As I've mentioned before, basically all my hair fell out after I had a baby, but it's begun to grow back, which is good except for a curly-haired person, new short hair just leads to a crown of frizz. See below:
The frizz was making me INSANE. And I decided I needed to step into the world of keratin. I did my first treatment in November (with Alex and Michael Anthony Salon on North Avenue. I LOVE him) and had planned to do a before and after post for all of you, but never got around to taking pictures. Oops. But the treatment's lifespan had ended (as evidenced by the above photos) and it was time to re-keratin myself.
I went back in for the keratin blowout since I liked it so much the last time, but out of stupidity and scheduling issues, I did not go to my styling love Alex but another stylist I'd never seen before. She told me about how Aveda has their own keratin treatment now and, while it is more expensive, it uses much less chemicals and is more natural and lasts longer. After some convincing I upgraded to Aveda's treatment. Whichever treatment you get, it has to be flat-ironed to seal into your hair, so this is me post-flat ironing. No, this is not what your hair looks like regularly after a keratin treatment.
And then I completely forgot to take the real "after" pictures where I just let it air dry normally. Oops. I then proceeded to go on a trip to the Bahamas where I washed my hair daily, if not twice daily depending on pool visits. So these pics (which I lazily took with my phone) aren't a fresh post-keratin look. You're not supposed to wash your hair everyday as to extend the life of the treatment. But you can get the idea. These are just air-dryed, nothing done to my hair days. Please note the significant decrease in the crazy halo of frizz ridiculousness.
This one is post gym, so I'm especially gross but it seems to look only slightly frazzly.
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| Please don't judge my chipped nail polish, I'm doing my nails tomorrow. |
First of all, there are two different levels of keratining, one lasts, I think, 6 weeks (if you don't wash your hair everyday and use certain types of shampoo) and the longer one lasts... 3 months? I've never done the longer one. Michael Anthony Salon (not sure what other salons do) has you do a consultation first to figure out what works better for you and at my consultation we discussed how the longer version would be too heavy for my hair. And I like a little bit of wave/curl left so I didn't want to do the whole shebang. Plus it's twice as much and I'm loathe to drop that much on my hair in one visit. And with each of the services you can't wash your hair for 1-2 days.
1) The keratin treatments. There's the full treatment at... $300? You get a free shampoo and conditioner that is compatible with keratin with your treatment. It lasts about 3 months. I did the keratin blowout which was, I think, $175. It's labeled as lasting 6 weeks, but I found it lasted much longer than that.
2) Aveda keratin. This is the one that was kind of sort of pushed on me as "better." This too has the longer version, which I have no idea how much it costs, but does not come with the free shampoo and conditioner, which are Aveda and pricey so sad not to get them. The shorter version was $225 and SMELLED SO BAD. I seriously was ready to vom for most of it. It's done just as good a job at de-frizzing but it's left my hair feeling really dry and strawy. For being the more "natural" option, I would've expected it to be easier on my hair. I was pretty annoyed about that and called to complain, and in the 5 years of me going to this salon I've never complained once. Lastly, I only got it 3 weeks ago, so I can't vouch for how long it lasts yet, but having been washed extra, it's still holding up well.
EWP Grades.
Regular Keratin: A- (minus for the price)
Aveda Keratin: C+
