I was recently telling a friend about how my grandmother Blanche would have me give her Toni Home Permanents when I was about 7 yrs old. I guess she thought that my small yet nimble fingers could easily wrap her fine, short hair around the tiny perm rods. Often, I would struggle, (as my eyes teared and nasal passages burned from the fumes of the perm solution) to carefully wrap her few strands of hair over tiny rolling papers that would then be wound and bound to the the rods that would transform her sad and unruly hair into an organized collection of shiny, and soon to be gelled and shellacked poodle curls.
Since then, I have been fascinated with the whole process of perms. Having thick and very straight Caucasian hair my self, the perms that I have tried have not always been so successful, and have often resulted in terrible, and hilarious looks. That being said, I have had some "Epic" perms in my day, and to me, this combines elements like: over all hair size, curliness, frizz factor, length of time it took to get the perm, how many rods were used, possible injury due to chemical burns, and how long it took to style said perm after you committed to completely changing the structure of your hair on a molecular level.
The pictures I am posting are really more of an homage to epic perms, rather than an insult to them.
I hope you enjoy the majestic beauty that follows.
Starting off, This is Epic perm is pretty close to what my first perm looked like. Though this is not me, the recipient of this perm has also used mauve eyeshadow to contrast with her green sweater... very classy.
This Epic perm really speaks for itself, but the height she has achieved is also very impressive.
In 1987 , my 12 year old self was positive that I could achieve this look... it did not matter that I was chubby, blonde, and had short hair... One magic perm might transform me into this!
Alas, I looked more like this:
ok, that's enough perms for today kids. ;)
