Hi fellow Knotties,
Thought it was important to post a review after my Ulta experience with KeraStraight, since this seems to be the "latest/greatest" thing ever for those of us with curly/wavy hair. And since some of you may be considering it instead of a Brazillian blow-up before your wedding, I thought this was the best place to post my experience. (I also posted under the Hair 411 board, but knowing that Ulta's in AZ are currently offering the deal on KeraStraight, thought I should share it here, too!)
So, first of all, let me describe my "natural" hair. If I shampoo/condition and let air dry my hair is a frizzy flat mess. The top is what I would describe as stringy wavy. The bottom half is somewhat curly and softer. Typically, to style it curly, I use a couple of products (Curls Rock and Curlisto mousse) and blow dry with a diffuser. Straigtening my hair is usually quite time consuming 30-40 minutes and involves blow drying in sections and flat ironing.
I had hopes that KeraStraight would at least make it a quicker process to straighten my hair without chemically damaging it like a Brazilian would. More on that later...
The process itself was ridiculous. Not sure if this can be blamed on lack of experience on behalf of my stylist or that my hair is really that unruly, but it took 4 HOURS! (Everywhere else online says it should take 2-3 hours.) I'm guessing part of the problem was that the stylist felt like it was necessary to keep combing out my tangled mess of hair, even with the KeraStraight product in it. One word for that torture... OUCH!
Also, I don't think that the stylist completely rinsed the product out because once we had reached the final product, the texture of my hair was not soft and silky but rather coarse. I did notice right away however that my hair was not tangling as much (which typically happens even when I manage to get it perfectly straight myself). I wanted to go home a rewash my hair right away but was so burnt out after having my hair yanked and pulled for 4 hours, that I decided to wait until this morning. Oh, also, those of us with dark hair (that has been colored, and mine had red highlights, too), your color will fade. Not terribly, but if you're looking to keep your super dark locks, you'll need to recolor your hair a couple days later.
Well, surprise surprise, it still took me 30+ minutes to straighten my hair this morning. On a postitive note. it actually looks better than it typically does, and feels much softer than it did yesterday when I left the salon. Less tangling and shinier, too. I have recieved quite a few compliments from folks at work today.
I'm interested to see how things look when I allow my hair to airdry and when I try to wear it curly (like the stylist says I'll be able to do). I'll post updates in this thread, as I discover this. I think the bigger take home point is that this will not straighten your hair. It'll just make it look better when you do the work to straighten it yourself. As far as I'm concerned, this hasn't lived up to the hype built up about it online nor the cost ($160 + ($26 ea. extra bottle x 2 for me) + $27 maintenance shampoo + tip = about $300 and this is with the current Ulta discount) for a glorified conditioning treatment that is supposed to last 4 months. My opinion may change when I style differently, but that's how I'm feeling about it today.
Let me know if you have any questions!
Good luck, Knotties! P.S. Sorry so long! Yikes!