I'm a biracial girl with biracial hair. I grew up with a white mother who, despite being the best meaning, nicest, most supportive mom a girl could wish for, just didn't know what to do with my hair. That's not for want of trying! She was constantly reading books and articles about caring for Black hair, trying new at-home treatments on my unruly mane, and telling me that my hair was beautiful, no matter how much of a frizzy yield sign it became.
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| Thanks, wind, for blowing my hair into a good 'fro. I'm, as always, the short one with the outsized enthusiasm. |
Mom, you're the real VIP.
Still, my hair beat my mom every time and when I grew up and made enough to afford expensive hair treatments, I immediately gave them a go.
I do like my curls, so Japanese Straightening or any permanent, chemical straightening treatment stayed off limits. I didn't want to damage my hair like that and I was worried I'd end up with dry, brittle hair that would make me miss what I'd had with my natural hair.
Fierce beauties like Danai Gurira made me consider shaving it all off, but at the end of the day that just isn't the aesthetic that feels most like me, at least at this point in my life. I can't say I'll never shave my head, but for now I like medium-long. Or medium-wide, since my hair doesn't always fall straight down?
When I started getting keratin treatments on my hair about ten years ago, it was still pre-DevaCurl popularity, so keratin seemed like the clear winner. I still use keratin, though I may eventually switch over to DevaCurl, so it's more or less working out for me. If you're considering getting keratin treatments yourself, here's what I find the biggest pros and cons of the treatment to be!
Benefits of Keratin Treatments:
1. Reduced daily upkeep.
Pre-keratin, it took me ages to comb my hair. I'd only wash it twice per week, because each time I did I'd have to commit to an hour or so of combing through terrible knots, and getting it reasonably well combed each morning was its own 20 minute commitment each time.
Post-keratin, I can comb my whole head of hair in under ten minutes most days, including post-shower.
Styling also took forever, but now I can really just wash and go.
2. Reduced frizz.
Pre-keratin, I had curls - under at least a solid inch of frizz.
It's night and day.
3. Increased shine.
Chemical relaxers make your hair straight, but they also make it dry and visibly damaged. It's hard to get really good shine with chemically relaxed hair. Whether or not keratin damages your hair (the jury is still out on that) it doesn't make your hair look damaged. You can achieve not only as good shine as your natural state hair, but better shine.
4. Reduced blowdry times and improved results.
That formerly hour-long blowout now takes an easy 15-20 minutes and you can get smooth, silky, salon-straight results yourself, at home, as opposed to that bushy mess you (at least, I) struggled with when trying to blowout my hair myself.
5. Soft hair.
Keratin makes my hair so soft. Like 'I'd just sit there petting my hair if that wasn't super weird' levels of soft. It's touchably beautiful hair.
Drawbacks of Keratin Treatments:
1. Smaller biceps.
Combing through my thicket of curls used to be quite the arm workout and, because I'm more of a cardio bunny when it comes to actually hitting the gym, I'm pretty sure I've lost muscle definition in my arms since beginning keratin treatments.
I'll gladly be #teamspaghettiarms if it means less hair-doing pain.
2. It takes f%*$!?/ forever and you have to do it 2-3 times per year.
Each treatment takes at least around two hours (but I've legitimately been in the chair for almost five hours once before) and you have to do it two or three times per year, since it's not permanent. If you follow salon instructions, you actually have to get it done three or four (!) times per year, but who has time for that?
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