Hairstyles: Curling Hair

Curls are often noticed and remarked on by people in Britain and the US and many people curl their hair artificially, for example using curlers or curling tongs, or by having a perm.

A curler is an object around which hair is twisted to make it curl. In old books and films, women are often shown wearing their curlers at bedtime, or in the early morning, and not wanting, especially a man they do not know, to see them like this. In Britain, curlers are thought of as being worn mostly by working-class women, and women shown in curlers are often smoking a cigarette and in a rather untidy home environment.

The word curling tongs is always used in plural to refer to a piece of electrical equipment which is heated and has a handle joined to a metal rod (around which the hair is wound) and another long piece of metal to keep the hair in place until a curl is formed.
In general terms, it can be said that a hair iron or hair tong is something people use to change the shape of the hair by heating it. There are four types of hair iron:
Straightening irons (sometimes called Hair Irons or Hair Straighteners, or just Straighteners), which straighten the hair.
Curling tongs (sometimes called Hair Tongs or Hair Curlers or just Curlers, or less often Curling irons), which make hair curly.
Crimping irons, used to create crimps of the desired size in the hair.
Styling irons (sometimes called Hair Stylers or just Stylers), that can straighten and curl the hair.

A permanent wave, commonly called a perm, is the chemical treatment of hair to produce curls.
The first chemical treatment for curling hair that was suitable for use on people was invented in the year 1906 by the German hairdresser Karl Nessler (1872-1951). He used a mixture of cow urine and water. The first public demonstration took place on October 8, 1906, but Nessler had been working on the idea since 1896. Previously, wigs had been set with caustic chemicals to form curls, but these recipes were too harsh to use on human skin.