And yet I have.
Yes, that's right, folks... I have done gone and had my hair permed. Again. And cut SHORT!!
I had sworn years ago not to get my hair cut short again. I'd first chopped all my lovely hair off when I was in college, in spring of 2000, I believe it was. Right around the time I got my tattoo. The one I ended up regretting (and still do) is chopping my hair off.
See, I just don't look right with short hair. You can see in the above photo that I have a massive head with an equally massive face. It's not something that bothers me in general, until my sister and I have photos taken of us together. Then I feel like I have this huge blue ribbon prize-winning watermelon head to her teeny little grapefruit head. But hey, I do have four, almost five inches on her... I suppose having a large head is a small price to pay to actually be average height! *winks*
But back to the hair. Short hair makes my head even more massive and renders my double chin more visible. I've been told several times not to cut my hair short.
And perming it???? I'd first gotten my hair permed nearly exactly one year ago, when I'd gone on a random trip to Tucson to visit the in-laws. My mother-in-law wanted to get her hair done, and I offered to go with her while Mom-mom (my husband's grandmother) kept an eye on Gracie. While in the salon (and that's using the word loosely), I pawed through the obligatory out-of-date and sun-faded books of hair styles and found the perfect one. However, it wasn't going to work with my hair; I didn't need a stylist to tell me that. But the stylist told me that getting my hair permed to a wave would look really good on me, and because I'm not particularly fussy about my looks, I agreed.
I loved my perm. I've always wanted curly hair. When I was a kid, my mom would put those supposedly soft hair rollers in my hair just before bed so I'd have big massive curls when I woke up. I have a few photos of me with this 'do; it's pretty darn amusing. So having a chemical perm where all I had to do every morning was throw some mousse or gel in my hair seemed like the ideal thing to do.
My perm looked darn cute on me too, if I may say so myself. There were some who thought maybe the curls were a little too tight, but I loved them tight. Right around Grace's first birthday, the perm hit just about perfection for me. But it wasn't long after that it went downhill, and quickly.
All of a sudden I was babying my hair. I had to put forth so much work and effort to get it to look decent. I had folks with naturally curly hair telling me to stay away from gel and to use mousse exclusively, but mousse wasn't holding the curl. Finally gel started to lose its effectiveness. It was then that I made another random trip to Tucson and had my hair permed again.
This time I wasn't pleased with it. At all. The stylist did not remember how she'd done my hair to begin with and had no idea what color rollers she'd used on my hair. I realize she has a ton of clients, so why would she remember which rollers she'd used on me. But she hadn't told me to begin with, and I hadn't noticed at the time. So she faked it, and it just wasn't right.
A big thing was she hadn't trimmed my hair enough. I don't think people realize how quickly my hair grows. When my hair was short, I had to get it cut every four weeks or I'd have a shag on my head. Three weeks would have been better, but I was cheap and tried to push it to five. I used to have to color my hair every three weeks because my roots would be beyond noticeable if I waited any longer.
Then in April I had my hair permed one last time. This time I went to the salon in JC Penney's here in Washington, and that stylist completely dissed my stylist in Tucson. Apparently when you do a perm, you're not supposed to set your client under the hair dryer, which is what I'd had done the two times I'd gotten my hair permed in Tucson. But I mentioned the issues I'd had with my perm in Tucson: how quickly it grew out, that it hadn't been tight enough, that several strands came out completely straight. This time the lady saturated my hair with the neutralizer, but even still, some strands were straight.
AND... the damn lady didn't cut my hair enough.
I didn't really like her anyhow, and I was quite peeved to find out that Penney's charges you one rate for a perm and the normal rate for the cut. I'm used to getting services packaged together, or at least a discount on the cut because I'm getting a more expensive process done as well. In fact, the time I nearly killed my hair by bleaching it at home (don't ask), I went to a very high-end hoity-toity place where I laid $200 down to get my hair back to normal, and the cut was FREE! Imagine that.
This time I went to the salon on base. I did not have an appointment because I had no clue I was going to be kid-less for an entire afternoon, but apparently I made puppy-dog eyes at the stylist and she agreed to take me.
I wish I could have taken a photo of my stylist. She was stunningly gorgeous, at least in my eyes. She was tall, elegant, statuesque, thin without being skinny. Her skin was the color of dark chocolate, her hair jet black. Her neck was unbelievably long, her cheekbones were high and prominent, and her eyes were almond-shaped. Definitely a gorgeous woman.
So she sat me down in the stylist's chair and listened to what I wanted. She decided to perm my hair first and then cut it, which was fine by me because then she could shape my perm however she thought it would be best, and make sure she took enough off. We'd gone back and forth as to whether it should be white rollers or grey ones or white and grey alternating, and I finally convinced her to do all grey. She wrapped my hair, protected my forehead with gauze, and poured on the neutralizer.
Not one hair of my head escaped being permed into submission. FINALLY a stylist who managed to perm ALL of my hair, not just 95%.
After perming and rinsing, she slathered on some lovely smelling gel that made my hair absolutely gorgeous. Then she got out her scissors. I wasn't really paying attention to how much she'd taken off until she was done. At that point, I confess I got a little nervous. I had what is affectionately known in fashion circles as "poodle hair," and the cut looked like something an old lady would have. But slowly my hair dried, and it fluffed out a bit.
And now I am in love. I love my hair. I love how short it is. I love how curly it is. I'm a little sad that it's going to lose some of its curl over the next few weeks. I want it to stay this curly (damn you, Caroline, for having naturally curly hair!). I want it to stay this short. I wish I could freeze-frame my hair so that it will never change until I want it to. Alas, it will grow, and it'll straighten back out.
But until then, I am loving my new 'do!!!