To wonder why Toni home perms are no longer all the rage?

[DameDoom]

Newcastle, New Years Eve 1984 - what better way to begin afresh than with an elegant Toni demi-wave from the chemists?
No sitting round in Fenwicks salon for us - not when mam and aunty Joan had a bag full of perming rollers, 40 silk cut (each), 2 cans of Kestrel Super Strength, and an almost emptyish kitchen sink - twas a right pamper sesh.
I can remember the big reveal like it was yesterday. Begone waist length tresses and becometh Vera Duckworth style frizz.
Mam lied and told me it just added a bit of body and bounce...aunty Joan said I looked quite French
Absolute lyin' bastards...

This thread has brought back such memories - I can almost smell the perming solution

I have no idea why I still have a hair on my head after using that stuff.

I was pretty much hysterical at the memory of kappa jackets. One of my aunties will still do you a nice perm if ur passing thru. She isnt trained, wont smoke 40tabs over you. But
she is shit hot with a sectioning
comb.

I had a perm in the 80's. The curls lasted about a week. The split ends for years.

Oh do you remember those heated sticks that you could roll up to make your own special corkscrew perm at home which did not work wasn't permanant?

I did pin curls a few years back, expected a gorgeous fall of gentle curls - ended up with a head full of craziness.

I looked like Louis X1V.
Wanted the coupe sauvage look. It never happened.

My nan also did my hair in about 50 really thin plaits when I was 11 (before a family wedding) to make my hair look 'fuller'. I ended up looking like Crystal Tips on crystal meth

CRIMPERS.

I was 13 when I was allowed a perm which was late eighties, I looked like someone from def Leppard. I then kept it for far too long until a kindly hairdresser suggested straightening it. I owe that woman a lot.

iklboo I used to go to bed with wet hair in really thin plaits. It was my Kate Bush phase.

Crimpers - ^^ ditto

I love Baby's perm in dirty dancing.
My hair was a bit like that for short time in the 80's. It was dead classy. But then my trainee hairdresser neighbour persuaded me to have bleach streaks and it was ruined.

My mum lied and said a perm would add body and bounce to my fine, straight glossy hair. It looked horrible. Yet I went on to have many more. why? The worst one made me look uncannily like Crystal Tipps because of the way the layers had been cut in.

My brothers kindly call it my sheep phase...

iklboo - hairdo fail snap!

I had perms in the early nineties, they looked horrendous until about three months in, when they dropped into gorgeous silky waves, which lasted for about a month and then it had to be done again. Cue another three months of looking like the queen until it dropped and so on and on. It was worth it for that month of perfect hair though so I just kept gritting my teeth through the hard times.

The best perm was that of Angie Watts in Eastenders. My Mum had her dressing gown.

Bad perms and badly streaked hair was all part of being a teenage girl or boy in the 80,s surely?

I strangely had a 'stack' perm in the late 70s. Why I don't know as my hair is very wavy. It grew out into long teases that made me look like a rock chick. I loved it at the time.

Once I realised my own hair was curly if left alone I rocked a cute curly Bob for most of the 90s. Sadly now out of fashion. For a very short time my hair was cool ish. Now I rely on GHDs.

Do you remember the hell that was the Wet Look Perm? With the obligatory straight, very thin fringe. WHYYYYYYYYYY?

This thread is sooo funny

Perms were on their way out by the time I hit my teens - I started secondary school in 1993.

But I do remember the scraped-back hair with two sections hanging out - why??

A bit like this, but not exactly. I think the internet has banned the style I mean on the grounds of taste and decency.

I had my hair streaked once not highlighted streaked blonde only I have very dark brown hair and it looked grey! Not a good look!

My mum did "some" hairdressing training in her teens. I've no idea whether some was 2 weeks or 2 years but nevertheless, I let her perm my hair on a few occasions.

We didn't have a shower or shower attachment, it was just being horrendously wet for what seemed like hours with dripping perm lotion, copious rinsing with jugs of water, dripping neutraliser and more rinsing/soggy end papers.

Then there was the joy of when it grew out/went flat on top because the hair was too heavy yet the sides and back were still poodle - like. Then the washing it with Lenor because the bloke in Kajagoo (not Limahl) said that's what he did in Look In

Ooh, which one?

Then the washing it with Lenor because the bloke in Kajagoo (not Limahl) said that's what he did in Look In

I had just moved to London and pulled a 6ft 4 blond God so, brilliantly, I thought it was time to get a perm.
I got an offer for a free perm in Holborn. I went in with a picture of this beautiful head of shaggy curls. Came out looking like the one of these.