The perm is back
Heather Gallagher
08Jul08
PERMS have made a comeback on High St, proving yet again that Northcote is at the cutting edge of fashion.
Hairdresser Natasha Varga at The Green Butterfly has given four clients perms in the past month and has two booked for this week.
"It's the backlash from the straightener, the ceramic straightener," she said. "It's cyclical when something goes so far one way, it's got to go back the other way."
Modern perms contain fewer chemicals than the waves of old and Ms Varga uses Abba a herbal therapy acid wave which is 100 per cent vegan and contains soy and wheat protein.
It also has elements of pine cone, rosemary, watercress, garlic, lemongrass, ginger and chamomile.
Ms Varga practises what she preaches and had her colleague Natalie give her a gypsy perm recently.
But she admits people are still wary of frizz and in the interests of marketing they try to avoid the word perm, opting instead for terms like direction and movement.
Perms also come as semi-permanents lasting six to eight weeks, allowing the nervous to have a trial run.
Client Vicki McClure said she was seriously considering taking the plunge, with modern perms giving body and wave.
"It steps out of the stereotype of what a perm is," she said. "People just need to relearn what a perm can be. Everyone pictures the perm as that frizzy 80s thing but it can be loose and natural looking."
