I had a Biolage wave done on my long, fine, red hair last week. It looks so bad, the bottom half of my hair is dull and almost straight - the top part is out of control curly, as my hair sometimes does wave on its own. I had asked about a wave to try and control this, it was advised by all of the women in the shop, but it is 100 times worse than I thought it would be. My hair hasn't been permed in 18 years - what can I do to help repair the damage, or can I do anything to lessen the curl on top? Help!

nelle

nelle wrote: I had a Biolage wave done on my long, fine, red hair last week. It looks so bad, the bottom half of my hair is dull and almost straight - the top part is out of control curly, as my hair sometimes does wave on its own. I had asked about a wave to try and control this, it was advised by all of the women in the shop, but it is 100 times worse than I thought it would be. My hair hasn't been permed in 18 years - what can I do to help repair the damage, or can I do anything to lessen the curl on top? Help! nelle

Hmmm long hair and no wave on the bottom area of the hair and almost straight. It sounds like they might not have used enuff perm solution to fully saturate that hair strand that was wrapped around the roller or their sections we're too big they wrapped around the roller. Many times with longer hair especially thick hair you need to use 2 bottles of perm solution to penetrate and reach all that hair on each rod. Remember the bottom half of your hair is the first half that gets wrapped around the rod so it's the farthest in on the rod and the last to get reached by the solution. The same thing goes for the neutralizer use 2 bottles as well. I don't think you can do anything to straighten out the perm without further damaging the hair. You could go back to the salon have them do a strand test or possibly deep condition your hair for free every other day since they screwed up your perm in the first place and then a week or two later re-perm the whole head provided the hair strand test turns out good and they determine the hair is in good condition to go thru with another perm. This time make sure they use 2 bottles of solution and 2 bottles of neutralizer.

The perm solution is used to open the cuticle layer of the hair and break and reform those disulfide bonds in the hair strand and then the neutralizer is applied to lock those bonds in place to lock in the permanent change of the reformed curl and seal the cuticle up and whollah curly beautiful permed hair.

How long did they leave in the perm solution? While the perm was processing did they come over several times to check a test curl from the back area of your head to see if the "S" shaped pattern was forming on the hair strand? You hair is fine when you last had a perm how did it hold? How long did it last? There are alot of questions but that's a good starting point. Are you on any type of medication such as a cholesterol reducing drug? What medications are you on if any? Believe it or not that can also effect a perm but from the sounds of it they never got enuff perm solution on the rods and that's why the bottom half of your hair is straight.

You got a bad perm hun....go and ask them to reperm it since they we're the ones who g00fed it up in the first place.

G'luck

Thanks so much! I did go back to the salon, they were emabarrassed about the permanent and have deep conditioned my hair. They did not test a curl area, and only used one bottle of each solution. My hair is almost waist length, I have learned my lesson about changing the structure of my hair. Believe it or not, when it was permed before, it fell out within less than one month, however I was pregnant at that time. Again, I was told there would be no problem - even though I had asked about hormones. I felt bad for the girl as my hair was longer, and was much more full at that time - it took her hours to roll.

I do take neurontin for nerve pain in my back, (that is absolutely all) does this have any effect?

I want to thank you for your advice, and time you took to answer my questions - the good news is that the top has relaxed this week - no more lion's mane. I really don't want to try this again, though.

nelle 

No I don't think Neurontin would effect a perm. Glad to hear it is looking much better. You should continue to deep condition your hair every other day for the next week or two just to rejuvenate the strands. One bottle of each solution is definately not enuff solution for waist length hair. Good lord it could take 3 or even 4 who knows. That's a ton of hair to perm. Not doing a test curl is just a lack of experience on the part of the stylist. It should be checked every 5 minutes to see how it's developing so you don't overprocess the hair. Well best wishes and good luck. I'm glad I could help answer your questions....as a stylist it makes me feel good when I can contribute and inform people in need on these boards.

Cheers