Guest Post by Kitty at Not A Nose - Home Keratin Treatment

My dream is to have low-maintenance hair, and I’ve tried other straightening treatments to achieve this (http://getlippie.blogspot.com/2011/11/guest-post-charles-worthington-straigh.html) with limited success. This is my hair on a good hair day – it’s wavy, thick and quite coarse. It only looks this good in the photo thanks to the conditioning spray that I liberally applied before letting it air dry. The waves will turn into frizz by the next morning, and no amount of spray or scrunching will get them back. If I straighten it, it pretty much inhales humidity and becomes really big and scruffy within a day.

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I’m trying this Brazilian Keratin kit that I purchased on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brazilian-Straightening-Blow-Dry-Keratin-Treatment/dp/B003YUEF7C . It contains everything you need to carry out the treatment apart from a hair dryer and straighteners. Unfortunately it did come with those horrible disposable gloves that are stuck onto the paper. These always remind me of lobster claws and they always end up letting stuff run down your arm into the glove.

The instructions supplied were pretty clear with the step by step process described, and a page of FAQ. The instructions advise a patch test for 48 hours before applying the kit. You MUST do this. In the Amazon reviews there are people complaining about reactions to the product, and as the product will be left on your hair for 48 hours you do need to be certain it won’t cause you any problems.

So – down to the process. All in all this took me about 1.5 hours, if you have a friend to help it probably will take less time.

Step 1: Wash your hair with the supplied clarifying shampoo. Comb your hair first as this shampoo left my hair quite tangled and hard to comb.

Step 2: Blow dry your hair on medium heat.

Step 3: Put on the gloves, section up your hair and use the brush to apply the product. I wasn’t actually sure how much product I should use, in the end I’d used half of pot on my relatively short hair. The product doesn’t smell too bad at this stage, a bit sugary sweet. Help from a friend at this stage would be useful, I had to use 2 mirrors and a lot of uncoordinated hand waving to apply it to the back. Comb through the product just in case you’ve missed a bit.

Step 4: Blow dry your hair straight on medium heat. Hooooo boy! Now the product smells like I’ve fallen into a vat of toxic crème caramel. This stage really has to be done in a well ventilated room, by the end of it my eyes were streaming. It also seemed to take a lot of drying, at one point I was really thinking it wasn’t going to dry at all. At the end of this stage my hair felt a bit ‘claggy’ as if I’d applied too much mousse/product.

Step 5: Straighten your hair with hot irons, going over each section up to 7 times. Use a comb to hold your hair while you do this as the hair will get mighty hot. The smell was still there, but not as eye-wateringly powerful, and my hair didn’t feel sticky any more.

And here is the finished result. It looks pretty flat and straight doesn’t it?

Now I am into the RULES

Rules for first 48 hours until you can wash your hair for the first time (you can leave it longer if you want and if you’re a dirty mare like me)

• Keep your hair dry, if it does get wet, blow dry and straighten.
• do not tie your hair up, push it behind your ears or kink it in any way.
• Re-straighten your hair if any kinks develop .
• don’t feed it after midnight.
• Avoid hair products that contain salt (sodium chloride) as it shortens the lifespan of the treatment. It can be found in shampoo, conditioner and non-obvious products like heat protection spray.

I used Tresemme Naturals shampoo and conditioner, but you can buy specialist salt free shampoos on Amazon.

I ended up leaving it 72 hours before washing my hair due to general laziness, I didn’t find the treatment left it greasy. I washed it, did a very quick blast dry with a hair dryer just running it through with my fingers, and here is the result.

I’ll be back in a couple of days to to let you know how the treatment held up.

Kitty talks too much on social media, and is trying to keep her essay writing mojo alive in the summer vacation by writing about perfume http://notanose.wordpress.com/

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