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Christmas

Have you had your Christmas "Twink", yet?

(41 Posts)
Yammy Sat 26-Nov-22 14:07:57

The thread about Christmas presents of the '50s reminded me of my other Christmas "Treat".
Every year at Christmas my mother home permed my hair with a product called "Twink". The result was I had to go to school with a head full of frizzy hair and sit with other girls who had been tortured the same. Did anybody else suffer the same indignity?
My gran went to the hairdressers as did many of her friends for their Christmas perm.

DaisyAnne Sat 26-Nov-22 14:12:39

It was Princess Anne's fault Yammy. My mother only managed to force me to have mine done once. I was presenting some flower to someone. Never again!

MrsKen33 Sat 26-Nov-22 14:15:14

Once and once only when I was about fourteen I think. End result should have been my hair falling straight to my shoulders and then flicking up. It fell to my shoulders alright and then there was a great frizz, like tangled fishing line. I chopped it all off and my mother was horrified. By the next summer it was back to shoulder length and straight. I have never had anything like a perm since. Traumatised I was.

Oldbat1 Sat 26-Nov-22 14:17:49

Ooh I can remember the smell just reading the name.

Georgesgran Sat 26-Nov-22 14:28:34

The smell, the papers and the roller/rod things - any perm on me as a teenager was disastrous! It took years for a ‘real hairdresser’ to tell me my hair was extra porous and warned never to be talked into having a perm, even in the best salon, ever again. Lesson learned.

tanith Sat 26-Nov-22 14:41:12

Thankfully not as i had curly hair but i did do my Mums Twink a few times with those silly tiny rollers.

Yammy Sat 26-Nov-22 14:59:02

I did have a Princess Ann doll DaisyAnne maybe you are right that's where she got her ideas from. Mum also had a head of strawberry blonde curls herself mine was blonde and as straight as a horse's tail like my dad's.

FarNorth Sat 26-Nov-22 15:18:51

End result should have been my hair falling straight to my shoulders and then flicking up. It fell to my shoulders alright and then there was a great frizz, like tangled fishing line.

Once only for me too as a 'treat' for passing the 11-plus.
I didn't care but my mum wanted me to have the flick up style.
A real hairdresser did it and it was fine until the first wash - then it went into corkscrew sort of ringlets 😁.

No Twinking for me, I'm glad to say, and I don't think my classmates got it either.

Remember the magazine diagrams of how to put rollers in to get a desired style ?

ParlorGames Sat 26-Nov-22 15:29:54

I was lucky, my Dad couldn't abide the smell of perming lotion so home perms were banned in our house.

Cressy Sat 26-Nov-22 15:43:34

No Christmas perms / twinks here but I do remember a time in the 80’s when lots of us had curly perms in a long bob shape, held in place with a headband.

Eloethan Sat 26-Nov-22 15:51:00

My Mum was a frustrated hairdresser. Her dad forbade her to train as a hairdresser, saying that inhaling ammonia fumes would give her TB!

Consequently, I was her model for haircuts and perms. The haircuts were usually disastrous, with me ending up looking like a boy because she had to keep cutting bits off to "straighten it up". I too vividly remember her perming my hair and me having to go to school looking even more unattractive than usual.

cornergran Sat 26-Nov-22 16:23:08

Nope, not me, my hair was curly enough, but as my Mum used it I remember the smell, thinking about it is quite nostalgic.

Auntieflo Sat 26-Nov-22 16:46:27

Oh I remember giving mum a home perm. Twink?

I Don't know, but, I do remember the 'Afro's in the 80's.
I treated myself to one, and was pleased until I went to meet my daughter from school. She was horrified and remembers to this day her first sight of me and my Afro.

