Going to the hair salon back in the 70’s meant getting on my bike and riding ten, broken-concrete blocks to a whole new world.  The magazines in the waiting room ranged from salacious – National Geographic – to provocative – Redbook – and brought more questions than answers to my young mind. If it was that once-a-year special occasion, it meant the afternoon would be spent getting a perm.

After supplying me with a bleach-stained cape, Sabrina would discuss with me the size of curler rods to be used. This was one of the few decisions in my young life I was able to make without parental intervention. Perm rods were the early days of independence for me.

I was tasked with handing the small squares of tissue paper to my hairdresser at the appropriate time for each roller. I hoped she would notice how timely I anticipated her need for paper. She didn’t. While she rolled, we listened to the conversation around us.

Many things were insinuated without actually being said. This was the most exciting part of the entire experience. “You know they were doing things in that house. All the neighbors talked about the sounds…”

As Sabrina drizzled the toxic-smelling solution over one roller and then the next, I prided myself on the fact that it would take two rounds of solution to cover my thick head of hair. That if we weren’t such close friends, it might be costing more than $45.

Sabrina told me stories about her husband and her kids, how she worried about keeping the lights on at the shop and making endless tuna casseroles on the weekends. She told me intimate details about her night out with friends and how hard it was to sit at the baseball field all day and yell for your kid after drinking four Pink Squirrels and a Tequila Sunrise the night before. It was my first adult relationship.

When she finished rolling and put the plastic bag over my head, she guided me to the dryer, where she offered me a Coke in the can while our creation processed. This is when the hardcore gossip began in the other room. I had to strain to listen over the sound of the hairdryers to the stories of wild parties and things people did when they thought no one was watching.

There was always something deeply satisfying about the first roller to come out after processing: The bounce of that curl, slapping solution against my face meant success once again. Suddenly mine was transformed from a frizzy, Sun-In -bleached head to one with character and style. After a cut and an inexplicable twenty minutes with the curling iron, the new do was sprayed with enough Aqua Net to ensure the windy, ten-block ride home would not destroy Sabrina’s two-hour production. 

There were three days of euphoric, perfectly coifed perm perfection, before I was allowed to wash my hair. Hygiene wasn’t a critical part of existence in the 70’s.  The resulting shampoo and blow dry gave an entirely new dimension to the perm. Somewhat similar to the wild look of an unshorn llama after an electrical storm.

The perms are long gone. Sabrina undoubtedly has no idea the effect she had on one pre-teen client. The lessons learned from a simple afternoon at the beauty shop.