Spent 3 hours fixing a perm I rushed in 20 minutes

Earlier this afternoon I had a client with super fine hair who wanted tight curls. I thought I knew better and left the rod solution on for 20 minutes instead of timing it right. Big mistake. Her ends fried and the roots barely took. I had to redo the whole back section with bigger rods and a gentler formula, took me 3 hours to fix what I messed up in 20 minutes. Has anyone else had a perm go sideways because you trusted your gut over the clock? What do you do for damaged ends after that?

2 comments

2 Comments

phoenix_thompson424d ago

Keratin treatments and a braid for a week? That sounds like throwing a bandaid on a broken arm. Your sister's hair was fried the night before her wedding, and you fixed it with conditioner? I call that luck more than skill. Half the time those treatments just coat the hair and make it feel okay for a day, then it snaps off in a month. And crying into popcorn, that part I do believe, because that whole story sounds like a panic move from start to finish. Permanent wave solution is unforgiving, so either you got away with a lighter mix by accident or you're leaving out the part where you did three test strands first.

nathanj5624d ago

Gotta say, your story hits close to home. I once did a perm on my sister's hair the night before her wedding, figured I could eyeball the timing since I'd done it a hundred times before. Spoiler alert, I could not. Her hair turned into this weird crimped mess that looked like she'd stuck her finger in an outlet, and I spent the whole night with a flat iron and conditioner trying to fix it while she cried into a bowl of popcorn. The thing is, perms are basically a gamble every single time, no matter how long you've been doing them, because hair just does what it wants. For the damaged ends after that disaster, I just loaded them up with keratin treatments and told her to keep it in a braid for a week, which honestly did more than I expected. So yeah, trust the clock way more than your gut, because your gut is a liar that wants to go home early.