Everything You Need To Know Before Getting A Perm, From A Girl Who's Done It 3 Times

During my freshman year of college, I bought a cheap perm kit from Walmart and accepted my friend’s offer to help me perm my hair. Fortunately, we didn’t have time the night we planned to do it, and I chickened out after thinking about it further. Generally, I weigh risks carefully, but there are a few instances in which my hair has been an exception. While I’m grateful I didn’t perm my hair on a whim my freshman year of college using an impossibly inexpensive home kit from Walmart, I’m also here to clear perms of their reputation of being solely for grandmas or women who are okay trashing their hair with a $15 DIY kit. 

Over three years later, after I had graduated from college, I again decided to pursue a perm – but this time, I knew better than to consider doing it myself. I had weighed the pros and cons of perming my hair and decided it was worth the risk. My biggest fear was looking like a poodle when everything was said and done, but my internet research convinced me there were some perm options that wouldn’t leave me in dire straits. 

One of my previous bold hair moves was going from very long hair to a shoulder-length bob the summer before my senior year of college (it was really only bold because my college was in a tiny town, and I went to a salon I had never been to and let a woman I didn’t know chop off around nine inches of my hair). Fortunately, I loved it, and I figured the stylist who cut my hair would be a good choice for my perm. We did a consultation, and I brought in several pictures of what I liked and what I didn’t like. I told her I was afraid of the ultra-tight, frizzy perm look that made all of our mothers denounce perms for eternity. 

You can imagine my disappointment then when I showed her the pictures, and she remarked that many of the photos were actually just pictures of people who had curled their hair or had naturally curly hair. Others were wigs. When I showed her the pictures of what I didn’t like, she told me honestly that those were more representative of what a perm would look like. I began to have an uneasy feeling that maybe this whole adventure was not everything I had hoped it would be. 

I ended up finding a stylist at another salon who was more confident that a perm could successfully meet my expectations. Of course, I was more realistic by this time, but I still had aspirations and a general vision. The process took longer than I expected, but I remember the boost of confidence my perm gave me from the first day, and I’m pretty sure I even remarked that I felt like I had Julia Roberts-esque hair. I’ve learned some important lessons in the two plus years since I got my first perm, so allow me to share some questions and advice worth considering.