Help me Obi-LJ!

[soldiergrrrl]

At this point, my hair is about four inches from my waist, and since it's very fine, the weight is just pulling all the curl/wave/anything that resembles body out of it.

I had my hair permed years and years and years ago, and I liked it, since I at least had some body to it, even when it was as long as it is now.

Any of the longhair beauties here have perms?  An I insane for thinking about it again?

x-posted to longhair .

Comments

[brandyeileen.livejournal.com]

There's a community listed on my profile which is full of uber-long-haired folks like I have been for most of my adult years. They might have some ideas.

I had one perm a long time ago. It lasted less than a month because, well, you know my hair. Fine, thin, and tons of it. Totally would not take a perm any better than it takes a curl. Even now, I have to leave goo and rollers in it overnight to get something like I had for my wedding.

Best of luck!

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

My perms seem to last for years, but it's also been...oh...um...15 years since I've had one.

You have the most lovely hair.

[brandyeileen.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[fieryseraph.livejournal.com]

Okay,
I don't have a perm, but I have had perms in the past. My sister is a hairdresser and my mom is a teacher at a hairdressing school. So I asked them for you.

If your hair is colored, make sure it is not overprocessed or your hair is liable to fall off if you get a perm. As long as it is healthy it should be okay. (If you go to a salon, the hairdresser there should be able to tell you if it is overprocessed.)

If your hair is naturally curly, you may just want to get it layered so you can still have the long hair without the weight. That should bring the natural curl back out.

If it is is wavy to straight, and you want curl, then you want to get a good perm at a salon not from some person off the street without a license who says they can do it. Salon perms can be pricey depending on where you go.

[waterlilly.livejournal.com]

The problem with perming long hair is akin to the problem of dyeing long hair. Once you do it, if you want to keep the length, it can be hard to stop because your roots and your length will look really different. In high school I got what was supposed to be a wave perm, ended up with super curly hair, and then I was ages getting rid of it because I didn't want to cut it off and lose all the length, and it looked awful growing out. It grew in straight over the curly mess. I looked like 1980's Geddy Lee.

Have you tried anything like braiding it to sleep or when it's damp? This seems to add endless wavy stuff to mine, although to be fair my hair is too wavy to be straight and too straight to be curly so it could just be what it would have done anyway.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

I braid it at work, and it's bunned, so when I get home the part that lies along the scalp is flat as a board, and the "tail" looks like I stuck my finget in a light socket...;-D

Maybe I should just go with bangs.

:-D

[deafelis.livejournal.com]

Hehe - my hair does this. See if you can learn to french braid it by yourself. Then the top of it doesn't look quite so bad. (Double french braids would be even better, but I haven't learned how to do that yet, either.)

I've never had mine permed, but the only thing I've found that will make my hair hold a curl is TONS of hairspray. So much that it's only worth it for special occasions (like my own wedding, or senior prom).

[betnoir.livejournal.com]

Speaking as one with long hair who does color and highlight...

My bigger problem is that my hair grows astonishingly fast. Like two inches a month fast. I cannot keep short hair because within 3 weeks of having it cut, it looks like I never got it done.

Truthfully, PunkHairGrrl and I have the whole color/highlight thing down to a science so I never have a mismatch between the roots and the tips. It's more that if I don't keep on top of it, the matural root color (see: more grey than I am willing to have show at my age) will come through.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nymphette_/]

hmmm, I would try a couple of things first - but you're not crazy for thinking of permanation.

1) get some drastic layers and bangs to lighten the load. That lets you keep length but add a bit of body/style. I think long layers would look fab on you too. ;-)

2) Check out the WEN product for thin hair - i think the Almond oil one is the one for dry/thick hair, you want the other one (blocked at work but I want to say it's maybe cucumber/mint?). Everyone I know swears by this stuff. It's hair love in a bottle, and not too much more expensive than decent shampoo. They have it on ebay too for a decent steal.

