Can I get a keratin treatment on permed hair?

Did you get a perm and now you want a keratin treatment?

 

There are a lot of possible reasons, maybe you don’t like the shape of your curls or you feel like your hair is damaged and you want to revitalize it with keratin.

Whatever your reasons, and as different as they might be, there’s only one answer to your question.

 

 You can get a keratin treatment on permed hair, but you should always, no matter what, wait six months before getting it after the perm. 

Is that bad news?

 

It would be even worse to make your hair go through two treatments that are done with chemical products and burn it, permanently damaging it.

I’m going to tell you about two of my clients’ stories, so you understand better.

And then you can decide for yourself, and I am confident that you’ll make the right one.

 

So, I’ll tell you about:

 

Whatever your case is, I can promise you that when you finish reading this post, you won’t think that it’s bad news that you should wait 6 months between one treatment and another anymore.

And most importantly, is that you make the right decision for you. To wait or not to wait? We’ll see and you’ll know what to do.

 

 

Why You Should Wait on Getting a Keratin Treatment on Your Permed Hair

I told you that I was going to explain the issue to you by telling you two stories. Two real stories about people that got perms and for different reasons wanted to get a keratin treatment.

But, before getting to that, let’s go over what got you here.

 

 

It went from being straight to being curly because two chemical products intervened: thioglycolic acid to break and reform your hair’s internal structure and the neutralizer to set the curl pattern.

 And even if you got your perm with the best hairstylist in the whole world and with the best products in the whole world, your hair will suffer.  

 

That’s the cold, hard truth.

Forget about those catchy advertisements.

In the process, your hair will lose moisture, it will become drier and more porous, which will make it so it’s harder for it to retain any moisture even from other products that are specifically made to moisturize it.

No firefighter would think to throw flames on a fire to put it out, right?

 

Your hair is the same way.

 If you got a perm, and then a few days later, you want to get a keratin treatment, you’d be adding more chemicals – more fire – to your weakened hair. 

That’s why it’s important to wait at least 6 months. In those 6 months, your hair will recuperate, it will be able to regain its natural moisture and it will be ready to receive a keratin treatment.

 

A Ricky Martin song says, “fire on fire is love,” but in this case, perm plus keratin is fire on your hair. And not exactly the kind of fire that makes passion.

But, don’t be upset.

 

There are other solutions.

That brings me to Alice’s story, and not the Alice from Wonderland.

 

How to Nourish Your Hair after a Perm Without Needing to Get a Keratin Treatment

Alice came into my salon in a bad mood. And when I saw her hair, I immediately understood why.

She had gotten a perm and her hair hadn’t taken it very well.

 

 I almost fainted when she told me that her friend had done it to her at home. 

When will people get that there is a risk associated with using chemicals?

 

So, when it came to her that should get a keratin treatment to make her hair healthy again, since she’d heard that keratin is a protein.

She was right about one thing: keratin is a protein that we naturally have in our hair and nails, for example.

 

But a keratin treatment would need to lift her fragile and ruined cuticles to be able to do its thing.

And then, to be able to seal in the keratin’s effect, we’d have to use heat tools, like a blow dryer and straightener.

Can you imagine what all that heat would do to her unhealthy, weak hair?

 

Alice wasn’t in Wonderland and I wasn’t the famous White Rabbit, so we’d have to go looking for the Queen of Hearts somewhere else.

 Instead of that, I proposed to her that she do deep hydration treatment for 6 months, which she could even do using products with keratin in them.  

 

We did it in the salon, but I also gave her a little bit of “homework” because if we wanted to eventually get to a keratin treatment, we needed to be on the same page.

And I asked her to promise me to do a treatment with lukewarm oil, either olive oil or coconut oil, at least two times a week.

The most important thing was for her to do it, without any excuses or pretexts.

 

 When she came back six months later, we were able to do the keratin treatment because her hair had significantly improved.  

Now she was Alice in Wonderland and she could go out in search of the Tin Man’s heart and courage for the Lion.

That’s not your case? You want to do a keratin treatment because you want the curls from the perm to go away?

 

You should also wait 6 months, but don’t be upset because in the meantime you can stretch out your curls with a few alternatives.

Hey, girl, life’s a carnival and sorrows are sung away!

 

How to Loosen Permed Curls, Without Straightening Them with Keratin

Maria had a different problem from Alice’s problem. She wanted to use a keratin treatment as a way to stretch her curls.

Instead of getting beach waves, she ended up with kinky curls, which is not what she was looking for.

 

 

 So, that’s why I proposed to her to be patient because there are some at-home treatments that, with a little bit of patience can stretch out curls. 

Have you ever heard of aloe vera?

 

Lucky for me, Maria was already an expert in aloe vera. But she didn’t know that you can use the plant’s leaves to slowly stretch curls out.

Do you want to know what made me most happy with Maria?

 

A month later she came back to the salon to thank me for my advice because she no longer wanted to get a keratin treatment on her perm.

She had gotten the results that she was looking for with aloe vera and she was happy.

Without spending money on unnecessary treatments and without putting her hair at risk!

 

Conclusion

If you want to get a keratin treatment on your perm, you should wait at least six months, or else you run the risk of burning your hair. The choice is yours.

 

And there’s one other thing that I think is important to point out.

 Before getting any kind of treatment on your hair, especially when you’ve already gotten one, think first about what you’re hoping to end up with. 

 

Because there may be other ways not to unnecessarily put your hair through two treatments.

 

I’ll leave you with that, so you can think about it… tick, tock, tick, tock…but think hard.