Report No. 6: The Test Strand Lesson at a Seoul Academy, 16 August 2026

In short. On 16 August 2026, the first day of my August training at MASSTIGE HAIR Academy in Gangnam (Report No. 4), Hong Jihoon stopped the class to talk about one thing: the test strand. Every new client gets one, on a single strand at the lower nape, before the whole head is permed. In a cold perm the test is not a look at the strand but a full small cycle on it, and from the result you choose the rod size for the whole head. In my studio in Moscow every new client gets a test strand at the start of the procedure day.

How it was

Hong Jihoon opened the lesson by saying he had long wanted to raise this. His rule: when a new client comes, take one strand low on the back of the head, in the nape, where a mistake will never show, and test the perm on it first. Not the whole head, and not a strand at the front.

Then a student asked how to check whether the hair had "softened" enough. He corrected the word itself. Softening belongs to the hot perm, the digital and setting perm. There a stylist checks the strand by hand, and the classic signs are well known: the strand holds a sharp bend, stretches like elastic and springs back, or its tip curls when you separate it.

A cold perm, he said, is checked differently, and judging it by eye with the hot-perm signs is wrong. He repeated "you cannot do it like that" several times in a row. In a cold perm the stylist runs a complete short cycle on that one strand: solution, winding, waiting, neutraliser, rinse, and then a pull to see what curl the hair actually gives. The result is not "ready or not ready". It tells you which rod diameter to take for the whole head to get the curl the client asked for. The cycle has to be done quickly and the same way every time.

Later, at the mannequin, he showed the second half of the rule. During the perm you check the strand that was wound last: if even that one has taken, everything wound earlier has too. You unwind it a few turns, look whether the curl has formed, and then feel for spring in the strand rather than judging the shape. He passed the strand around so each of us could feel it.

And then a remark addressed to me through the interpreter: "Oksana should unwind everything once and look." For a stylist still building the skill, one test strand is not enough: at home, unwind and check every strand. An experienced stylist can rely on one.

What I got

• A studio rule. In my studio the test strand is done at the start of the procedure day, on a strand in an unnoticeable area at the lower nape. I do not take a separate visit just for a test strand: after it the hair has to be washed and dried, so it belongs to the same day.
• The rod size from the hair, not from the photo. A client brings a picture of the curl she wants; the test strand tells me which rod gives that curl on her hair.

Who it suits and who it doesn't

This lesson matters to any stylist who perms, and to clients: if a studio offers to perm your whole head without a test strand or a look at your hair first, ask why. It does not replace practice. The test strand tells you how this hair answers this solution; reading it takes time at the chair. Salons in Seoul that do Korean perms, with prices from their own menus: Korean perm salons in Seoul.

Verdict

9/10. One rule from one lesson that I now apply to every new client: a full small cycle on one strand before the whole head. One point off because without it the rest of the course would have made no sense, so it should have come first in March, not in August.

Read next

• Report No. 5: Six Months With a Wave Master Digital Perm Machine in Moscow
• Report No. 7: Learning to Wind a Korean Perm, Seoul, 16 August 2026