[dracphelan.livejournal.com]

Having seen your hair this past weekend, I say it looks great the way it is.

[revchewie.livejournal.com]

From a male perspective, leave it straight. There's something about long (loooooong) straight hair that's just wonderful!

My two centimes...

P.S. I've never seen you with hair *that* long. If you happened to feel a desire to post a photo of it... *making big wookiee eyes at you* *grin*

[betnoir.livejournal.com]

I have VERY thick hair that -- back in the day when I used to perm it -- meant leaving rods in for 20 minutes and utterly CRISPING it in the process. Of course, my hair was much shorter than (shoulder length), so I also looked like a little frizzball.

Oddly, for as long as my hair is, I still have quite a bit of wave, which should tell you summat about just how WAVY my hair is when it is short. Plus I do not have cowlicks...no, no, I have cow SLOBBER. This is why I keep my hair long.

If your hair is fine, you might be able to get away with permanermanenting it. I know that I can't.

[noetic-toe.livejournal.com]

Hey! Happy Birthday! (Us 12/22s have to stick together.)

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

And happiest of days to you, my friend!

[pixelmeow.livejournal.com]

Hairdresser, here ::waves::

Fine long hair. Weight comes from the hair length, but is your hair thick (lots of hair)? Do you have any color or any other chemical process in your hair now? Do you have well water or city water? When was your last cut, and how often do you trim? Is your hair the same thickness all the way down, or does it get thinner towards the bottom? Is your hair slick (like Oriental hair)? Do you remember how long your previous perm took, specifically how long the first chemical was left on (the one they put the plastic bag over)?

Always go to the salon for any chemical. Besides the fact that the stylist knows what they're doing (generally speaking, as long as you don't go to a Hair Cuttery style cheap place), they'll have top quality products for all stages of the service. The best is if you know anyone with long hair who has a perm: see who they go to.

Drug store products are harsher on the hair, and you don't know how each product works on hair: no two chemical products work on hair the same way. Some are better with thick heavy hair, thick not-heavy hair, hair that has chemicals, hair that is slick, hair that's very fine (it's harder to curl), etc. A stylist knows what perms work with what hair, they've had product knowledge training for anything they work with. They know how to "wrap a perm": different lengths and thicknesses dictate the rod size and wrapping pattern as much as the kind of hair you have and which perm they use.

Don't let *anyone* except a stylist do your hair, *because* of the length. It's really tricky to perm long hair. Some of the hardest perms I did were on long hair. The weight will pull the curl out, no matter how heavy the hair, etc etc. Bottom line is you have a lot of parameters in this, and you want someone who knows what the hell they're doing to do this.

I wouldn't layer your hair unless you are not going to get the perm. If you layer it before the perm, it's going to be a BITCH to get on the rods. If you layer after the perm, you've just cut out all the curl you just got on top of your head. That's because your stylist has used a larger rod size to accommodate the length of your hair. I'm saying this based on your hair length, and that's true of hair that's pretty much any length below your shoulder.

Sorry to be so windy, but that's my professional opinion. Good luck!

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Thanks! I have a ton of hair, it's just...well...baby fine. It's not really thin at the ends, and it's literally all one length. My last perm was probaly...oh...my sophmore year, so, it's been a while...

I think I'm just going to see about getting a bang cut, maybe.

Or, I'll just deal. I love my hair, I just go through phases of OMG! It's LONG! And KINDA FLAT! AGH!

[pixelmeow.livejournal.com]

No problem, hon!

It's baby fine that scares me. You don't want to use such a strong perm that it will come out damaged, but you can't use a gentle perm like you think you should with fine hair. Only problem is that sometimes you get fine hair that you DO have to use a gentle perm on, and only experience (and seeing and feeling the hair) will tell you which kind of hair this is.

I've gone into "teaching mode" here, which would take up a lot more of your page than what I wrote above, so I'm itching to write an essay!