Maybe your girl just didn’t want to get her hairdo wet. If her hair was permed, it couldn’t curl.
You’re correct about the lye solution. It’s still on the market, but much better formulated than in decades past.
I think what the deal was is that she did not have enough confidence in her swimming skills to swim in the Gulf of Mexico with me.
She could swim in a pool just fine, but open water is another matter.
And I always tried to go when the surf was big enough to ride a boogie board on, and it is definitely not easy to swim in high surf, even if you are a skilled swimmer. When we did go, she would always hold on to my back, and I would do the swimming, so I think that might have been the issue.
I dated her from 1989 to 1996 approximately, so yep it was a good while ago. I remember she used to sit in the chair while her mom was applying the perm just trying to suppress a scream from the lye the whole time.