There are several Japanese perms on the market currently: the straight perm, the natural wave, and the digital perm. I will discuss each in turn.
The straight perm will do something like a j-lo effect (circa 2001) it makes it super straight without a straight iron. A couple of my friends have had this done and they have liked it.
The natural wave is a crunchy perm. It gives a big curl which is curlier wet than it is dry and requires product to retain its shape My thanks to "fashiontabulous" from whom i stole this picture. Your curls are defined and each one is very distinct. Each lock seems to curl independently giving a reasonable amount of volume even when your hair is "light" or thinned out by the cut that you get.
The digital perm is my new favorite. It's more expensive (of course) but it's so complicated and so perfect that it's worth it. There are a lot of steps to the perm, you get conditioned, you can get normal perm solution on your banges, the rest of your head is curled with very heavy curlers with a metal rod inside. The rod is plugged in to a cord, the cord is then plugged in to a perming contraption, the contraption needs its own power strip to avoid blowing a fuse. The curlers then heat up. I mean really hot! My salon uses a neoprene skin guard under each curler to avoid getting a steam burn (or electrocution) They were very careful to repeatedly tell me if I got hot I should tell them. This was scary! They then brought me a Coke with ice. The heat causes the perm solution to evaporate. Your stylist leaves it on for abut 20 min and then undoes the curls. You then look like Shirley Temple until they relax it. What you're left with is big loose curls that are visible just by using a hair dryer and twisting your hair in the right way. It's just like if you had spent an extra 30 min curling it with a barrel curler or a curling iron. A good example of the results is this picture. Not that everyone will look like Yu Yamada when you're done with the perm, but we can all hope.
The digital perm is my new favorite. It's more expensive (of course) but it's so complicated and so perfect that it's worth it. There are a lot of steps to the perm, you get conditioned, you can get normal perm solution on your banges, the rest of your head is curled with very heavy curlers with a metal rod inside. The rod is plugged in to a cord, the cord is then plugged in to a perming contraption, the contraption needs its own power strip to avoid blowing a fuse. The curlers then heat up. I mean really hot! My salon uses a neoprene skin guard under each curler to avoid getting a steam burn (or electrocution) They were very careful to repeatedly tell me if I got hot I should tell them. This was scary! They then brought me a Coke with ice. The heat causes the perm solution to evaporate. Your stylist leaves it on for abut 20 min and then undoes the curls. You then look like Shirley Temple until they relax it. What you're left with is big loose curls that are visible just by using a hair dryer and twisting your hair in the right way. It's just like if you had spent an extra 30 min curling it with a barrel curler or a curling iron. A good example of the results is this picture. Not that everyone will look like Yu Yamada when you're done with the perm, but we can all hope.
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