Keratin treatment, disappointing

[Huckleberries]

Hi, I just thought I'd update as I had a couple of threads on this

I have found this disappointing, but I might be unrealistic

I'm not sure if it's the treatment or the shampoo / having to go to SLS free

Basically, has it smoothed my hair - yes

But it's kind of lank now and hard to style

If you do style it, it falls out very quickly. I've only tried this at the weekend.

It is definitely smoother, but I didn't realise I had more flyaways than frizz. So those are still there unless you do the load of hairspray thing

And it feels like it's lost a lot of volume

I'm not sure I would recommend it

I've saved all the time trying to smooth it down but it just increases the time I have to spend trying to make it look lively

Just sharing in case it helps anyone. Maybe I'll feel differently about it later on. I think it has saved me a bit of time. But not necessarily worth the 150 quid.

I suppose I've satisfied my curiosity about it

I can see now why people go for a regular blow dry because that might do better and actually it might even survive a gym workout better than what I've got at the moment.

they told me to just style it as normal. To be fair, I don't normally do any styling.

It is smoother. It just isn't the amazing swishy hair i thought it would be.

I'm beginning to think that a lot of the women I see around my way have hair extensions or weaves of some kind in.

I didn't like it either -

But hair Botox (basically a leave in conditioner that gets heat treated in and lasts for c 6 weeks) is really good for my fine/curly/dry/coloured/shite hair.

and it's cheaper and doesn't fill the salon with toxic fumes.

however, the women you see either have thick hair with they style or thinner hair with extensions which they style. Extensions do have a tendency to look crap if you don't really keep up with them, so I'd try and avoid that, but it's a very rare person that gets glossy swish without styling.

There are several different types of keratin treatments and not all make your hair lank and straight. Give it a week or two for the roots to grow and you should get your root lift back.
I do it myself using cocochoco gold from amazon, partially blow dry hair upside down, then use a Revlon one step to add bounce.
I wanted to tame the frizz, not make my hair straight and it takes me about six minutes to dry and style my shoulder length hair.

It depends on what your hair is naturally like. It will definitely decrease the volume, particularly initially (after a couple of weeks when the roots grow out that won't be so much the case any more), and if you don't have a lot of hair then it will show that up.

I do have a lot of hair, and to me it is a lifesaver. Without it styling my hair would take at least half an hour or I'd look a mess, with it it looks mostly OK without doing anything much to it, great if I spend about 5 minutes on it.

I have thick hair and I had it to reduce frizz, not to get rid of the curl

My friends and family have told me that I'm chatting shit 😂

The hairdresser actually commented that as it was thick hair, it would be good because there might be some loss of volume but she said "you can easily manage that whereas some clients can't"

Nobody actually realised I've done something so drastic, they just thought I'd really gone for it with smoothing down products, except for my sister who has a lot of hair treatments and she understands these things

The salon didn't fill up with horrible fumes, but there are so many treatments around now I get confused. I mentioned hair Botox and they told me that that is still fundamentally a keratin treatment but doesn't last as long?

Maybe my expectations were just too high. I was almost expecting just no styling at all then I suppose I thought it would just look better than it does.

@CatherinedeBourgh i've never had to spend half an hour doing my hair just to get out of the house, maybe I was trying to fix a problem that wasn't really there

Couple of friends did express surprise that I did it. So my hair may not have looked as bad as I thought in the first place!

I suppose the real test will be how it copes with humidity but we're not likely to get much of that in December 😂

maybe next week it will seem better. It grows quite quickly so I should get my root lift back soon.

That's such a shame, I have a Keratin treatment every 5 months and couldn't be without it. My hair is really thick and frizzy, the treatment smooths it out and drying takes half the time.
I can still style it and curl it with volume.
Hopefully it settles for you :-)

Give it a few washes - maybe blow dry upside down for volume too?

Ive had several over the years and it can be a bit hit and miss to be honest but it’s great for repelling any moisture in the air even at this time of year so bear with it would be my advice.

Oh I completely agree! I come from a family of full heads of hair. I came out of this looking like I'd lost volume, shape, personality, and a throw back in time.

I sympathise. I had a hair Botox treatment to try and contain the humidity related frizz and all it did was decrease the volume and make it look drab. I liked the volume and thickness, I didn’t like the frizz and the way it increases to three times its size as soon as there’s a sniff of damp in the air. Luckily it only lasted a couple of months.

@dudsville @Gervhill relieved it's not just me

I think it will probably improve. Big night out at the weekend and not quite sure what to do - will a couple of washes with my usual SLS containing shampoo help?

I wonder what makes the hit or the miss.

It depends on the technique I think, if they over straighten it then it can go a bit lank.

Mostly though the aftercare - I’d only use a tiny drop of conditioner if needed then rough dry upside down and then style.

Hope you see an improvement 😊

I get mine done every six months and it definitely feels more lank and very, very straight for the first couple of weeks until your roots grow slightly but after that it is amazing for me. It's really going to depend on what your natural hair is like though. Mine was always birds nest frizzy and very thick before I started getting the treatments.

Give it a couple of weeks before you make up your mind but if it's not for you at least you tried it. Using a shampoo with SLS and salt will remove some of the effect so if you hate it that's always an option. I avoid salt, silicones and sulfates in my hair products and then can last six months between treatments.

@GameOfJones yeah on Monday it will be two weeks since I washed it out for the first time

It did look dire for the three days I wasn't allowed to wash it. I should probably pop back in and ask them what product they used and if they have different ones.

Yesterday was quite rainy here and I suppose it was humid - anyway my hair was not actually a disaster. So that's good.

Also yesterday somebody told me it looked "really nice" but if she had figured out what I had done, she didn't say anything.

I do normally wash my hair every day, but to be honest, I can get away with doing it less on a normal shampoo. However, on SLS free, it looks really lank and it looks like it needs washing every day

I suppose it might improve as it goes along I hope so because I really don't want to have wasted £160

Also, there is a thread going about calming down the frizz and I cannot believe how much hassle some posters are experiencing doing this, I didn't really bother.

I have realised the reason why some hairdressers are doing curls by using straighteners - keeps moisture out and reduces frizz. It was explained to me while I was having this treatment done - the hairdresser was saying that even though I have natural curl, it might be worth using straighteners to curl because that would make it less frizzy

Why is hair so complicated?!

From what I understand, there are different brands of keratin treatment so it may be that the brand they used on you doesn’t particularly suit your hair.
The treatment my hairdresser uses is a brand where you can wash your hair whenever you want and that brand works perfectly on my hair. I did go to a different hairdresser once and it was a different brand where I couldn’t wash my hair for 3 days and that brand didn’t take well to my hair at all, felt lank and greasy and didn’t really make much of a difference.