For about two years, I had been wanting to have digitally permed hair but I could not…because of the price. In SGD converted to PHP, the service plus the products would cost at least PHp 5,000. I thought I could use the money to buy more important stuff or add it to grow my investment fund instead. Yet I still found time to research about digiperm and wrote a summary of it in my other blog.
Last January, I saw an online deal P888 instead of P6800 for Digital Perming with Treatment, Haircut & Back Massage at Mary Pauline Salon (10 Branches) posted by Metrodeal. That was 87% discount leh! The ad highlights were as follows:
- Achieve loose waves and shiny curls with a Digital Perming treatment
- Comes with treatment, haircut and back massage
- Less time spent on styling your hair with curls that lock in place
- Treatment adds more volume and bounce to those tresses
- Revive those curls with a twirl of a finger
- Treatments are facilitated by well-trained staff to ensure proper care
How could I let it go?
I couldn’t. 😛
I bought the voucher online immediately and went to the physical address of Mary Pauline Salon (Masangkay branch) to book for a reservation. Since I knew that newly digipermed hair can’t be washed and can’t be tied 48 hours after the procedure, I had to time it when we don’t have wushu practice. I didn’t want to go training without a ponytail and more than that, I didn’t want to go to work with hair marinated with perspiration. So I made a call to have the “drastic change” done before Chinese New Year, when our wushu team was busy training for their lion and dragon dance performances. Whew. 😀
Today, my digitally permed hair is exactly three weeks old. From a naturally straight hair, my hair now looks like this:
My Experience with Mary Pauline Salon ~ Hot Perm Treatment
Before we got started, I showed the stylist some pictures of Korean actresses’ digi-permed and treated hair that I wanted to achieve: gentle waves / big curls. In contrast, he advised to get smaller curls because they would eventually become loose after six months and become larger curls before becoming straight again. When asked if my hair should be cut, he said the length and the shape of my hair (‘V’ in the end) are already ideal for digital perming. So there was no cutting done—and no back massaging either. (Er, I forgot to ask about the latter.)
Anyway, the entire procedure lasted for almost five hours. I can’t remember the exact number of minutes per step but the hairdresser performed the following: washed my hair and put the mixed protector, conditioner and in-house solution for absorption, rinsed my hair, segmented it and rolled each grouped strand to the curler, placed heat protection pads and secured each rolled strand with a tie, attached the curlers to the hot rods connected to the perming machine and waited for the longest time, washed my hair for the last time and squeezed it with a towel without blow-drying.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror and blinked to test if something different would appear next. Nope. Gasp! I actually have curled hairs now, was in my thought bubble.8O Before I walked out of the salon with wet hair, the salon staff gave me some tips to manage my digi-permed hair.
Mary Pauline Salon
How to Take Care of Digitally Permed Hair
- Apply hair polish after a shower or bath while hair is still damp. This is to easily style the hair afterwards and make the curls more defined. I bought Splash Control Hair Polish at PHp 28 and Monea Curl Defining Milk Lotion (in the picture below) at PHp 99 both from Watsons.
- Never comb the hair as doing so will only make it uncontrollably frizzy and messy. The only part that can be combed is the upper part where my original straight hair is and the bangs.
- Do not rub digi-permed hair with a towel for this will also make the hair tangled and frizzy as well. Fingers can be used to undo tangles.
- Section the hair to two, create partitions, wound each partition inward and twirl the waves using the index finger to add more bounce to the curls.
- Use shampoo and conditioner every day. (I think this is simple logic, even for un-permed hair.) He didn’t suggest using special products for permed hair so I’m still using my current ones (TRESemmé).
Other Hair Maintenance Regime I Got From Blogs and Websites
- If you have dry hair which is fragile and prone to breakages, use hair products that are friendly to the hair. Recommended are Keratase Nutritive Bain Oleo Curl Definition Shampoo and Human Heart Nature’s Avocado and Seaweed Moisturizing Conditioner. You can also use other brands of products, but make sure that they have ingredients such as almond oil, jojoba oil, avocado oil and Vitamin E used to soften permed hair, add more gloss and hydration.
- Avoid using hair dryers and just let the hair dry on its own. Blow-drying permed hair will cause more split ends you will regret and make it unruly.
- Go for hot oil treatments or apply deep conditioning creams once a week. This will pamper your locks and let the oils saturate through the hair cuticles that will help strengthen weakened hair strands from the inside.
Taking care of digitally permed hair is not as hard as I thought. I have low maintenance with my hair even before, and I really don’t put in a lot of effort combing and styling it every day. Having permed hair now made me feel more feminine and extra presentable. But looking back to my pictures with straight hair, I say I still prefer my former hairstyle! Wahaha.
What say you? Let it flow in the comments. 😀
UPDATE: This branch of Mary Pauline Salon in Masangkay has been closed down already. Last check was July 2013.
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