During high school, I gained a wealth of knowledge about hair and makeup, but it wasn't enough to prevent me from trying the unspeakable in college — a perm. It was the Summer after my freshman year, and I had had enough of my straight strands. Inspired by my friends who had wild, tousled beachy waves, I naively thought that my Asian hair could achieve the same wavy quality. At that time, body waves weren't too big yet in my town, so I went with the old-fashioned perm, which had already built up quite the bad reputation. I went ahead anyway.
The treatment that I got could have come out of an '80s magazine spread: smelly solutions, metal rods, rollers, and a big cap under a heated dome. It shouldn't have been any surprise then that the end result could have come out of an ‘80s magazine spread, too. I walked out of the salon with coils so tight my waist-length hair was now almost at my shoulders. Naturally, I felt like panicking, but what was the point of that? Instead, I looked to Keri Russell, Minnie Driver, and even Diana Ross for inspiration. What that really meant was: a lot of updos.
Luckily, after a few weeks, the curls loosened a bit, and I looked more AnnaLynne McCord than Troy Polamalu. After a month or two, I started to really love my curls — my favorite aspect was that they always added instant volume and my mane was never, ever flat. After a lifetime of stick-straight hair, having curls was certainly a breath of fresh air — at least after the initial "Wow, I look like Carrot Top" shock.
