For those of you that have watched my mane over the past year, you’ve seen what lengths I go to to get it straight. Hairstylists hate me; one look at my hair and they know they will be working themselves into a sweat for the next two hours. This is what the professionals have to do:
Colleen Ford at Icons and her arsenal of brushes attacking my frizz last summer.
It’s your time or your money friends, and I don’t have much of either. So when it comes to doing my hair myself, my options are straighten it or let it go curly. When I fix it, it is a 45 minute process that pretty much disintigrates after one hour outside. Letting it go curly takes about an hour for it to air-dry, plus an EXTREME gamble on the largess of the frizz. So the majority of the time, it is go curly with ponytail.
Like any good problem, it does not go away on it’s own, and most often requires professional help. I was ready to call in the professionals and I’ve been researching keratin treatments for a year. Yes, a year.
In a nutshell, a full keratin treatment takes about three hours to do. Prices start at $300 and it lasts for four-six months (more for some). After your treatment, you cannot wash your hair for 72 hours. You also cannot wear a hat, put your hair in any sort of ponytail, clip, head band, nothing; for anything put on the hair will make an imprint. Keratin treatments use formaldehyde and several recent reports warn users of this chemical being placed on their scalp. There are less toxic procedures, but they are not as highly recommended as the keratin.
Here were my reservations:
1. Scared of the stories of extreme toxicity of the formaldehyde.
2. Did not want pin-straight hair. On my face, straight hair looks like a toupee on a basketball.
3. Did not want to face how thin my hair would look if relaxed.
4. Did not want to pay $300-400.
5. Cannot even fathom not washing my hair for 72 hours.
6. Cannot even fathom not wearing a clip, pony tail, bobby pin, any means necessary to get stick straight hair out of my face for 72 hours.
I found the solution for me: The Blowout Express Keratin Treatment.
This is the lighter keratin treatment for commitment-phobes like me. It is only $125 and takes 1.5 hours to do the treatment. The effects last for eight weeks (more for some). You only have to wait 8 hours after the treatment is done to wash your hair or put it back in a ponytail.
So conditions were ripe for my treatment. Rainy, humid, did I mention rainy? This is how I showed up to see Larry at Twisted Salon.
Difficulty level=10.
I’m sure he probably went and drank a Red Bull before the treatment started after seeing this mess.
The treatment includes:
- Two clarifying shampoos
- Placing keratin product on with a paintbrush and combing all the way through the ends on wet hair.
- Blowing it dry.
- Flat ironing the entire head with very small portions of hair. The heat seals in the product.
