Hairdresser is bringing back the perm

020915PBDenise1 Denise Hihira has hairdressing ideas for the mature woman. PICTURE / PAUL BROOKS

It's not all about going straight; certainly not in the hairdressing trade. At Denise Hair Studio all first time clients aged 60 or more will get a perm for $65 (regular price is $85), and that includes haircut, blow wave or set plus a $10 voucher to spend on the next visit to the Dublin St salon.
Owner Denise Hihira likes doing perms, it's her specialty, and there aren't a lot of hairdressers offering the service.
"For the last few years I've missed it," she says, "The fashion has been straight hair for the young people for so long - probably 15 years - and if hairdressers have trained in the last 15 years they haven't a lot of perming experience. We often get phone calls from people asking us if we do perms. There's an age group that's used to having more volume in their hair, and that's what a perm does ... and it's easier to maintain."
Denise knows there is a market among older women for a revival of the perm industry.
"And also the baby boomers," she says. "Someone needs to think about them. People need to come up with ideas to cater for that age group, although I never thought I'd come up with this idea - it just came to me one day.
"Of course there are body waves and other waves that don't look like a perm.
"Real curls or permed hair does make it look fuller," says Denise. "As we get older our hair thins - even women - and a perm helps with making them look like they have more hair."
A perm does a job that nothing else does, she says. "But you have to know what you are doing and have plenty of experience or you will have a 'permanent' disaster."
Perm, of course, is short for "permanent".
Current trends are for colouring and straightening but Denise is sure that curls will come back into fashion. They always do. There's a movement towards big waves now and TV shows are demonstrating it, following fashion trends set in Europe. Denise has been a hairdresser since she was 15. "I knew I wanted to be a hairdresser since I was little," she says. "I've always had an interest in hair."
Her sister's boyfriend was a barber and Denise would sit in his shop and watch the miraculous transformations taking place. She couldn't believe it when men would arrive with a bushy mop and leave looking like Elvis. "It was quick and all happening in front of my eyes."
Her own hair was done at home by her mother, so she did not go inside a hairdressing salon until she was a teenager and that was to have her hair done for a ball. Her hair was shortish but a session of painful backcombing gave her the volume she needed for the occasion.
"Hairdressing is an art," says Denise. "It's making believe something you don't have naturally. We make it happen for you; it's magical."
A native French Canadian, she, her Kiwi husband and their children came to Wanganui to live in 1989, but she had been here before.
"We came for a Maori funeral and I loved the place. It was in August, it was winter and there was no snow. I couldn't believe it," she says. "This has been home from the beginning."
With French being her native tongue, Denise arrived with basic English and a determination to learn the language.
Twenty-six years later a slight accent gives away her French-speaking origins.
"When I first came here I didn't know the English words for my trade. The names of all the brushes, the combs, the products, the styles ... I didn't know anything. All the terms I needed to learn."
Wanganui hairdresser Malcolm Hutchins came to the rescue. From him Denise learned the trade words and their pronunciation. She ended up working in Malcolm's salon on a Tuesday for a few months before starting at Shears in Trafalgar Square when it opened.
Not long after that she went out on her own and 11 years ago started Denise Hair Studio in Dublin St. Now, as well as looking for hairdressers to rent chairs in her studio, she is also looking for experienced hairdressers to come on board with her vision for the older women; bringing back the perm.