Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Style and beauty

Looking for style advice? Chat all about it here. For the latest discounts on fashion and beauty, sign up for Mumsnet Moneysaver emails.

Friend just had a perm. Are they back in fashion then?

29 replies

MmeLindt · 27/04/2009 12:30

A friend of mine has just had her chin-length hair permed. She is the first friend to have a perm in years, almost decades.

Are they back? Are we all going to go around looking like Kevin Keegan soon?

OP posts:
minko · 27/04/2009 13:22

A mummy at school had a perm recently. I nearly choked when I saw it, looked awful. Hopefully they are not making a comeback. I had one when I was 16 that made me look like Margaret Thatcher.

jumpingbeans · 27/04/2009 13:23

ohhhhh, i loved my corkscew perm

onepieceofcremeegg · 27/04/2009 13:24

Will ask hairdresser later if she knows.

smurfgirl · 27/04/2009 13:25

They are in because they say you can get loose curls with them which is tres fashionable.

I know two people who have got them and they ahve not been entirely sucessful..

onepieceofcremeegg · 27/04/2009 13:28

rofl at "not been entirely successful"

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 27/04/2009 13:35

I had one in 1983. It was a fortnight before I could be persuaded to leave the house other than under cover of darkness.

PortBlacksandResident · 27/04/2009 13:39
PortBlacksandResident · 27/04/2009 13:40

Actually i've noticed a fair bit of Chambray Denim around too in Debenhams, Next etc.

Noooooooooooooooo!

Megglevache · 27/04/2009 13:41

Oh aces if it's back mine is naturally lose spiral- I can chuck away the GHDs yeehaw!

TsarChasm · 27/04/2009 13:44

Ah yes..perms. God I remember that agony. Never again no matter how fashionable. Never.

It's funny how they hardly ever are successful. I wonder if they still smell of bad eggs.

PheasantPlucker · 27/04/2009 13:47
MmeLindt · 27/04/2009 14:20

I had an "not entirely successful" perm when I was 19yo.

Only half of my hair was curly, the other half was still dead straight.

[shudders]

My friend does look pretty, in a 1980s kind of a way.

OP posts:
bishboschone · 27/04/2009 16:30

i am naturally curly so look circa 1980's all the time..in a very trendy way i might add!!
mY hair is thick tho and i have been told I look like that woman from Heart!!

GentleOtter · 27/04/2009 16:34

I had one done in Kyle of Lochalsh about a million years ago. The hairdresser nipped out to get her shopping while the perm was 'cooking' and I guess she got waylayed. I was thinking Cher as my hair was waist length but got the Massive Dead Sheep on Head look.

Guadalupe · 27/04/2009 16:36

I wondered this the other day. Someone I know had theirs done for a wedding and I thought I haven't anyone say the word perm for ages.

profiterole · 27/04/2009 16:42

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

My hair is quite wavy and I had always liked the idea of having a loose curl put in

I stress the word loose

So after years of debating my very expensive well known multi national hair dressers said they could do a nice tousled wave that would suit my hair type and the curls would NOT start from the roots. Think Kate Hudson

spent A LOT of money and came out looking like a wally.

V tight curls and yes you guessed it they started from teh root.

A week later it had more or less dropped out. I thanked my lucky stars

pramspotter · 27/04/2009 17:42

Bishboshone you sound like me. I have really long thick hair that is sometimes wavy, sometimes curly. I can't do a thing with it but put it in a pony tail. If I cut it it goes crazy and if I try and straighten it then we have total disaster.

I'll always look like I just stepped out of the 80's so I hope they come back.

squeaver · 27/04/2009 17:48

NO WAY!

My hairdresser and I were discussing perms the other week actually and her view was that they'll never come back because tongs etc are so good now, you don't need all the chemical nightmares that go with a perm.

TheCrackFox · 27/04/2009 17:52

I love curly hair but IMO only naturally curly hair. Perms are never entirely successful

Perms will never make a come back.

pagwatch · 27/04/2009 18:01

ooh oooh ooh !
Flashbacks. 1982. Legends nightclub. Gold and burgundy harum pants. Shalama. Men with lipstick on.

Someone make it stop

FairLadyOfMuslinCloth · 27/04/2009 18:20

Perms...oh...the memories are flooding back....perms were never entirely succesful for me neither....rofl...nowadays I wouldn't even consider perms for the simple reason that I think I would end up bald....not a good look for me, I think...

earthpixie · 27/04/2009 18:26

I've had dozens of the wrethced things; each and every one resulting in acute disappointment and then knackered, frizzy, breaking hair.

DON'T GO THERE.

PheasantPlucker · 27/04/2009 18:41

Mine was sort of cork screwy, and I used to wrap scarves around it, a bit like members of Bananarama. Or, should I say, my 'interpretation' of the Bananarama look

My sister had one too. It is a period in our lives we try hard to gloss over and forget.

I should also add that my hair is naturally curly, so I am not sure why I felt it necessary to perm it!

pagwatch · 27/04/2009 18:44

ooh Pheasant - I used to do the pretty fabric as a sweatband thing - where you tied a strip of lace across your forehead.
And I did the string of pearls as a bracelet before Madonna did it.
God I was a twonk

PheasantPlucker · 27/04/2009 18:47

Pagwatch, enough! What were we thinking of?!!