A little over a month ago I decided to take the plunge and get a keratin treatment. My hair has been notoriously frizzy and unruly, but I was hesitant to part with my signature waves. When I did research into various keratin treatments I saw a lot of conflicting information online, so I thought it might be helpful to write a short post about what I learned from doing a keratin treatment and how I feel it's affected my hair overall.
Will a keratin treatment damage my hair?
This was the first thing I searched when I became interested in the procedure. If you search this question on Google you'll find a lot of conflicting answers about whether the Keratin actually helps your hair or hurts it.
I've seen a few articles that say that the keratin treatment actually makes your hair stronger and healthier and that the more you do it the stronger your hair will become. In the same vein, I've also seen articles that say that a keratin treatment is super stripping and damaging for your hair.
To this day I'm not completely sure whether or not it hurt my hair or damaged it in any way. I will say, just by feeling the overall texture of my ends, my hair seems to have been infused with more moisture and not as dead feeling as it used to be.
This being said, I can't tell what kind of breakage might have ensued from using the chemicals that are part of the keratin treatment process.
If you have really damaged hair I would definitely suggest talking to your hairstylist before at a consultation to see if this will be the right procedure for you.
In my case, my hair had been dyed and bleached many, many times and the treatment worked pretty well for me without any noticeable damage or hair loss.
How long do the results last?
Depending on what type of keratin treatment you get the results will last a different amount of time. For the particular treatment that I chose, I was told that it would last about four months if I took care of it properly and used the proper keratin shampoo and conditioner.
In my opinion, after about 2 weeks I was unsure if I could really tell that I had a keratin treatment. My hair was feeling hydrated, but the moisture I felt in my hair I felt I could get from an argan oil hair mask, rather than paying $175 for a hair smoothing procedure. In the first week or so I was very impressed with the keratin treatment.
My hair was smooth, shiny, and retained some of that straightness I desired. Even after I showered I found that my hair would not frizz up when it was really humid outside. However, after about a month my hair felt almost back to normal. It was less frizzy than before but not to a degree where I thought "Wow, this was worth the money I spent."
I think that the results also depend on your original hair texture, but for me, it didn't last nearly as long as I expected it to even though I was only washing my hair once every four days or so.
Will a keratin treatment make my hair straight?
NO. It will not.
When I arrived at the salon to get my keratin treatment, I told my stylist how excited I was to finally have straight hair. She quickly informed me that the procedure would only make my hair more smooth and soft, it wouldn't actually make my hair straight for the long-term.
She said it would look straight when I left the salon that day because she had to blow it out, but that straightness would not last very long and that my original hair texture would come back pretty quickly. I walked into the salon that day expecting to have straight hair for the next four months so when I heard that I was really disappointed.
If you're like me and you expect this treatment to make your hair somewhat straight, I'll be the one to inform you that that is not going to happen.
I will say that the frizziness definitely improved but my hair returned to its natural wavy state after two washes.
The Lux Treatment
I also received another hair treatment courtesy of Garden NYC Salon in exchange for some hair modeling. I've never done hair modeling before but I can tell you that I would 100% do it again.
I believe the name of the treatment I received was called the Lux Treatment and it originates from Japan. Essentially, this treatment is a keratin treatment without the use of formaldehyde and various bad-smelling chemicals.
It's touted as a more natural alternative to frizz-free, shiny hair. I will put out a disclaimer and say it is not a straightening treatment, it's a smoothing treatment. I decided to give it a go since I didn't really like the results I had for my keratin treatment earlier.
This is my hair one day after receiving the treatment and (yes) it is pin-straight but I don't expect it to be straight once I wash my hair.
Compared to the keratin treatment, the softness that I feel in my hair currently is almost wig-like. My hair feels so silky it's almost unreal.
Since I received this procedure for free I can't really say for sure whether or not I would get it again if I had to pay full retail price, but I definitely want to see how this treatment ages compared to the Keratin I received before and see which one I like better.
Overall, I'm excited to see what direction my hair takes with all these treatments happening. With all the smoothing treatments I get, I start to appreciate my natural wave more and more. It's fun to have my hair straight for a little while, but I think my waves really make me feel like me :)
In the future, if I do anything else with my hair I'll be sure to provide updates on how the Lux Treatment ages. For now, thank you for reading, and I'll see you in the next post!
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