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When perming hair, the conditioning and deswelling of the hair should be done according to the pH of the hair and its degree of swelling. For example, a high molecular weight cationic polymer conditioner should be applied to the shampooed hair before applying the Reshaping Cream. The pH of the cream is around 9.5 and it is going to increase the pH of the hair. The hair is also going to swell to 30-60% percent leaving the cuticles wide open. Therefore, a cationic conditioning polymer will penetrate into the hair cortex and make hair soft, silky and more combable.

Since some of you may have some general questions lingering about permanent waving, I'll quickly go over some generalities that might some common issues:

Let us take a look at the basic chemistry of permanent waving (technically called the "redox" process) to understand how hair is permanently curled or waved.

The redox process has two basic phases: reduction and oxidation. During the reduction phase, approximately 20% of the hair's cystine bonds are broken into cysteine (or half cystine bonds). It is in this phase that the hair assumes its new configuration. In the oxidation phase, 80-90% of the broken bonds are reformed to lock in the new curl formations.

I recently received a request for more information about permanent waving, which I must admit, was a bit of a surprise since I haven't noticed many stylists performing the permanent wave service lately.

Avlon's permanent wave system is the Ferm Permanent Waving System, which consists of a 4-step system along with various maintenance products depending on the need.

I figured that it would be nice to start a mini-series on the topic and cover the topic more in-depth.

But before getting down to the chemistry of permanent waving, which is technically my favorite part, its probably a good idea to quickly go over the history of the permanent wave.