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If you’re not happy with your perm, you might want to straighten your hair again. Unfortunately, there’s no method that doesn’t put additional strain on your hair. You’ll find important tips on this topic in this article.
Straightening a perm: Why it’s so difficult
To understand the difficulty of straightening a perm, we’ll briefly explain what actually happens to your hair during a perm.
- Our hair is made of keratin, and its structure is quite complex. In a single strand of hair, several keratin strands are held together by so-called disulfide bonds, which act like glue.
- During a perm, these disulfide bonds are chemically broken down, making the hair malleable.
- Once the hair has been shaped into the desired form, the disulfide bonds are reformed. This is also a chemical process.
- If you want to straighten your hair after a perm, you would therefore have to break these sulfur bonds again to make the hair straight.
Straightening hair after a perm: A few tips
Only a hairdresser can permanently straighten your hair.
- In this process, the hair is chemically treated, just like with a perm. However, instead of being curled, it is straightened.
- Just like a perm itself, this procedure is also damaging to your hair.
- If you don’t want to wait until the perm has grown out and you can cut your hair, you can always straighten your hair temporarily.
- You should avoid using a flat iron for this. The heat further damages the hair structure. If you don’t want to do without it, use the flat iron only on hair that is completely dry. Protect your hair with an appropriate heat protectant.
- Alternatively, you can opt for a time-consuming blow-drying process. Blow-dry your hair strand by strand using a round brush to straighten it.
- However, the methods involving a flat iron and blow-dryer only work as long as your hair stays dry. In the rain, or even in high humidity, the perm will come back through and your hair will be curly again.
