Spiral

Today

Our new little pet, Lucy the Bichon Frise, has settled in well. With a rescue dog, history is often unknown, but what we do know is that her grooming was left so long neglected that she was shaved. Her curls are now growing back beautifully. I met another Bichon in the village who has the full monty, so to speak, with a full coat of five-inch long spiral curls.

I plan to let Lucy's grow that long before deciding on the right trim for her.

"I remember when the spiral perm was fashionable for humans" I said to the dog's owner

In My Day

The spiral perm fashion came in in about 1987 or so. How Lizzie longed for this look! It was  terrifyingly expensive and, over a long period,  she scraped up money from her part-time jobs until she had enough. She trotted off to a salon in Bath and they put her hair through the complicated processes involved. When all was done they told her not to touch the hair for twenty-four hours and then, voila! she would have her dream look.

The results were more like a nightmare. Her hair looked woolly, rather than in silky spirals and when Lizzie awoke in the morning, she found large chunks of it remaining on the pillow. This continued for a few weeks. We spoke to the salon and all they would offer was a conditioning treatment, which was hardly going to help.

We planned to take action but well-meaning interference by a relative who whisked Lizzie off to her hairdresser to trim and salvage meant that we didn't really have the evidence that we wanted, except a basket of dead hair. 

It was all pretty distressing, especially for a teenager when it's so important to look and feel good. It took quite a long time for her hair to regain its natural silky waviness. And Lizzie took a long time to trust hairdressers in general after that.

Since Lucy's spiral perm is entirely natural I hope we won't go through any trauma with her.