- FREE Shipping when you spend over $100
- Supporting stylists by passing on lower costs! Log in to see
What do Keratin Treatments REALLY do?
Blog #7 What do keratin treatments REALLY do? What are you really changing in the hair?
I’m going to be honest, this one stymied me for a while. These treatments came out after I finished cosmetology school and I wasn’t behind the chair anymore. I read what was in random articles that popped up and my first experience seeing a family who had a treatment. She mentioned that she had gotten a Brazillian and everyone under 40 snorted and laughed. Then I asked what it was and she repeated the lines I has seen in ads: smoothing, silky, wash and go, etc. I was looking at her hair that was frizzy, damaged, breaking, and on the edge of horrible. I thought she was either crazy or her stylist did it wrong. My life continued in the world of academia where huge ideas are debated as if we had any control over anything, other than what we were going to have for lunch that day.
When I reentered this world I knew that keratin treatments had formaldehyde, that they caused blindness, the chemicals are carcinogenic, generally a really bad idea, if you want to know how bad of an idea, read THIS. Scroll down to “Safety”. When I say “keratin treatments” I am referring to treatments to use hydrolyzed keratin protien and some version of aldehyde.
But what do they REALLY DO, what is the whole point of this post? I did a deep dive and looked at the chemicals, compared them to what I knew about hair, read everything I could. When the lightbulb finally came on I understood why the family friend had hair that was horrible. I also understood why she thought her hair was amazing. Both of those things are true and you are about to find out why. Buckle up and know that it is ok to reread this until you understand. I have also included pictures so you can refer to those to understand.
Start with keratin. It is a protein (we will do another blog about what that means) that does the job of protection, flexibility, and covering. Everything from rhino horns, horse hooves, sheep wool and human hair is all keratin. Well mainly keratin, you also have the stuff that colors it and the stuff that protects it. But mainly this stuff is a series of amino acids in a line that twists into a twisty, old school telephone cord, shape. But it is more than one thing, there are millions of these little things winding around each other to make up the cortex of hair. See the picture below! The backbone of the protein is called the peptide chain, this is what everything else is built from, like ribs off of the backbone.
So what do keratin treatments REALLY do? First, they have keratin that is extracted from somewhere else. You have to break down the bigger bundles of keratin into the tiny, individual ones to use in the solution. Then they add in something to break apart the peptide chain, something that has an –aldehyde. This aldehyde breaks the coils apart, the new keratin fills in the gaps and you use heat from a flat iron to make this all happen. The flat iron also helps to get the configuration correct. This changes the shape from a coil that stretches and flexes to a sheet that is smooth.
This is great, right? Ahhh, no. The new keratin injected into the hair is only temporary. Breaking apart the coils is permanent. When my family friend thought her hair was effortlessly smooth and shiny, it was! But only at the beginning. What happens AFTER 3-6 weeks? The keratin that was absorbed? Yeah, it washes out. The keratin that is broken apart to make these sheets? Yeah, that washes out too. And your client’s hair will get thinner until it breaks. The cuticle will puff out like a pinecone, catching on each other until you rip the cuticle layers off just trying to comb it. Can you do the treatment again? Yes, but you can’t use the same keratin again, you will have to break apart new ones. Your clients will get a smooth-ish look for a while, but not as smooth as the first time and now it will break down faster. You will get a worse thinning pinecone.
You are smart enough to understand what is going on! Keep asking questions until you understand what is happening, not just what your client’s hair will look like at the end. You are worth protecting!
