‘Young guys are going hard’: Gen Z boys are embracing the perm
A once-mocked hairstyle now has a stranglehold on the heads of Gen Z men, taking over social media and barbershops worldwide.
A once-mocked hairstyle is increasing its stranglehold on the heads of young men worldwide, as they take to social media to share their embrace of what’s been deemed the “Zoomer perm”.
Boys, some aged just 12, report forking out as much as $100 (sometimes more) to get the chemically-induced curly look, popularised in the 80s and 90s before falling out of vogue.
“I remember when we would give men perms and make fun of them afterwards,” TAFE NSW head teacher for hairdressing and barbering, Danielle Tedesco, recently told The Sydney Morning Herald.
“There was a time when I would bang out seven or eight spiral perms for women a day, but men were rarely on board. Now the industry has changed and there’s a rise in men asking for perms.”
The latest iteration of the man perm has been compared to everything from broccoli (with the long, layered curls on top somewhat resembling florets of the cruciferous vegetable) to the hair on top of a llama’s head.
While men in Japan and South Korea have been getting their hair permed for decades, its “renaissance” in western nations, LA-based celebrity hairstylist, Clayton Hawkins, told GQ, “has been going on since at least 2021”, becoming the style of choice for Gen Z TikTok influencers like Noah Beck and Dillon Latham.
Frenzy over the Zoomer perm really hit a fever pitch, however, when a set photo from director James Gunn’s upcoming Superman movie went viral on X, showing David Corenswet’s Clark Kent sporting what Mr Hawkins called “a TikTok f**kboy broccoli cut”.
“As someone who loves curly hair, I totally get it,” he said.
“I think one of the reasons guys like it so much is that if your hair is permed, you can basically just let it air dry and do its thing. There’s no need to style. I think the fact that Clark Kent has (a man perm) is kind of iconic.”
The style has become so sought-after that New York barbershop Hairrari recently had to stop offering it, due to high demand and perm solution’s strong, ammonia odour.
“They’re very popular, but very smelly,” one stylist told GQ, adding that the salon is fielding requests for the look several times a week.
“They just stink up the whole place. It smells like eggs.”
Brisbane-based barber Matthew Clarke, winner of the 2023 Australian Modern Barber of the Year Award, observed a similar level of demand at Esquire Barbershop, where he operates from.
“We have clients aged between 16 and 27 coming in to have volume added to classic 80s mullets,” he told The Herald.
“Young guys are going hard and there has been a big rise in perm requests in the past eight months.
“Barbers like us now offer chemical treatments, which is great for anyone who still feels strange about going into a salon.”
In 2020, aforementioned TikTok star Latham made a bet with his 1.5 million followers on the platform that if a certain video got 500,000 likes, he would get a perm.
“It ended up getting two million likes and eight million views,” the teen, based in the US state of Virginia, recalled to GQ.
He followed it up with a video of himself at a salon with curlers and perming agent in his hair – a clip that “blew up”.
“I actually got made fun of a lot by everybody in my school. I was the perm kid. But after the video blew up, I had gone so viral that people couldn’t really say much. And then I saw kids around my school start popping up with it,” Latham said.
“Young people care about their hair more than ever because of social media … All the guys coming up on TikTok, every guy who went viral and was considered highly attractive had this fluffy hair look. So it was kind of like, if you didn’t have that, you’re missing out.”