Pros and Cons of Perming Hair – Read Before You Perm

Perming (and hair styling in general) is a tricky thing – you usually understand that it might do some damage but you absolutely want to do it anyway.  It’s somewhat reminding of those scenes in cartoons or movies where you have a tiny angel on one shoulder and a similarly small devil on the other. The angel’s telling you about how you should care for your hair and make sure that you don’t regret perming it later on. The devil is the voice in you that wants to look as good as possible right now and thinks that everything else is secondary. If devil believes that perming can bring your hair appearance to perfection then nothing else matters for him right now.

In order to understand if you want to side with the white and fluffy angel or become devil’s advocate, you need to weigh all the pros and cons of perming hair. Well, consider yourself lucky because that’s exactly what the next several paragraphs will do for you. This means that after reading them, you will be equipped with all the essential info you need to make a cold-blooded decision.

The Pros of Perming Hair

Let’s start with the pros to keep the tension low for a while.

1) It will make your hair look better (at least you think it will) – the simplest and most important reason why people perm their hair is that they like the way it looks and don’t want to wear straight hair anymore. They have probably starred at their mirrors for hours imagining how they would look with permed hair. Or maybe even tried some virtual online hair stylers to get a better idea. Regardless of how exactly they came to this decision, many of these people are reading this right now and thinking about how useless and obvious this first advantage is.

2) It will bulk up your hair. This is actually more like a sub-point of the previous paragraph but it’s a very important one. If your goal is to boost the volume then perming can definitely help. It’s no secret that girls with thin hair often do it in order to make hair bigger (but keep in mind that perms actually work better on thick hair, not thin).

3) It will reduce the need of styling your hair. Think about all the things you won’t need to do if you get a perm. Curling iron is something that falls into this category – you can save a lot of time every day and get more sleep instead of trying to fix your “bed head” every morning. No more putting perm rods in your hair every evening – that’s a privilege that many girls would love to have. Tired of straightening the problematic areas of your hair that look awful every time you wake up in the morning? Girls with permed hair don’t have that kind of problems.

The Cons of Perming Hair

Now, that I got you excited about perming your hair, let me bring you back to earth a little bit.

1) You can’t wash hair right away. It isn’t allowed to wash your hair at least a day or two after perming it. That’s the rule if you don’t want to loosen the curls you just got. Even though this may be just a small disadvantage, it can still cause some inconvenience because hair often smells weird after perming and it’s only natural that you might want to get rid of the strange odor as soon as possible.

2) Your hair can become dry and frizzy. If you already have dry and brittle hair then don’t even think about perming because it will dry your hair out even more. Perming chemically damages the outer layer of your hair which means that hair dryness and frizz would become parts of your everyday life. However, I have to admit that women with natural curls are even more likely to be dealing with frizz than those with permed hair, if that makes you feel any better about it.

3) You won’t be able to change styles easily. I would suggest you to get used to the way you look after getting a perm because that’s how you will look basically all the time from that point on. Simple things like tying your hair at the back of your head in a tail or a plait will become much more complicated. So, you better be sure that permed hair looks really good on you because you won’t be able to arrange it nowhere near as easily as before perming.

4) Your hair can be weakened. Speaking in scientific terms – permed hair is especially weak because the S-S protein bonds of your hair are reformed when exposed to perm chemicals. What it actually means are possible hair breakage, more split ends and less natural moisture for your hair. You have to understand that any chemical treatment that changes the pattern of your hair will take its toll.

Summary

My goal isn’t to convince you to get a perm and I also don’t mean to stop you from doing it. Actually, the goal is to make sure you know exactly what you’re doing when experimenting with your hair. You can read more articles like this but the final decision will still be up to you and I hope that this piece can help you with making this decision.

Even though the cons may sound bad, remember that nowadays there are different perming techniques and some of them are a lot less harmful than others, especially if done by professional hair stylists.

Discussion

Do you have any pros or cons to add? Would you suggest perming as the best option for girls who are tired of having straight hair?