Being a curly haired girl, having straight hair has been like trying to finding the holy grail, thus I have been down many hairstyles and chemical routes. This would include reverse perms, relaxers, Japanese straighteners, Brazilian blowouts you name it, I’ve tried it.Being a curly haired girl, having straight hair has been like trying to finding the holy grail, thus I have been down many chemical routes. This would include reverse perms, relaxers, Japanese straighteners, Brazilian blowouts you name it, I’ve tried it.Being a curly haired girl, having straight hair has been like trying to finding the holy grail, thus I have been down many chemical routes. This would include reverse perms, relaxers, Japanese straighteners, Brazilian blowouts you name it, I’ve tried it.
What have I learnt along the way? Firstly, if you going down the chemical route, you need to ensure your hair is in a reasonably healthy state because you can bet your lucky stars that there will be damage afterwards. It is harsh chemicals after all and I’ve actually lost patches of hair. The regrowth is not a pretty sight. You don’t want a weird spiky patch of hair in the middle of your head. This usually happens when I do a DIY job. I really don’t recommend the store bought el cheapo ones as they do more damage than good.
Hair that has been highlighted or bleached is also a no go for chemical treatments. The cuticle of highlighted/bleached hair is porous and much weaker making it not ideal for a chemical process.
Chemical perms, relaxers, straighteners. What do they do you may ask?
They absorb into the hair shaft and change the natural shape of the hair. It breaks the internal bonds of the hair in order to reform it thus affecting hair elasticity and strength. With any chemical treatment, lots of heat needs to be applied in order for the chemical to react. The chemicals in these treatments can also irritate the scalp so caution needs to be taken when applying it. Best to go to a professional who knows how to apply it but this can be very costly. Professional treatments include the Bionic Retex system. At salons you are looking at paying around R1500 to R2000 depending on the length of your hair. This system promises shiny, sleek and straight hair. Bionic also has an anti-frizz treatment called Kera-Smooth which eliminates frizz and smoothes any hair type. It also works in 45 minutes and is a 1 step process.
Other straightening treatments are Wella Straight, Matrix Opti Smooth, Redken Vertical amongst others. A cheaper DIY option is the Scott Cornwall Str8 Forward which retails for R170 at Clicks and Dischem. Like most, it is a lengthy process and it’s advisable to recruit a friend or family member to assist. I invited a friend under the guise that I’m making brunch, only to discover that she’s my little hair assistant. You might want to go with the same route as the process will take up to 5 hours.
There’s also the lengthy but less invasive Brazilian Keratin treatment which we’ve all heard of by now. While I’ve read some good reviews of this, it just wasn’t for my hair type. I had the formaldehyde free version and it didn’t really make any change to my thick and extremely curly hair. It was however much more shiny and soft but it didn’t reduce my maintenance time.
So that’s the skinny on skinny hairstyles!
Article By: Janis Aranes http://www.beautybulletin.com/blog-directory/our-bloggers/janis-aranes
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