- Women were given the styling option of a "permanent wave" with the invention of the permanent wave machine. Looking much like a mad scientist's experiment, the hair was wrapped in clamps heated electrically and chemicals were applied to the hair. The hair was pulled upward and away from the head by the wires that heated the clamps. The machine was invented in the early 1900s but did not become as widely used until the 1930s, when it became popular for women to wave their own natural hair.
- The permanent wave machine was originally designed for the longer hairstyles preceding the 1930s by Charles Nessler. The hair was wrapped around a rod for longer, spiral curls. When women began to chop their hair short into more boyish styles, however, the original design had to be altered a bit for the shorter styles of the time. Further adaptations to the original methods allowed the hair to be wrapped from the ends to the scalp, creating a more permanent wave through the combination of clamps and chemicals.
- In the early days of the permanent wave machine, some of the results included burned scalps and hair that broke off. The combination of heat and chemicals ruined the hair of some women who had their hair processed. Nowadays, stylists will not perm or chemically process hair that is already damaged for these reasons.
- Besides permanent hair processing, the way women styled their hair at home was with rag and pin curls left overnight as hair dried. Sometimes, they also used a curling iron that was heated over a flame, which was very time consuming. There was also the invention of wave clips, but those had to be left in the hair as it dried and were commonly used in combination with setting lotion to hold the style until the next washing of the hair. Chemicals used for perms of the future began to be used without heat and so "permanent" hairstyles were achieved without destroying the hair.
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