Perm (hairstyle)
any hairstyle made by treating the head hair with chemical substances to have a long-lasting wavy or curly effect
A permanent wave, commonly called a perm or permanent (sometimes called a "curly perm" to distinguish it from a "straight perm"), is a hairstyle consisting of waves or curls set into the hair. The curls may last a number of months, hence the name.
Perms may be applied using thermal or chemical means. In the latter method, chemicals are applied to the hair, which is then wrapped around forms to produce waves and curls. The same process is used for chemical straightening or relaxing, with the hair being flattened instead of curled during the chemical reaction.
History
The first person to produce a practical thermal method was Marcel Grateau in 1872. He devised a pair of specially manufactured tongs, in which one of the arms had a circular cross-section and the other a concave one, so that one fitted inside the other when the tongs were closed. The tongs were generally heated over a gas or alcohol flame and the correct temperature was achieved by testing the tongs on a newspaper; if the paper browned slightly it was about right. The waving itself was safe if care was taken to keep the tongs away from the scalp. The procedure was to comb a lock of hair towards the operator, moving the comb slowly with one hand to maintain some tension, while applying the tongs to the hair successively down the lock of hair towards the point.
The public source identifies “Perm (hairstyle)” as any hairstyle made by treating the head hair with chemical substances to have a long-lasting wavy or curly effect. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Perm, hairstyle and made.
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Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q869880. The Library of Congress control number is sh85099983. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1872.
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This entry incorporates text from “Perm (hairstyle)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.