UPDATE: Why a perm ruined my hair

*The above photo was around a week after the second perm. That hair ball was what broke off after combing my hair. It's poor quality but I left my shoe in the picture for reference. I'm a size 8*

You may remember that in this post I raved about having my hair permed. It was the perfect solution to what I wanted. It allowed me have my hair curly without it shrinking up to a large afro.

To set the scene, I had that perm done around August. I went back to uni rocking my hair, absolutely loving it and the freedom to style it. When I returned to the hairdresser's at Christmas, she took one look at my hair and said 'you need another perm'. Now what sold me to this perm in the first place was that she told me that if I looked after it, it could last up to a year. Now four months later I need another, whaaat?

When it comes to my hair, I'm very 'trust the professionals'. I don't know what it needs and unless they're trying to sell me something ridiculously expensive, generally I feel they know best. So against my better judgement, I let her put another perm on. This was the worst decision I ever made. Lesson number one: if you don't think something is right, question it. You probably know this but I was very naive and trusting.

This particular hairdresser ALWAYS overbooks herself. For a one hour treatment, I'll be in the salon a minimum of four hours. Now to cut a long story short, she isn't entirely sure what happened but either the perm solution wasn't washed off at all or it wasn't washed off properly. Within hours of the perm being completed, my hair was falling out in strands. I'd gone back to uni within a few days so couldn't go back to that particular hairdresser so I went to one in my university town. He immediately rinsed my hair in case the perm hadn't been washed off. If it hadn't, this meant my hair had been processing for 5 days.

My hair now is quite thin. I've lost a lot of the volume in it. The crown of my head and all around the hair line is two inches long, making it increasingly hard to style as there are a lot of stray hairs. My hair literally snapped off. My hair hair is around 12 inches long so you can imagine it was quite distressing to see 10 inch hair falling out in clumps.

I came to terms with it (after hours and hours of hysterical crying). As my mum pointed out, there are many more horrible reasons why my hair could be falling out. However that doesn't stop it being upsetting that my graduation is in a month and I have to deal with this. Also although the rate of hair breaking has slowed down, it is still breaking; leaving me with the worry that I might end up with extremely short hair.

The hairdresser who did it was very apologetic and has been throwing free products and treatments at me left, right and centre. I don't feel comfortable going back to her for the treatments however as I don't trust her anymore. I'm not going to mention the name of her salon as that's not necessary but what I will say is to constantly question your hairdresser and understand what they are doing to your hair.

Alex x