Curly perms are back in a big way, especially for young boys (2024)

Let’s hear it for the curly boys.

It used to be the ladies who would settle in for the long haul of getting a perm. But now the young boys have joined the curly hair brigade, deciding once you go wavy, you can never go back.

Colorado Springs teen Blake Hilyard noticed the curl onslaught among his peers and decided to find out firsthand what all the fuss was about. He got his first perm in December and loved it so much he got a second one in July.

“I see why people like it,” said the 13-year old Jenkins Middle School student. “It’s a really cool style, and it’s always nice looking. You never have a bad hair day.”

It’s halfway through the year and longtime Colorado Springs hair stylist Rob Maggart has done 20 perms on boys under 16. He watched the trend start a couple of years ago when boys discovered they could do something different to their locks, he says, rather than attempt the typical Julius Caesar style with its classic cut and short, straight bangs George Clooney made famous years ago.

“I had a young guy in last week who wanted a surfy beach wave,” said Maggart, who works at Styles Salon. “It depends on whatever artists or pop sensation they’re looking at.”

Lisa Willner, a stylist at Phenix Salon Suites, saw the wave take off when Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes started blowing up.

“I noticed it with his hair — kids wanting to emulate that guy,” Willner said. “But it was probably before that. Younger kids like those lots of volume kind of looks.”

It’s not only boys — perms in general are making a comeback. Though the service can be traced back to 1906, according to NPR.org, when “a hairdresser created a several-hour process involving a chandelier, sodium hydroxide and brass rollers. His guinea pig was his wife,” and it lost favor to straight hair a couple of decades ago.

But kinks, waves and curls are back, and it has much to do with our lack of free time and inflation.

“It’s convenience. People have more than one job, so they’ve got to find something that’s easy to do,” Maggart said. “Straight hair takes more time than wearing curly hair. A perm can last longer than a color or cut. They can go longer between services without spending money.”

And good news for those who have shunned the perm, thinking the chemicals are too harsh on hair. Maggart and Willner say they’ve never really been that damaging to your strands.

“It’s just altering the hair bonds a little bit,” Maggart said. “The only time it gets damaging is when you’re highlighting. All over color and perming are great. Highlighting and perming are not friends.”

During the 90-minute to two-and-a-half-hour process, depending on hair length, hair is wrapped in rods of varying sizes, depending on the desired outcome, including some the size of soda cans. A liquid solution is poured all over the head that breaks the bonds in the hair and reforms them.

“I could perm hair on any type of shape — it could be square or triangle. It doesn’t have to be a circle. In Europe they have oblong ones,” Maggart said. “The bonds will go back to whatever form the hair is shaped on. There are different rods to create different results and different textures.

Most heads can tolerate a perm well, Willner says, though those with bleached or overcolored hair or people on thyroid or other medications that cause dryness might want to stay away.

“I don’t do them on thin hair, but on guys’ hair, even if it’s thin it’ll still look good,” she said. “But on women’s hair it’ll look fake and poodle-y.”

Perms also have withstood the vagaries of the economy. Much like 20 years ago, you’ll still dole out about one Benjamin Franklin to walk out of the salon crimped and coiled.

To Maggart, perms are a lost type of art.

“It’s not mainstream in beauty schools,” Maggart said. “They learn perming, but it’s not a subject they talk a lot about. A lot of stylists want to color so they put perms on the back burner. It’s another way to give desired results.”

All Hilyard knows is he loves his new head. It’s even improved his self-esteem, he says.

“Most men and teen boys don’t want to get one,” he said. “They think it makes them unmanly. That’s not the case because lots of men and teen boys have been getting them. It has a really good effect on hair and appearance in general.”

Contact the writer: 636-0270