With the air of an expert, Carla trains the hair dryer on her best friend and flips the switch.
Then, as the whir of the dryer drowns out the rap music blaring from the radio, Kathy and Carla enter the gates of Big Hair Heaven - the euphoric place where girls go when they're creating Big Hair.
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It's not the first time Big Hair has gone over in a big way.
Women in Victorian England were famous for their towering hairdos, and millions of women imitated the teased elegance of Jackie Kennedy's hair during the '60s.
But the trend is reaching new heights among teenage girls and young women in the Northeast, Roxborough, South Philly and some suburbs around the city. And, as if to compensate for the unoriginality of their uniforms, it is the Catholic-school girls who have elevated the concept to an art form.
From the neck down, they are sweet teens in knee socks and saddle shoes. But above the collars of their preppy Oxford shirts, they are wild child- women, with their hair piled high in moussed mountains, falling in fountains over one eye or sprayed into swordlike salutes.
"There's not one person who comes to school here with a flat head," says Michelle Fratto, a freshman at St. Maria Goretti High School in South Philadelphia. "It's like if one person does it, the next person has to do it. You don't want to be a nerd."
According to devotees at Goretti and Archbishop Ryan High School for Girls in the Northeast, there are two versions of Big Hair.
The first, which takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, is obtained by blow-drying the hair (while holding the head down) after moussing the part nearest the roots to a crunchy consistency so it stands out from the head. Using a hair pick, the tresses are teased to the stiff, lightweight texture of fiberglass - the bigger, the better. The hairdo is then held in place with about half a can of hair spray.
