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“It took me an hour to get my hair done,” said Charlie Weiss, 12. “I had to keep fiddling with it because it was really straight. I looked in the mirror and said, ‘Is this okay? ” I thought. No, it’s not. Is this better? Not yet. ” Weiss was never satisfied with her hair and ended up wearing a hat most of the time. “It was even worse because I used to wear my hair back before I wore it, and when I took it off I looked like a president from the 1700s,” he says. “My friend said I should just let it ring.”
Instead, Weiss saved money by refereeing softball games and paid $150 for her first perm, which she got earlier this year. For my second perm, I bought a kit on Amazon and had my mom’s friend do it for me. “All we had to do was salt spray,” Weiss says. “Once we let it air dry, it looked better.”
Brooks Eddy, 17, got her first perm at a salon last year (her mother paid $70 for the treatment). “I’ve had short, straight hair ever since I was born, but I wanted something different,” he says. “They started getting longer last year, but they were still really straight. So I went with natural curls. I didn’t want them to look super wiry, and I wanted them to be short in the back and have a big bouffant part in the front. I didn’t want it to look like a typical permed hair.”
Some people think that Gen Z’s style — shaggy curls, layers for height, and deep cuts on the sides and back — resembles broccoli. Mothers on TikTok say their sons look like llamas. And then there are the alpaca memes. But most of the tweens and teens I talk to with permed hair don’t seem to realize that they resemble cruciferous vegetables or herd animals. Or even if they are aware, they don’t care.
“I think some kids call it ice cream because when you have curly hair around your head, it looks like a cone-shaped scoop,” says Quinn, almost 12, who just got a perm. Gonsalves says. He used a curling iron and styling powder to style his hair every morning, but when a child at school told him he had a perm, Gonsalves asked his mother to give it a perm. They heard about the salon their kids went to and paid $120 for their first perm, which didn’t pay. Gonsalves’ mother did some research and found a hairdresser who would do it for $40. “This one is curlier and nicer,” says Gonsalves. “My friends thought it was cool.”
Zane Probus, 13, and his brother Levi, 10, got perms at beauty school, which cost about $30. “My mom was going to give me a short haircut or a perm, so I got a perm,” Zane says. His brother Levi also explains, “She wants our hair out of her eyes so she can see us.” “She helps us style too,” Zayn replied to his brother, “She helps you.” “I’ll do it myself. Just shower and dry and it will look better.”
Why are these zoomers curly, permed, what’s going on https://t.co/wNB5UFoql7
— Matthew Zeitlin (@MattZeitlin) June 27, 2024
Initially, it was a trendy style for straight-haired influencers like Jacob Sartorius and the much-maligned Trey Lander. Then the pandemic hit, salons and barbershops closed, and many E-boys found their way to TikTok just as their already long top hair started growing out. Also, as straight or wavy hair grows, its weight may reduce the volume. So what’s a TikToker to do? It’s a perm.
“I was trying to recreate Dillon Latham,” Weiss says. Last July, Latham posted a video of herself getting a perm, which slowly went viral and has now been viewed 5.6 million times. His account remains popular by relying on a beauty trope that never gets old: a makeover. Although most teens call it a glow-up.
Globalization also plays a role. Bro perms may be new in America, but men in Japan and South Korea have been perming their hair for decades. And since at least 2020, Korean stars like BTS’ Jungkook and EXO’s Chen have been captivating people’s hearts with their soft curls. “I’ve never seen so many people jump on an Asian trend. As an Asian American, it’s really cool to see that,” says Chris, colorist at Salon Benjamin in Los Angeles.・Lee says. He gets his hair permed at a salon in Los Angeles’ Koreatown. “But now that K-pop is so universal and global, I think it gives it a different feel.”
So far, the teenage boys I’ve talked to have no regrets. “Having wavy or curly hair gives you even more variety in how you can wear your hair,” says Eddie. “I was nervous when I first got a perm, but it applied right away and I was surprised at how beautiful it turned out. It’s grown out, but it still has that texture, and I like that.” But in another 10 years, things may change. “So this style is probably a product of its time, and a lot of people are seeing it on social media, so they’re like, ‘Oh, that looks good,'” Eddie says. “But maybe when we look back on this, it’ll be like the soul patch of the 2000s or the mullet of the ’90s.”
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