Wendy Brandes Jewelry Blog

Never Is the Next New Thing

Favorite Hair

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I got my hair cut yesterday, but didn’t feel like taking a picture. Instead, I’ll show you my 1995 hair. Back then, my hair guru, Keith Carpenter (who also did my hair yesterday), and I decided I needed the curliest perm possible — a chemically-induced ‘fro. Keith’s colleague did the perm reluctantly while Keith and I yelled at him to use the smallest rollers possible. The perm turned out to be my favorite ‘do evah. How could I not be happy with my hair reaching up towards the heavens? I still love this look, but it was too difficult to touch up the roots. If it weren’t for the touch-up problem, I’d do it again.

This picture was taken the day or day after I got the perm. My friend on the left side of the photo was not a cyclops; she’s just badly cropped. Don’t I look capable of committing assault with a deadly eyebrow? I just needed to go over those super-thin eyebrows with a Sharpie to create a chola-riffic look.

“Maybe I am hiding a razor blade in my hair … maybe not.”

I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I look at this photo and I’m all like, “Excuse my beauty!”

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Comments

  1. Hah, love the attitude! You could so pull off something like this today. I went through a perm phase too in the 90’s, but it wasn’t a master work of art…more of a failure since they didn’t hold.

  2. Dang, that is some serious hair and eyebrow! If you do do the brows over with Sharpie, mind you don’t wind up looking like Uncle Leo at the doctor’s office.

  3. you totally rocked the ‘fro. i love it! and seriously, why do u not age? share your beauty secrets w/us!!!’ pretty please?

  5. Belle, sadly, I always do look innocent! But I assure you I am evil.

    Nina, I bathe in the blood of virgins. I am actually 543 years old.

  10. Are you trying to tell us that you don’t own a wig copying this style? C’mon girl, if you don’t, go get one STAT.

  11. My mom gave me a perm once when I was around 11 or something and were on vacation.

    I have pretty thick hair and it was short then, as well as filled with cowlicks.

    When she showed my grandfather a picture he said, “What’s that on her head? A football helmet?”

    So yeah… I never got a perm again.

  12. You are a stunner alright. That hair is well known in Korea as ajumma hair. I don’t know if you know what ajumma means. haha.

    xoxox

  14. I wish hairstylists weren’t so afraid of the perm today! I’ve been asking my hairdresser for ages, and she doesn’t EVEN KNOW HOW TO DO THEM.

    What the hell!? I’m using your guy.

  16. It is so fun!!!
    Beautiful anyway 🙂

    I also adore the cufflinks below!
    Fantastic!!!

  17. Ha ha @ Songy! And she’s right…my MIL and all of her churchy ahjemma friends still get curly perms every four months or so. I kind of miss perms (I used to get them in the late 80s/early 90s. The maintenance and the damage are a bitch, though, so I’m just living with my hair’s natural texture.

  19. I love that look, my best friend had a curly perm in the early 90’s .. she was forever having thr roots touched up it was a real pain to upkeep..

  21. I love it! When I was a little girl, my hair naturally looked like that. Ginger afro! Amazing..

  24. You look fabulous now, but that look…it’s fan-freakin’-tastic! If my hair looked like this I’d be in hair heaven!!! No lie.

  25. love the skinny eyebrows & super curly hair! you can pull it off wendy

  27. Very cool, girl! I applaud you. I am not apologizing for the way I looked ten yers ago either, whats the point in that?

  28. I’ve been contemplating a perm for ages….but I’m not sure I’ve got the guts for it. This is exactly why they’re fab though, you look gorgeous. If I could have mine successfully permed into loose ringlets I’d probably do it, but oh the worry!!

  30. Your hair looks fabulous! I’ve always always dreamed of having curly ringlets. My best friend in elementary school had a beautiful mop of tight ringlets and I was ultra jealous.

  33. The curls really do suit you! You know what they say: the higher the hair, the closer to heaven!

    No lie: my hair looks almost exactly like this. It’s naturally really, really curly and I grow it out so it isn’t too afro-tastic.

  34. Loooove the curls. I am contemplating a change myself, and am taking this post as a sign that IT IS TIME.

  35. Perms always remind me of that scene in Legally Blonde where Elle Woods is cross-examining Chutney, who obviously could NOT have been in the shower when her father was murdered because she had just gotten a perm…and as an experienced perm-ee, she KNEW that would deactivate the hydroglycowhatever acid and destroy the curl!!!

    Your perm looked WAY better than Chutney’s! Adorable.

  37. How great that you can get away with both really curly and straight.

    When I was a young teenager I heard about twisting the hair and tying it in rags so I did small sections and twisted it super tight and went to bed, thinking I would have these fantastic, flowing curls in the morning. When I woke up and undid them – no lie – the hair at the sides was horizontal with the top of my head. I looked like Roseanne Roseannadanna.

  39. My sister has a natural fro like this, only it’s blonde…I’ve always been jealous of it.

  42. I LOVE this hair!!! I am not a hair girl but seriously, 90’s hair is the best. I desperately want crimped hair.

  43. nooooo, not the dreaded perm. my mother used to perm my bone straight hair when i was a girl. i remember the perm solution dripping down my face as she rinsed it out (face first) in the sink. Ugh.

  44. You totally needed one of those fro combs – so classy!

    Actually, in all seriousness, your hair looked awesome!

  46. perms rule! i was thinking of getting one, seriously. recently i was commening how beautiful this ladies curls were, and she told me that it was a perm. they can do lovely big curls these days, i was quite amazed.

  47. I think it suits you actually also I’m glad your friend isnt a cyclops, that made me laugh.