I'm not sure why I"m jumping in here, but I will, LOL. I'm a stylist (12 years) and salon owner.
How LONG you need to wait depends on the PRODUCT that was used on you.
Though most perms are similar, they are not all exactly the same, which is why some are processed at room temp, some under heat, some are self heating (exothermic) some stay on 10 minutes some stay on 30......some are safe for only un-tinted, un-highlighted hair, some are safe for bleached hair...I could go on. So, just because one person was told 24 hours and another was told 3 days, doesn't automatically make one person's stylist somehow incorrect or incompetent.
With the perms I use, my clients are instructed they may get it wet and condition the ends as needed but not to use shampoo or get chlorinated water on it for 48 hours. But that's based on MY line of perms. That doesn't make another stylist incorrect.
I think sometimes hairstylists get this way(worked up over exhibiting knowledge) because to be perfectly blunt, we are often treated like blooming idiots who were too stupid to go to university and therefore 'had' to go to 'beauty college'. This is an inaccurate generalization that is offensive and perpetrated OFTEN.I'm sometimes amazed at the way new clients (who are unaware that I have a college degree in addition to my cosmetology license) will speak to me, as if I am either lacking mental capacity or am somehow a lower life form than they are. (You know, the same way some people speak to a person working for a maid service, or the garbage man, or any other number of service industry jobs that society has deemed belong to persons of lesser intelligence).
Anyway, hairdressers are not by definition lacking intelligence, therefore we sometimes get overly upset when we see another hairdresser doing/saying something we feel demeans our profession further.
Anyway!
