Who wants that crimped-looking perm when you can have soft, luscious corkscrews flowing down your fabulous mane?  Of course, said flowing and curly mane didn’t come without a considerable amount of chemicals and effort, but the work put in was the best way to keep that bouncy Shirley Temple look, day-in and day-out.

Perms weren’t always so glamorous.  If anyone thought the chemicals were bad now, imagine back in 1906, when perms were first invented by German hairdresser, Karl Nessler.  Back then: cow urine and water.  Oooh, sounds pretty sexy, huh?  Who’s our first volunteer for that procedure?  For women of the time, it was a tremendous advancement and a better option than wearing heavy wigs.  Nessler’s process included heavy, metal, heated curlers and his loving, guinea pig wife, giving modern women a reason to stop complaining altogether.  Following that, innovations were made in perming, allowing women without long hair to get perms for themselves.  Following World War I, women were able to use individual rods that helped their shorter hairstyles be as curly as ever.  In 1931, came the “overnight wave” which allowed women to go home and wear the solution over night, taking it off the following morning.  In 1938, the ‘cold wave’ was introduced.  While in some respects it was easier and gentler than the previous methods, though it still took 6-8 hours to produce a decent curl.

By the 1970s, acid perms were on the scene, giving women buffered waves.  Around the same time, curly-haired gals started looking at options to take out their curl that didn’t involve putting their hair out on an ironing board, turned directly to the same alkaline chemicals that help straight-haired gals get curly!  Soon, home perms became available to the masses, Toni (and the Toni Twins!) and Twink becoming the most popular of the brands. 

Once acid perms and their buffered waves became the norm for a generation, when spiral perms came out, they caused a big splash as the wave of the future.  Just spiral the hair around a long bendable rubber rod, add a few hours in the salon and voila!  Sweet, soft, bouncy curls were yours for the taking.  These spiral curls were customizable, allowing one to choose how tight the curls would be, a big difference from the rollers of years past. 

Now that the spirals were in place, what was a girl to do in order to spruce up her style and keep it tamed?  In the 80s and 90s, the answer to that dilemma was the scrunchie, which by then had practically become synonymous with permed hair.  Soon, perms would be ‘out’ and ladies would be grabbing their straightening rods in the quest to get the ‘Rachel.’