Can You Perm After Henna? The Perm Damages Hair — the Dye Doesn't
You can perm after henna. But if your hair gets damaged, the perm is to blame, not the henna. A perm rearranges the hair's protein and takes a toll; henna dyeing itself does not damage hair.
Here is the short answer: you can perm your hair after dyeing with henna. But if it ends up damaged, the perm is to blame, not the henna. A perm rearranges the hair's protein structure and takes a toll; henna dyeing itself does not damage hair. That is the conclusion I reached by living through it.
My Hair Got Healthy, So I Wanted to Grow It
Dyeing regularly with Water Henna left my hair healthier and fuller — thanks, I suspect, to the oil. I had worn a bob since my school days, but suddenly I wanted to grow it out. My hair is naturally wavy and thick, though, so grown out it just looked frizzy and puffed up. So I decided to try a straightening perm.
Eight Minutes of Perm Solution, and Ruined Hair
I asked the stylist who always cut my hair so neatly to do the perm. She cuts well, I reasoned, so surely she perms well too. The solution went on for eight minutes — and while the salon's treatment hid it at first, within days the ends were bending and tangling, thoroughly damaged. This was hair that, aside from shampoo, had barely touched a chemical in years, and eight minutes of perm solution did that. It seems unavoidable, given that a perm works by rearranging the hair's protein.
Ironically, damaged ends aside, my hair did look far tidier after the perm.
"Where On Earth Did You Get That Perm?"
About five months later, with my hair grown out a fair bit, I asked a different stylist at the same salon for a cut. She took one look and asked, with some concern, where I had gotten such a damaging perm. "Right here, at this salon…" was all I could say. (The first stylist had left around then; perhaps her mind had been elsewhere.) The new stylist launched into an animated pitch about using four different perm solutions across the head to reduce damage — and then trimmed my hair beautifully.
The Perm Damaged It, But the Dye Did Not
So these days my hair feels manageable again. The perm damaged it, yes, but at least the dye did not — which is its own small comfort. Had I been using a chemical dye, the perm and the colour together would have wrecked it far worse. Because I had been colouring with henna, the underlying condition of my hair stayed healthy. Why henna does not damage hair — and how it actually conditions it — is covered in more detail in why hair feels stiff after henna.