust me, it's even more difficult for me to have to wait forever for my natural hair to grow back and to have to wear more fake hair than every drag queen on earth combined."

PHOTOS: Ariana Grande through the years