Shinamae Sat 26-Nov-22 16:54:53

Never had a perm in my life but I do remember my Aunt May had some sort of prehistoric curling tongs and used to curl my hair with those…😬 I would’ve been about six or seven at the time but I’ve never forgotten it…🤦‍♀️😳😁

Aldom Sat 26-Nov-22 17:13:49

I remember having my hair put in rags (strips of cotton cloth) to make ringlets. I was nine at the time. My cousin was getting married and I presented her with a silver horseshoe.
When I was about seventeen I had a 'professional' perm. I'm another one with porous hair. Oh dear! The frizz!
I thought and felt I looked like Ena Sharples! Never again.

GranRazz Sat 26-Nov-22 17:28:15

Just reading about it brings it all back. Oh the indignity.

Redhead56 Sat 26-Nov-22 17:40:42

I had naturally curly hair the only one in the family. I hated it and tried ironing it to no avail. I do remember my mum and aunties doing their hair with Twink is smelt terrible.

Ziplok Sat 26-Nov-22 17:48:51

Oh goodness, I’d forgotten all about Twink perms! The smell was pretty horrible. I remember those little rollers and perm papers. I had quite straight hair and I think my mum wished I didn’t, so occasionally I had to endure the dreaded perm and also every Sunday night, my hair curled up in either rollers or rags (to try to achieve ringlets) which were worn over night (really uncomfortable, I remember). Unfortunately my hair was always rather heavy, so the curls had virtually dropped out by the end of the day on Monday. Nevertheless, the result of all this torture was that I always resisted perms and sets as I got older 😂.

Grandma70s Sat 26-Nov-22 17:55:55

Perms were strictly forbidden at my junior school in the 1940s/early 50s. We’d have been sent home. Not that I ever wanted one, but some girls - or rather their mothers, I suspect - were very keen on the idea. I wore my hair very smooth, centre parting, with either plaits or bunches. I wanted to look like a ballerina, so perms didn’t attract me at all.

Squiffy Sat 26-Nov-22 18:10:00

Oh yes, I remember being Twinked by my DM. Didn’t work, despite being left on my hair for far longer than the instructions stated! Years later I was told by my hairdresser that my hair was impervious to the lotion - after she’d done tests on strands of my hair that she’d snipped off. The only reaction that she got was when she used almost neat ammonia and that was just a pathetic hint of frizz!

So … it was back to the dreaded curling tongs, which were heated on the stove, leading to singed ears and back of neck! 😱

Shinamae Sat 26-Nov-22 19:08:29

Squiffy

Oh yes, I remember being Twinked by my DM. Didn’t work, despite being left on my hair for far longer than the instructions stated! Years later I was told by my hairdresser that my hair was impervious to the lotion - after she’d done tests on strands of my hair that she’d snipped off. The only reaction that she got was when she used almost neat ammonia and that was just a pathetic hint of frizz!

So … it was back to the dreaded curling tongs, which were heated on the stove, leading to singed ears and back of neck! 😱

Yes those must’ve been the tongs my aunt May used on me…🤦‍♀️.. I loved that woman dearly and miss her still after 20 years..

Squiffy Sun 27-Nov-22 00:24:44

Shinamae … and then there was the smell of singed hair, as well as burnt ear! 😱

Joane123 Sun 27-Nov-22 07:31:15

Oh yes, I remember it so well. The Twink permed hair!
I have many pictures of me, some standing in line on the stage at Butlins Holiday camp holding a number! Not sure what sort of competition it was, my knees were black, my hair permed with a huge ribbon in it.

Daisymae Sun 27-Nov-22 07:44:38

I had forgotten! Yes I did it myself with predictable results. Luckily I did so badly that it didn't last long 😃

eazybee Sun 27-Nov-22 11:35:33

Yes! Not necessarily for Christmas, but my mother insisted on doing it because my hair was not curly, and I had to endure frizzy hair for what seemed like months, until I rebelled when I was eleven and my hair was long enough to scrape into a ponytail. Not allowed a fringe though.
I always dreaded curling tongs, after the disaster that happened to Meg, when Jo used the curling tongs on her hair.