Since middle school my hair has been a quite frizzy and somewhat curly texture. When this began happening, I invested in my first hair straightener from Target – a $20 Conair pink leopard print one that I still own to this day. It had two settings: off and on. That straightener was my baby; I used it almost every morning getting ready for school from the seventh grade until mid-high school. Eventually, my hair became damaged from the constant use of heat, but I continued to fight my frizz. After I tried countless YouTube tutorials and attempted many Pinterest D.I.Y potions to get silky-smooth hair, I continued to straighten my hair daily.
(Here’s a nice selfie from my first day of high school. As you can see my hair was quite curly and textured.)
When shopping at my local Sally’s Beauty Supply Store, I saw a box that was an at home Keratin Straightening treatment. Intrigued, I picked up the box and read how seemingly easy it was to permanently straighten your hair with keratin. I ended up buying the $25 box, but I didn’t end up using it until this past week. I think I held off on it because I was sure it wasn’t going to work. Also, after applying the treatment, you can’t wash your hair for 72 hours, so I needed to find a chunk of three days that I knew I wasn’t going to be sweating too much.
(This is the at-home Keratin straightening treatment I purchases from Sally’s Beauty Supply Store)
When I read the instructions prior to use they seemed pretty straight forward:
1. Shampoo your hair two to four times with the shampoo
2. Dry your hair with a hair blow dryer on medium heat
3. Apply and comb the keratin straightening treatment to small sections of hair
4. Let the treatment process for 15 to 20 minutes
5. Flat iron small sections of your hair to seal the treatment
6. Do not get your hair wet for at least 72 hours
I followed the instructions step by step and even watched a few at-home keratin straightening YouTube videos to get an idea of how and what to do. I began by shampooing my hair with the given shampoo four times to ensure my hair was free of oils and styling products. This step took about 10 to 15 minutes. Then, I rough dried my hair on medium heat with my hair blow dryer. This step took about seven minutes. Next, I applied the keratin treatment to small sections of my hair starting in the back of my head and working forwards, making sure to comb through each sections to make sure the product was being evenly dispersed. This step was one of the more time consuming steps taking in total around 20 to 30 minutes. Next, I waited while the treatment saturated my hair. This step took around 15 to 20 minutes. Lastly, I straightened small sections of my hair to seal the treatment into my hair follicles. This step took around 10 to 15 minutes.
The whole procedure was pretty easy for the most part; it was just a little time consuming. In total, the whole process took around an hour and a half. After waiting three days, I washed my hair and tried to air dry it in hopes that my frizzy hair would vanish. To my hopes, I did see a little fewer frizzes, but my wavy/curly texture was not completely gone. I did notice a significant gain of softness and my hair felt much more nourished after the procedure. All in all, the process was a lot of fun and definitely worth the $25 at-home version versus the $200 salon straightening treatment.