To curl or not

Know the saying "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence"? Of course you do, everyone does and what’s more, that famous cliché is applicable to almost every single facet of life. It’s true that we usually always want that which we don’t have or only want something we had once we no longer have it. Indeed, such is the way of the world and it usually applies to everything, be it something deep like past relationships or friendships or something extremely shallow like how we wear our hair. If it’s black we want it brown, if it’s short we want it long, if it’s straight we want it curly.

I’m the perfect example of one who is not completely satisfied with what I’ve got. When I was younger and living abroad, my straight-as-a-board hair bored me. I would constantly get a perm to turn my mane into a mess of ringlets, which was how all my friends wore their hair. I would endure the old-fashioned perm and sit for hours smelling like rotten eggs while the solution set in. When I moved back to the Philippines I was surprised to find girls ironing (with the real iron, mind you, not the new ceramic hair irons) to get the same stick straight hair that I used to have.

My perspective changed. Since the humidity frizzed the living daylights out of my tresses and turned my mass of shoulder length curls into the pyramids of Giza, I decided to keep my hair straight. For some reason, the curls wouldn’t go away. Even as new hair grew out it still maintained its waves. So what did I do? I had it straightened.

I had it straightened way back in the day when the only way to do it was with those extremely strong solutions that left your hair brittle, dry and in split-end city! None of the new relaxing or rebonding technology that we have today. I endured the harsh straightening treatments and maintained "broom" hair just to keep the curls at bay. Over the years it’s been up and down when it comes to my crowning glory. A few years back my hair finally grew out and stayed relatively straight, I left it alone.

What I’ve always wanted for my hair was a combination of both straight and curly. Being a big fan of classic movies where the heroines always had lush straight hair on the top that ended into soft curls at the bottom like Wuthering Heights or The Amazing Mister Blunden always made me wish I could look like a classic fairytale heroine. I always thought that could never happen until now.

When it comes to hair innovations, L’Oréal has done it again. From their professional salon treatments to their do-it-at-home line of shampoos, conditioners, hair dyes, and hot oils L’Oréal has answered every hair-loving gals dreams and always raises the standards on how we can wear our locks and what we should do to maintain them. They have a highly effective training program for hair stylists and, as they call them now, "technicians" to ensure that the professionals at the salons know exactly what they’re doing. To be sure, you can rest assured that if something comes from L’Oréal, it will not only work but it will keep your hair healthy as well.

I wasn’t surprised to find that L’Oréal had the answer to my half-curly half-straight hair dilemma with their latest innovation Digital Waves by X-Tenso. With this brand new techonology L’Oréal can guarantee fabulous curls minus the heat damage (and that awful rotten eggs smell of perms past).

The Digital Perm took about a little less than six hours. It was long and arduous, but Christy wanted to ensure that the curls came out just right so she carefully completed every single step with precision and accuracy sometimes even repeating steps when required.

If you’re getting a digital perm you have to make sure your hair is layered. This gives your mane texture and helps highlight the curls. Mine was already layered so we went straight to the pre-perm procedure. Before beginning the process, Christy had to set my hair with a pre-perm solution that would soften the strands enough to follow the curling treatment. Ironically, it turned out that my hair was just as stubborn as the rest of me and one application of this solution was not enough, it took four attempts before my hair was ready for the actual perm.

After a strengthening conditioning treatment to strengthen my strands and prevent breakage Christy began separating my hair into smaller sections and rolling them into medium-sized rods, pretty soon my head was full of the rods and looked twice as large. After that came the digital perm machine. I couldn’t help but shake my head at how it looked like some alien robot straight out of a Star Wars movie. It was a small machine with a bunch of extended arms that connected to the ends of the rods and heated them up.

It was around 20 minutes of heating time but unlike other treatments that require heat, the digital perm was not extremely hot or uncomfortable.

Christy began removing the arms of the machine and slowly unraveling the rods in my hair. I could already see the curls emerging but that wasn’t the end yet. After all the rods were removed another neutralizing solution was applied to my hair to set the curls. Christy showed me how to dry my hair for when I’d have to do it myself. Just using my fingers to comb through the curls and drying from underneath to ensure bounce and battle frizz. She also advised me that a diffuser for my blow dryer would go a long way in making my curls last.

The result: soft, manageable ringlets that were exactly what I always wanted.

It’s been a few weeks and I’ve been enjoying my new look immensely. After all, it’s 2006 and the perfect time to try something new.

L’Oréal’s Digital Perm is available at David’s Salon branches all over Manila.