Back when I got perms (oh blessed '80's!), my mom always did the best job, bar none.
I used to be very hard on my hair, and one of the best lessons I think I've learned since entering my 30's is to stop wasting so much energy/time/money on trying to change the very nature of my hair and to just work with what I have, so to speak. I get much better results. In a nutshell: healthy is most attractive, vs. fried curls.
I wanna see pictures of your results!