Many years ago when perms were the 'in' thing, against my better judgement I went along with my mother's advice and made an appointment to have a perm.

I can't remember the reason why but - the hairdresser was all on her own, rushing around like a maniac between me a 3 other ladies. She slapped the perm solution on my hair section by section rolling it up tightly in those funny plastic things and then left me to sit there while it 'developed'.

Being in my teens at the time and this the first visit to a hairdressers as my mother had always cut my hair - had no idea how long this process should take so sat quite unconcerned whilst the minutes ticked away and my scalp felt like it was burning but accepted it was just the solution so didn't get overly worried. She was the hairdresser and this was her job so trusted her.

A long time later the hairdresser having finished with her other ladies - came flying over to me with a worried look on her face and pulled out all those funny plasticy things and rushed me to the wash bowels to wash the solution off.

She should have been worried - for what remained was a frizz of coarse hairstack like hair and my whole scalp was sore. Nothing she put on it had any effect. I obviously realised that something had gone horribly wrong but didn't know what to do.

The hairdresser offered to restyle my hair and put a special conditioner on it after a couple of weeks and apologised profusely and only charged me half price but I never went back. My hair didn't improve - I had to grow it out having it trimmed every few weeks until the ruined bit was all gone.

I've never had a perm since or will ever again.