My Keratin hair experience

BEFORE,aka my jungle forest. :(
AFTER, hair HEAVEN. :)

So...recently I've had some sort of "midlife hair crisis." IF that even exists. I'm very impatient when I get these urges to do something different, so if I can't have it done to my hair like, 5 minutes ago, then I'll probably attempt it myself, whatever the consequences may be. Needless to say, I cause my personal hairdresser constant stress.

It started about 3 and a half weeks ago when I heard alot of internet raves about this Phyto hair relaxing system. I heard and saw great results, and that it was very gentle. I thought, "hey I live in crazy humid SC, why not?" Now hair relaxers scare me to do death. I had all my hair practically fall out hence why a sported a pixie cut for a short time. But everyone thought and said this would work. Besides it was from the beauty gods of Sephora themselves. They never go wrong.

I was WRONG and they were WRONG. After 1 MINUTE, YES 1 MINUTE, of being applied I saw the dreaded fried ends in one part of my head. I immediately washed it all out. Thank GOD I didn't do too much damage at all to my hair. It still had all it's integrity and I could do whatever with it, it just became really dry and frizzy. Nothing styling products or a flat iron couldn't fix.

THEN 3 weeks later I hear about this amazing salon treatment called the Keratin Complex smoothing treatment by Coppola from my hairdresser. She said it would be perfect for my hair, even after a semi-relaxer. She said all your hair is protein anyway, and this pretty much restores your damaged hair to it's glory days. It even takes away 90% of the frizz and smoothes it out greatly. It's very similar, but much BETTER than the Brazilian Blowout. You can even still wear your hair curly, but with no frizz (!!!), and if you decide that you want it straight, it cuts down blowdry and flat iron time from the average time being 40 min-1 hour, to about 10 minutes or less (!!!). I'm SOLD. But then she told me the price. $350!! ARRGH. I can't justify treating my hair to that steep of a treatment price. Super sads at this point.

So, I go back to the greatest resource in the world (the internet of course), and see if I could get it myself. I know all the hairdressers in the world are crapping their pants right now. But I found it, for ALOT cheaper. $160 bucks at folica.com. SWEET. Now I go into super learning mode. 1) You must have alot of time, like 4 hours time. 2) You MUST have a quality flat iron that heats to 450 degrees or else it will not work (already had that, score!). 3) You must preshampoo your hair with this special keratin clarifying shampoo, and you must use their regular keratin shampoo/condition for after the process. Minimal costs, but still cheaper than the salon. I scoured youtube and other salon sites, and found the actual videos that they use to train stylists on this method of hair smoothing. I did my homework! I read and watched a ton of stuff so I was fully prepared. I did the process yesterday, and the only downside is I can't sweat or get my hair wet for 3 days. So I plan to do light yoga to fight workout withdrawals! :)

The process involves you shampooing your hair 3 times with the clarifying shampoo. (no conditioner is used after this). Dry hair completely with blow dryer on medium setting until it resembles a jungle forest. Then section hair off and start at nape of neck, and start applying the smoothing solution, and combing it through with a fine tooth comb. Cover your head with a hair cap and let set for 20-30 minutes, and then dry again with blowdryer. Once completely dry (again), section off (again) and start flat ironing your hair, and go through each section 5-7 times, root to tip. This is the time consuming part, patience is KEY. Take your time. And it also burns the shiot out of your eyeballs (fumes I guess). Great hair is SO worth it though.

So now my hair is super smooth and straight, but I am in that 72 hour waiting period until I can wash it again. That's when I hear that basically rockets and super sparkles of hair awesomeness shoot out from the heavens. If it gets any better than it is now, I think I will pee my pants. So I am super EXCITED and happy with my results!

What's great about infusing Keratin into your hair, is that it makes your hair HEALTHIER. It is not a hair relaxer, and it wears off your whole head at the same time, so you don't do root touch ups. It wears off on average, 3-5 months. But then you just apply again, whole head, and your hair actually gets HEALTHIER. They say to think of your hair follicle as a strand with many holes. Those holes cause dryness, split ends, damage, etc. Keratin basically goes in there and fills in those holes and makes the hair shafts smooth as butta. The results are cumulative, the more you use it (and you can use it every 4-6 weeks if you want. My 8oz bottle costs me $160 bucks, but I still have half left, so hence another treatment in the future, yay!) the healthier and better your hair gets. Doesn't matter how damaged, colored, fried your hair is, keratin makes it all better. :) 2 thumbs up!!

I'm sure you can tell the before and the after pic from above! LOL

xoxo-Demi Bean