Repost: The Perm
This is one of the first stories I ever posted on this here blog and I was speaking to some friends the other day who had never heard it, so, I thought I’d post it again so you can laugh heartily and take the piss out of me. I’m a giver.
As a broke, starving student, I was always on the look out for quick money earners, so when one of the top hair salons in London said they were looking for hair models, I jumped at the chance.
I went to the salon and they took some head shots of me while hairdressers stood around oohing and ahhing over my waist-length locks.
We flew to Dublin for a big hair show. The hairdressers set up and I made myself comfortable in the salon chair. Three of them came and stood behind me, ruffling my hair and conferring with each other on style and cut. It was decided I would lose a good deal of the length (which I didn’t mind too much. Hair grows back) and get a perm. Wait. Did they just say ‘perm’? I thought that word was last used sometime around 1994. I ask them and they verified that they did, in fact, say perm. This would be their first demonstration, intended to bring the perm back. I sighed, closed my eyes, thought of the money and heard the first few snips.
Inch after inch came off until it was just past my shoulders. Then they doused my head in chemicals and rollers and left the perm to work it’s magic. When the time was up they took the rollers out. With my hair still wet and the curls bouncing up, all I needed was a Kappa tracksuit and a pair of Reebok Classics and I’d have Chav chic down. But the hairdressers all seemed very pleased with the outcome. When they finished drying it, they were beside themselves with excitement. They hadn’t permed the top of my hair so it was flat on the top and got gradually bigger as it worked its way down to the ends. Basically, I had a triangle head. While the hairdressers all high-fived each other on this latest innovation in perming, I was wondering how much sense this hairstyle would make when I was grocery shopping in Hammersmith. I looked like the lost Irish member of the Jackson Five.
That night, the models (all looking slightly odd with our new ‘fashion forward’ hairstyles) and hairdressers all went out for dinner. I was coming down with a cold and with the big hair show the next day, there was just no time for illness. As I don’t like to take anything other than natural medicine, the hairdressers recommended I have a Hot Toddy. Before I could ask what a Hot Toddy was, the waiter had set it down in front of me. I took a couple of sips. The cold had affected my senses and I couldn’t really taste much, so I downed the mug full quickly. Unbeknownst to me, Hot Toddies contain alcohol. Irish Hot Toddy’s contain a lot of alcohol and as I don’t drink, the effects were fast and furious. Within a couple of minutes I was three sheets to the wind and was apparently entertaining the whole restaurant with some kind of one-woman show.
The next morning I awoke a little worse for wear and only being able to breathe through one nostril. We were getting ready in a room of the swanky Dublin hotel where the hair show was being held. Coming in the room, seeing models with bizarre angular cuts, all kinds of crazy colors, you felt as though you’d stepped into the future – until you saw me, who looked like I was on line for a Flashdance audition.
I sat quietly, reading a magazine, while a hairdresser faffed with my hair behind me. As I watched her diffuse my hair, it grew bigger every second. My cold was already making it hard to breathe and I wondered if anyone had ever been suffocated by their own hair.
The show was fast approaching. Just when I thought my hair had been finished, the stylist did the unthinkable, the one thing you never do to a perm – she brushed it. She gave me a harsh centre parting and kept brushing it out. If I thought my hair was big before, that was nothing on what was happening now. She was brushing frantically and had a hairspray can dispersing ‘strong hold’ lacquer on my head non-stop. By the time she’d finished, my hair stuck out at right angles, like my head had wings.
I was so caught up with the hair, I’d barely noticed what the make-up lady had done to my face. When I looked in the mirror, I scared the crap out of myself. My already super-pale skin had been dusted powder white and my mouth was covered in numerous layers of black lipstick. If they were predicting that this was a look of the future, I doubted very seriously that anyone would buy into this Goth Hippie debacle.
The show had now started. I was the grand-finale so had just enough time to change into my costume. I hadn’t seen it before someone shoved the hanger into me and said ‘put this on’. I slipped on the a-line dress. The left half was black, the right half was red. I dug into the bag and found thick cream stockings. After much yanking, I managed to hoist them up my legs. One last dig in the bag turned up some black winkle picker shoes that were a couple of sizes too big. I gingerly approached a mirror to take a look at the finished result. Complete with the hair, I looked like an electrocuted clown on crack. But there was no time to protest this monstrosity. The show must go on.
One of the stylists led me down to the main event. As I walked through the hotel lobby, people parted like the red sea. Complete bewilderment riddled their faces. A young child took one look at me, cried and ran to his mother.
I waited outside the show room. As they announced me, the doors flung open and I waited a moment as the room full of hairdressers turned in their seats to watch me walk down the centre isle. I had been told to keep my arms tight by my sides, stick my hands out at right angles and walk in ‘fairy steps’ (heel-to-toe, heel-to-toe). I took a deep breath (through my one functioning nostril) and started my walk. A few seconds passed and the wry smiles on the hairdressers’ faces turned to outright laughter. Big laughter. They were practically rolling in the isles. I continued my fairy steps, trying not to trip over the winkle pickers. What had seemed like a rather short walk to the stage, now felt like a marathon. All eyes were on me and it felt like I was walking under water. I was convinced that my face, despite being doused in white powder, probably matched the right hand side of the hideous dress I was wearing.
Finally I made it to the stage and the stylist leading the show waited for the laughs to die down. He put his arm around me and said into his mic ‘isn’t she beautiful?’ I think he was expecting a round of applause, but it was greeted with a ripple of giggles. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ he asked again and one person clapped twice (out of sympathy, not agreement) before stopping themselves. I scanned the crowd to see if my mother had snuck into the audience somehow. I had been told not to smile and it wasn’t a tall order.
The stylist talked the crowd through my haircut. Thankfully he stopped short of throwing the floor open to questions. I sensed the only one anybody had was ‘why on earth would you do this to someone’s hair?’
When he had finished the presentation, he invited the audience up on stage to take a closer look at the haircuts. The rest of the models all had sexy dresses on and I stood in the middle in my clown get-up. When the hairdressers got to me, they’d touch the huge mess on my head and just ask ‘is that your real hair?’ I nodded, choking back tears.
When the show was over, we prepared ourselves for our flight back to London. I attempted to tie my hair back so it wouldn’t need it’s own seat on the plane. My first stop upon landing was directly back to the salon to get my bird’s nest straightened.
With my bone straight (significantly damaged) hair and money in my pocket, the bad perm seemed like a distant memory. Rather than going down as the great perm comeback they were hoping for, the Goth Hippie look most likely just demonstrated why perms had gone out in the first place. And for that, I’m happy to have done the public a service.
