Friday, December 26, 2014

Keratin Hair Straightening Treatment: Review and my Experience

Hello! So lately I’ve been hearing a lot about this Liscio Japanese hair straightening treatment and it reminded me of the keratin treatment I had done about two years ago. So since I have not found a very in depth video or article about the whole experience and of course all of the pros and cons, I decided to go ahead and write about it. 

 I’ve had curly and very frizzy hair my entire life and I never really liked it or the way it looked on me, so when I heard about the keratin treatment I got extremely excited. What this treatment does is it relaxes your hair’s natural texture and makes it smooth, silky and completely straight! Sounds perfect right? Well don’t get too excited there are some SERIOUS cons to this case.

MY EXPERIENCE:

 I went to the two hair salons in my city that offered the treatment to ask about more information and prices. The first hair salon told me that the treatment costs 150 euros and that it lasts for about 4 months. Even though 150 euros is really not a lot to spend on a such a complicated and timely process, I was not quite convinced because the hair dresser didn’t seem to know the answers the all of the questions I was asking him. If you do decide to get the treatment or anything similar you must make sure that the hairdresser knows what he’s/she’s doing! The second hair salon I went to set me an appointment with one of their hairdresser’s so I could ask him more questions and really get to know the process. The hairdresser told me very specific details which made me feel a lot better than the people at the first place, and he also told me about the price which came in at 300 euros. Even though the price was a little much I went ahead and did it because I was completely ready to say goodbye to my kinky and frizzy curls. 

 The process lasted about 6 hours due to the hairbrush not being able to comb my hair (thanks genetics). One thing that made me feel kind of worried was the very strong and harsh chemical scent that filled the whole hair salon (keep in mind that it was a pretty big two story salon), and the multiple ladies that claimed that it smelled “just like getting a perm”. After the treatment my hair was EXTREMELY straight and flat for about two weeks. I’m talking absolutely NO VOLUME. AT ALL. However, after the two weeks passed my hair started to gain its volume back and looked really nice. Something I also noticed is that after I got out of the shower my hair did not dry completely straight unless I would comb through it every half hour while it was drying. I’m not completely sure if that happens to everyone or it just depends on whether your hairdresser did a good job or not.

 Overtime I started noticing a lot of changes in my hair. It was getting dryer, dull and it just started to break a lot. To this day I still have a couple of pieces in my hair that are shorter and dryer than the rest. This is something that is apparently very common when you get the keratin treatment because anytime a hairdresser points out these pieces to me when I tell them about the treatment I had done they all respond in the same way: “Oh that’s why”. Jennifer Aniston has also had this problem from the keratin treatment (which is why she cut her hair short).  



PROS: Leaves your hair straight for at least 9 months.
Hair is silky smooth.
Time saver for when getting ready.
CONS: Contains Formaldehyde (carcinogenic) and other harsh chemicals.
Depending on where you live can be very pricey.
Damages hair.
Absolutely no volume for at least 2 weeks.
Hair never fully goes back to natural texture, unless its grown out completely and all chemically treated hair is cut. 


 Finally, I’m going to leave you with my personal opinion on wether you should get the treatment or not. Don’t do it. I honestly don’t think that it’s worth paying a great amount of money to damage your hair and health. Fortunately for all girls that don’t like their natural curls, there are other treatments and devices out there for healthy straight hair. 

 If you have anything to share about the keratin straightening treatment or the Japanese Liscio treatment please leave a comment down below!

xoxo,

Loukia.