To Perm or Not To Perm??

 

I'm hoping that there are few of here on this site who have experience with perms. I recently had my hair done for a wedding with loose, wavy curls and I LOVED it. I've always loved curly hair, so I started thinking about getting a perm. I've kinda wanted one since I was 15 so I thought I was ready to take the plunge. I did lots of online research and discovered that there are lots of different "kinds" of perms, some of which I really liked the look of. So, I called around to a few salons in my area to inquire about stylists' experience and pricing. One stylist basically crushed all of my hopes and dreams of curly hair, saying that all I would get is a wave and that a spiral curl was not possible with a perm.  This is NOT what the internet told me! Now, you have to understand that I've always been a "ponytail" gal. I'm not a hair expert and up until two days ago, I would have said a curl and a wave are the same thing (meany pants stylist corrected this apparent misbelief that I had). I won't lie, I was so put out by her crushing reality that I basically just hung up on her. So I'm wondering: Can anyone help me understand what this mystical wave is that a perm creates, and how it's different from when I get long loose curls put in my hair? What do I need to know about perms/curls/waves and what do I need to ask for in order to get my desired result from a stylist? Any insight would be hugely helpful!

 

Obsessing about curls....