I am always amazed at the amount of money a woman will spend in the name of "looking good" and the amount of pain she will endure. Look at how many women subject themselves to various surgeries (face lifts, bigger boobs, the list is constantly growing) because they want to look better.
Back to the subject of perms, when I was a kid my hair was very straight and I probably got three perms by the time I was in high school. They never "took" and as mentioned already, the smell was horrible. My hair has been various lengths over the years; I tried short hair (short like above my ears and shaved neck) because it was supposedly easier to take care of -- so not the case for me! By that time my hair had become somewhat wavey in places, not consistent over my head, which made me a slave to the blow dryer and various gels/mousses/sprays. How many of us have taken a picture of a hair style we wanted to our stylist and it turns out to not be a good style on us? My hair grows slow so it always took a long time to grow out these "mistakes." I finallly wised up and realized that it's foolish for me to fight with my hair cuz it always wins
So now it is long, just above my waist, and I have bangs. Takes me about 2 mins to style which involves blow drying my bangs and scrunching the ends a bit.
This works well because I can work with the natural waves already there. I'm all about spending as little time on my hair as possible cuz there's so much other fun stuff to do with my time!
IMO women would do a lot better by working with what nature gave them.