My Perms…

Now we’ve all been through some perms in our lifetime and if you haven’t your either VERY young or your lucky enough to have had natural curls!

I have certainly had my fair share of perms, especially being an experimental hairdresser In my ‘hey days’, we Asians could not live without them, and being raised in the UK, we were lucky if we didn’t get our hair fried off! Most of the hairdressers think of our hair types as coarse, thick and hard to wave, so they used the smallest rollers, the strongest lotions and left them on for maximum times!! Wrong! – even though we do have thick hair, it was amazingly easy to perm, so even the tiniest amount of wave was enough to show some movement.

But there again we all have aunts and grandmothers or even mothers who insist on having the smallest rollers to perm their hair as tight as possible to make it last longer and to make the most of their money!! Unfortunately all this did was make them look like they had an explosion on top of their heads and make the hair look thinner as the hair stood out from the head, showing scalp!

Perms have been off the scene for a long time now, but personally I still like them on certain occasions,(to add movement and funkiness) I tend to recommend my clients go to Asian hairdressers to do them becos they are so much more experienced (becos they have still continued with them) or to have it done in Asia when they are there, to try out the latest techniques.

One day maybe they will become popular again here but hopefully without the smelly lotions!

Anyway I felt the need to share with you my 70’s, 80’s an 90’s perms, even though I may regret putting some of these images out there but hey, what the hell!!

Here’s the 70’s:

80’s:

And 90’s:

If you have any perms of your own you would like to share with me, please do so : )

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Bleaching for texture?

Some may think this is an extreme way to get some texture into your hair, but for those with the most straight stubborn hair who like messy punky hair, its worth thinking about. Especially if you don’t want to have any kind of perm in your hair.

In other words, you need to wreck your hair as much as possible, hence the strongest chemical – Bleach!

By bleaching the hair, this opens up the cuticles and therefore leaves the hair with less elasticity, makes it more porous and therefore more pliable. But of course, once the hair is damaged, it cannot be repaired on the outside, and and only be cut off to remove it.

The degree of lift with the bleach is dependant on how ‘wrecked’ and ‘textured’ you would like it to be. Even lifting the hair to an orange shade will still give some texture to the most stubborn hair. Once the hair has been lifted, for those who don’t want to be lighter in color, then a dark brown or black is put back over the top of the bleach.

The idea of this technique is not necessarily to change the hair color but to change the texture of the hair, (hence the application of the darker color on top) and it is not suitable for anyone who wants to retain shiny healthy hair, this is an extreme way to give a very messy look to straight hair, for people who like funky ‘do’s!

image_of_Asian_punk_hairstyle_for_girlspicture

Dekko’s Daily Grind- Haydee

Sharing some more salon work with you…

Haydee came into the salon and her hair was way overgrown. Her hair is thick and heavy but had some movement to it. Her complaint was that it always seemed too heavy and the front piece was always hanging over her face.

We decided to razor the the hair throughout and we took of the front piece so it didn’t hang in her eyes constantly. We also shortened the whole haircut so it looked abit fresher and perkier.

Thanks Haydee for posing for us.

Hit or Miss ~ Harajuka

Harajuka girls:

Very fascinating to go to Japan and visit Yoyogi Park (Harajuku Station). Anyone who gets the chance to visit Tokyo should try to go visit this large park, this is the place where all the kids hang out on the weekends and parade around. It used to be all about Rokerbillies and now it more about Goth looks. The kids go there, dress up or help each other dress up and then they will pose with or for any of the curious bystanders.

Thinning Scissors…

thinning scissors

Thinning scissors are widely used on Asian hair around the world. As seen above they can vary on how much hair (weight) is taken out, depending on the spaces on the blade. One side has the teeth at varying widths while the other is a normal blade. The result of these scissors would look similar to this with varying widths:

thinned hair

Personally I don’t like to use thinning scissors for a few different reasons:

1. It gives such a uniformal look (above) that it becomes TOO thinned out.

2. You have no control over how much hair is taken out (unlike using razors or scissors) therefore in areas that are already thin, it becomes flat and flyaway.

3. Hair becomes too lifeless as too much of the body is taken away not leaving enough fullness and lift in the hair.

4. Although I do think they are good for use with cutting dog hair : )