My Experience With... Perms

Lots of memes today.

Okay. There are a few posts on this blog that have addressed hair and hair problems. I want to bring up the topic at least one more time. 

Growing up, I had a pretty common hairstyle of young girls:

(Uhh... what the heck, Snoop?)

Ah those were the days. I didn't get a whole lot of chemicals put into my hair back then, but if one of those barrettes came out, there went my hairstyle... and I knew Mom wouldn't be too happy.

Eventually, my hair decided to change. For those of you who don't know, there comes a point in the kinky-haired child's life, when the hair changes in texture and consistency, usually from soft, wavy, and easy to style, to the biggest pain in the neck (literally!) you will ever experience. The age of the person whose hair turns, as it is called, varies from person to person. You'll know especially when the child really starts crying (see above meme), and the stylist (often the mother) screams, "THAT'S IT! I'M GETTING RELAXER!" We did try relaxer once...

I can hear some of you going, "Called it!"

It didn't quite mess up my hair. My hair actually downright REJECTED it. So instead of my hair looking pretty like the little angel's (above) hair, I ended up with a hardly touched bush. We rinsed that out quickly and never spoke of it again. ^_^

Then came the fateful day when my mother discovered the one thing that DID work...

Quick question: Why do we use these things? They stink like the dickens, they make us stink like the dickens, and it's painfully obvious we use this stuff when our hair grows back in. What the heck?

To be fair, if I were to have to use a relaxer for the rest of my life, it would be this. HIGHLY diluted. It doesn't stink as badly as other relaxers, and for me, it seems to say, "Oh, your hair is kinky, but if you use the real stuff, it will take out your hair like you wouldn't believe. Let's leave the curl, but take out the painful kink." It's the perfect abusive boyfriend!

Some of you are probably ready to comment saying that this is technically a texturizer. I counterpoint that, saying, yes. It is technically a texturizer. And texturizers are a subset of relaxers. So yeah, "transitioners" who use texturizers:

The difference between relaxers and texturizers is essentially the process to end result. Both CAN straighten your hair out completely (if you have a curl pattern in your hair). With relaxers, that's essentially its job. It makes your hair bone straight in a relatively short amount of time. Texturizers, however, have a slightly different agenda. Instead of making your hair straight, it makes your hair go into a wave pattern. The common factors of these two is that both contain crazy harsh chemicals, and both reconstruct the amino acids in your hair... which can be already very brittle.

If you haven't seen Good Hair already,

I recommend you watch it, especially

if you are curious about black hair.

I would imagine that I started perming my hair (relaxers and texturizers are perms, btw) when I was 9, I suppose, though my mother has used mild setting lotions before then. I say 9, because that's about the age I was when I first saw slick edges in my old photos.

Oh, you wanted a pic? Don't hold your breath.

When I say slick edges, I mean something like this:

They say that this is achievable w/o relaxer. I haven't found a way that doesn't involve stiffeningly hard gel.

And yes, I mean this:

Now, those are decent edges, above. Now, natural or new growth edges can look like this:

While they're not necessarily bad, they're not as aesthetically pleasing, and not everyone will understand natural edges or natural hair, unless they're curious enough to do research. Since I work front desk, I use this stuff.

I have used every last one of these products before, but it's the first three from the left that I use the most. As much as I can't stand it -- this stuff stinks, burns, and I really think it does more harm than good -- it does wonders on my hair.

Seriously, it does make my hair easier to put into buns, ponytails, comb-outs, flat-irons. So what's the big deal, you wonder. Truthfully, I just plain don't like perms. That's it. I think there are always alternatives to just removing a kink or chemically straightening. Practices have been done since the dawn of time! Ancient people didn't have Bronner conventions, Dudley relaxers, not even Madame C.J. Walker's hot comb!

While I don't like perms in general, I don't deny that it does make hair look good, and if you choose to use it, work it! For me, however, I will keep using that creamy crack until I get my own business or something along that self-employed line, and hopefully will become a mom to natural-haired children.

Buh-bye!

Plugging time! YouTube Page.

ANNOUNCEMEMENT: Blogging regularly takes a lot of work, and I need a break, so The Lego Batman Movie review-- coming next week --will be the last blog I do for the year. I'll be taking an extended holiday leave to relax (no pun intended) and probably come up with new stuff to write about. Thank you for your continued support, and I'll see you in 2018! (Hopefully.)

What's your best hairstyle? What was your worst hair day?