Permed Hair!!! :(

[openeyeddreamer]

Hi everyone! I started getting perms during my early teenage years because my hair was so thick and hard to manage. I've just recently found out about how truly damaging they are!!! So now I'm trying to get to the point where I don't use them at all. I've gone from getting them every 2-3 months to only 2 x's a year (which is still not good, but my hair seems to be dependent on it; when I don't get perms, my hair becomes very dry and brittle). Not only does the damage scare me, but I've been told that the only solution to getting rid of the damage is to cut off all of my hair to about an inch!!! I don't know what to do!!!:(:confused:

[lapushka]

Perms are curly hair (duh). :lol: Since you've put 1a as your classifier, that's quite a bit of difference. The best thing is to look up the "curly girl method". It's a book by Lorraine Massey. It's the best thing you can do for your curly hair, and that is treat it AS curly hair, not straight hair. That means no brushing while dry, and a whole set of different methods to treating it well.

Here's a sneak peak into the method:
http://www.wikihow.com/Follow-the-Curly-Girl-Method-for-Curly-Hair

[Shibe]

I got a perm my senior year of High School- worst mistake of my life.

I didn't treat it like curly hair, I just treated it like it was my straight fine hair. It was so damaged I had to cut all the way up to ear to remove all the damage.
That was in 2007. My hair is 27" long because I just now started taking it seriously.

If you don't treat a perm like curly hair, you're gonna have a bad time :(

[Hootenanny]

Are you talking about curly perms or straightening perms?

[lapushka]

Are you talking about curly perms or straightening perms?

Huh... hadn't even thought about that!

[rock007junkie]

Huh... hadn't even thought about that!

I'm wondering this myself...

If you are talking about a relaxer, the first thing you need to determine is whether or not you'll decide to stop getting them altogether. If you do decide to go that route there's not reason to cut all your hair right away to do the "big chop". You can transition, meaning to let your natural hair grow. With transition you can go about it two ways: You can either cut a couple of inches every so often you are left with your natural hair or you can just let your hair grow to an acceptable length (determined by you) and then cut to be left with your natural hair.
The journey is not an easy one all the time but it can be done. I just finished my transition a month ago. I transitioned for 3 years. The first year and a hair I hardly cut any hair, just did a couple of small trims. The last year I started cutting a lot more aggressively...probably because I saw how close I was to be natural and got eager.
Good luck with whatever you decide :)