When you get a perm, everyday is Fryday

Being technologically impaired as I am I worked for about three hours tonight searching for a terrific photo to add to this post...just for illustration point, ugh! You will need to use your imaginations, however I doubt it will be difficult to envision

Your worst "bad hair" day!

Yup we all have them. Sometimes the worst bad hair day is immediately after going to the hair stylist and going for a new look. I am the third of three sisters. Back in the day the look always went contrary to what we were all born with. I remember envying Chronicler and her wickedly awesome curly hair. It was the era of "free love" and all things natural. Sis number 2 had "the perfect hair". It was lighter than either Chronicler's or mine, the colour of honey and, depending on how she dried, it could go from stick straight to frizzed out kinkiness. Then there was me. I had, have, the straightest hair in the gene pool. Even the hair on my arms sticks straight out instead of gently laying down and behaving. So there I was, a victim of fashion in an era when Janis Joplin was standing next to Jimmy Hendrix and the both looked as if they had been spending their free time sticking forks in toasters.

Chronicler was cool. She was hip. She was nothing if not trendy in her day. Tall, thin, and with the hair girls in high school would die for. Then one day she wanted straight hair. She spent her early morning hours before school with her head over the ironing board and ironed each strand so that it would sit there in an obedient homage to Cher. At bedtime she would gather her Dippity Doo and orange juice cans and roll her long main into nightly submission. I still wonder how she ever slept in those things.

I drooled over curls. I wanted them so desperately that one year my Gramma tried to make my wish come true. She even kept me home from school one day so that the "set" would take in preparation for the fourth grade class picture; the one in which I would have "ringlets!!!" Two days of curlers and stiffened follicles, coated in a complete jar of green Dippity Doo and allowed to dry 48 hours. I remember the curlers. Pink, yellow, and sea foam green with tiny spikes to hold the hair in place, even though there were 3/4 circular "caps" to clamp over the spiked mechanisms of beauty. No pain, no gain was the motto.

I remember waking up an hour early, donning my prettiest dress, a burgundy paisley number with velvet trim, and sitting patiently (?) while Gramma untangled my candy coloured "rat's nest". She wielded a can of Aqua Net Super Hold and sprayed my crunchy hair to a new, unheard of level. I walked to the mirror and fell in love! I had CURLS!

By the time I made it to the photo session after sitting like a statue during the first recess, my hair was limp and barely wavy. Crunchy? Yes. But curly? No. I still have that photo and my smile is huge!

Sometime in my fifth year of marriage I finally got my hair to "take" a perm. And BOY did it take the perm. The skin around my forehead was so burned by the chemicals that I literally had an eighth inch scab circling my face for about two weeks...but I had permed hair. Permed hair that maid Chaka Khan's hair look like a the current Micheal Jackson's. I was hideous. A fried mass of 80's "big hair". I would try several more times to get the middle sister perfection with every kind of perm out there. Relaxed, wave, body, you name it, they all had the exact result...Tina Turner at the beach.

So today's post is here to help folks like me. People who just can't seem to get it right before it's too late. Below are four online sites that provide FREE "makeovers". You can use their models or upload a photo of yourself to test out new hair styles and colours.

All of them are pretty much the same. You will be asked to provide personal information, however you can 'cheat' if you want to and they still let you proceed. They will entice you to sign up for added features, magazines, or other paraphernalia, but again, you can skip it. If you upload your own photo you will go through a couple of steps to adjust the lines to your facial features, go on to choosing colours and styles and eventually get a photo of your new look. Some allow you only one photo upload, others as many as you want.

Time to have fun...oh and this is available for guys too!

"Clairol"

"Ladies Home Journal"

"The Hair Styler"

"iVillage"

So how'd it work out for you?