Singaporebrides | Beauty
September 2014
Five Steps to Manageable Hair With Goldwell
I was invited by Goldwell to preview the launch of their first customisable Kerasilk Keratin Treatment Service, which aims to let women gain control of their unruly hair.
This revolutionary treatment smoothens your hair and lets you control its shape with personalised formulas that work with your current hair texture. Unlike other smoothening hair treatments in the market, this treatment is formaldehyde-free and safe to use without damaging your hair.
The treatment is made up of a mixture of two formulas, Kerasilk Keratin Shape and Kerasilk Keratin Smooth, which contains glyoxylic acid and smoothing ingredients (keratin and silk proteins). The breakthrough KeraShape Technology creates new keratin bonds during the treatment, then stabilises the new hair shape for up to five months.
While we were on our way to the launch, two models were already at the salon getting their hair treated. Actually, their hair was parted in two, and only the right side was being treated with the new formulas.
As you can see from the photo, both of them have hair of different textures. During the consultation at the treatment, the hairstylist will recommend a customised formula consisting of the Shape and Smooth creams with different strengths (Medium/Intense). The concept is simple: the curlier and frizzier your hair is, the stronger the formula has to be. For example, if you have curly and frizzy hair like the model in the foreground, your stylist would be using Shape-Intense and Smooth-Intense to treat your hair.
My Kerasilk Keratin Treatment
I made an appointment with Sunny Kor of IKON Salon at The Adelphi to get my Kerasilk Keratin Treatment. To begin with, I have naturally wavy hair that has been bleached and dyed. While I was happy with the shape of my hair, the curls do make it unpredictable, and I have to spend a lot of time blow-drying my hair before I leave the house every day. The ends of my hair are also damaged from the constant bleaching I put them through, and oh, do I even have to mention the frizz? I blame this country’s humidity!
Sunny took a look at my hair and asked about the concerns I have about my hair. Knowing that I just needed to tame my frizz and soften my wavy hair, he decided that I could go with Shape-Medium and Smooth-Medium. During the treatment, which took about two hours for my medium hair length, I asked Sunny what he thought of this new breakthrough from Goldwell. That was when we started reminiscing about the good ol’ bad hair days.
Types of Hair Straightening Treatments
Chemical hair straightening started its early days in Singapore with Hair Relaxing. This is a procedure that straightens the hair permanently by breaking down the components of the hair using sodium hydroxide. It can straighten the hair quickly, but also weaken it, and the chemical can irritate the scalp if the treatment was not done professionally.
Then there was the Japanese Straight Perm, which is a cornstarch-based system that uses heat oxidation to seal the hair and rebuild it from the inside using special formulas and heating irons. The next most popular hair straightening treatment is probably Hair Rebonding. Similar to the Straight Perm, after the perming chemical is applied, the hair loosens its bonds. Using a flat iron, the hair bonds are restructured and then applied with a neutralising agent that will preserve the newly structured hair bonds.
One other hair straightening treatment that didn’t quite catch on here is the Brazilian Blowout. This is an amino acid-based treatment that was marketed to be safe to perform on all chemically-treated hair, such as the bleached, the permed, and even the previously relaxed. This caused quite a buzz in Brazil, where it originated, and spread to the US. But there’s more. Concerns were raised about the unhealthy level of formaldehyde released into the air when the treatment was performed, and it was causing customers and professionals to suffer from eye irritations, dizziness, and wheezing. This treatment has been banned in several countries.
Sunny says, unlike other treatments, the Kerasilk Keratin Treatment has no downtime. “You can do whatever you want with your hair after the treatment. You can tuck your hair behind your ears, or pin it up with a hair clip, or tie it in a ponytail. You can even touch up the colour on the roots of your hair if you have time later.”
I asked Sunny if there was any hair type that would not be suitable for this treatment, and he said that everyone can do the treatment. “Of course, if your hair is already damaged from other chemical treatments, don’t expect to have your hair miraculously healthy again. This treatment aims to smooth and soften, not straighten. This is not like hair rebonding.” This also means that those with permed hair can do the treatment too.
Here’s how the treatment went:
Step 1:
My hair was washed with the Kerasilk Purifying Shampoo, then blow-dried by hand only until about 80% dry.
Step 2:
The Kerasilk Keratin Shape-Medium and Smooth-Medium creams were mixed with a 1:1 ratio, and after sectioning my hair, he applied the mixture with a brush on my hair, starting from the nape of my neck.
Step 3:
The formula was allowed to be absorbed into my hair for 15 minutes without any heat application. Then, still slick with the formula, my hair was blow-dried with a paddle brush. Once the formula was completely absorbed into my hair, a flat iron was used to smoothen the hair.
Step 4:
Immediately after Sunny was satisfied with the shape of my hair, the formula was washed off my hair with the Kerasilk Keratin Care Shampoo. He then smoothed the Kerasilk Sealing Serum over my hair, before it was blow-dried by hand.
Step 5:
Home care for me was a set of Kerasilk Rich Keratin Care Shampoo, Conditioning Spray, Daily Mask, and Silk Fluid.
Immediately after the treatment, my fringe was flat and stick straight. I got worried. But Sunny assured me that the unnaturalness would go away after a few washes. The good thing was, I just had a haircut about two weeks before my treatment (half of the length gone!), so most of my bleached and damaged hair had been cut away. The parts that were sticking out were the damaged ends on my fringe.
No one at work or home noticed that I had done anything special to my hair, apart from someone who thought I had re-coloured my highlights. I took this to be a good thing. My hair wasn’t very unruly to begin with, but with the new smoothness, my hair was glossier, and the colour stood out better. I could smell the formula in my hair until after two washes, but it had a pleasant scent, so I didn’t get too self-conscious about it.
Now, more than a month later, my hair is still smooth but it has regained its volume and a bit of its naturalness around the ends. I spend less time perspiring under the hairdryer before I head out and re-focused my energies on trying to get my eyeliner on both eyes right. I never thought I’d say this, but I haven’t had a Bad Hair Day since the treatment.
Prices for the Goldwell Kerasilk Keratin Treatment may vary based on salon in-house promotions. The original prices start from $250 for short hair, and $400 and upwards for mid-length to long hair. For the list of stockists for Goldwell Kerasilk Treatment, please call Goldwell at 6681 4743.
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