Perm Machine

 

For years my mom has said she’d rather go to the dentist than to the hair salon. This made no sense to me as I love to have someone fuss over me and make my hair do things I can’t.

Copyright: / 123RF Stock Photo

The discussion about her dislike came up again when I asked, “Mom, when you were little did you have curly hair?”

I wanted this information because I’ve decided to let my hair be what God intended–wavy and I wanted to know if I got it from my mom or dad.

“Oh no! My hair has always been straight. When I was 4 my mother started taking me to get perms. That was terrifying.”

“How could that be scary, mom?”

“There was this big machine that had curlers that dropped down. Electricity ran through the wires into the curlers making my hair into kinky curls.”

I stopped walking willing to let the Fitbit rest while I considered if I should drive to her house to make sure she was okay. “Electricity sent to your hair?”

“Yes, and I’ll never forget it. You go look it up on that machine of yours and you’ll see. It would have been about the mid 1930s. Then call me back.”

I said I would thinking,  “Mom has lost it. No way such a thing existed.” So I turned on my ‘machine’ that’s what mom calls the computer and searched for perms in the 1930s.

This is what turned up.

Thanks to PBA Progress for the use of the photo.

I had to call mom and tell her I found a photo.

She’s right it looks terrifying. The girl in the photo looks to be about the age my mom would have been.

So I’ve learned wavy hair doesn’t come easy if you don’t have it. I do and all I had to do was learn how to take care of it. It’s not as easy as it seems. I had to buy a book! This one:

Turns out I was doing everything wrong to get my waves to behave. I had to give up my flat iron and learn to leave conditioner in my hair. Someday I’ll post a photo. Not yet though because my hair hasn’t quite recovered from smashing it between the hot plates of the flat iron.

And just for fun here’s a short clip from a movie where the 1930s Friedrich perm machine is used.

And if you think this looks more like fun than scary I read that it is coming back in the form of a digital perm. Send me a photo if you have one done.