If you’ve thought about getting the Keratin smoothing treatment, don’t. It ruined my hair

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If you’ve thought about getting the Keratin smoothing treatment, don’t. It ruined my hair

This is why I cut it all off last time

As anyone who has grown up with curly hair knows, it can be a pain in the ass to care for — especially if you’re one of those people who insists on straightening it anyway.

It requires blowdrying, oil, straightening, sleeping with a hat on, and re-straightening in the morning, just to get it to a point you’re probably still not happy with. It takes hours of time our of your life, and more likely than not, nobody will even notice, because you do it all regardless.

So after twenty-two years of trial and error, and a two year span where I got stuck growing it out after cutting it all off in a rage of wanting ‘easy hair’, I finally decided to try the Keratin smoothing treatment.

This is what my hair looks like natural, despite being a bit blonder now.

So after hearing about the treatment for years, and finally feeling I would be able to pay for and take care of it, I booked an appointment. I was told it would last four to six months, and I couldn’t believe my luck.

“It’ll smooth your hair,” they said. And it did at first, until it started ruining it.

The first three days were great (except for the three inches they cut off my hair after the treatment, telling me my ends would be ruined). My hair still seemed to have lift — probably because of how they blew it dry professionally, but it definitely did not seem problematically flat to me. But after three days, I was meant to wash it first the first time, and the second I stepped into the shower, I could tell there was a problem.

My hair felt coarse and crunchy. Shampooing caused huge knots, and conditioner wasn’t sinking in to fix it like it used to.

I can’t say it didn’t work to straighten my hair, because it did, but now it’s knotty, thin, unmanageable for different reasons, and pressed flat against my skull.

The other major problem with it is that it’s super, super greasy now. I can’t put any healing product into it, and I have to shower at least once a day, or I wake up with it looking like I went running before going to work. Not a good look for me, and everybody I work with knows I don’t run.

For certain people this treatment may work better than for others, but I definitely would not recommend it to anyone with hair like mine any time soon.

@carolinephinney