Struggling with extremely frizzy hair and looking for a solution? You’re in the right place because this bhave keratin treatment I’ve been getting lately has been an absolute saviour in terms of controlling and taming my frizzy mane.

Before I get into the incredible benefits of a keratin treatment, if you are reading my blog for the first time, welcome!

I’m Thomas and I create hair content on YouTube every single week. I’m known mainly for my man bun and hair growth content, however, I also have really frizzy curly hair so from time to time I share my methods for keeping it in check.

Seeing as you are on this post right now, I’m going to guess that you are well and truly fed up with the frizz and this post is going to go quite in depth about why I refer to a keratin treatment as “My AK47 for battling frizz and unruly curls.”

One of the first things you need to know when it comes to dealing with frizz is, why it’s like that in the first place. The better we can understand a problem, the better chance we have of fixing it.

Now, in a previous curly hair post of mine, I’ve covered at great length as to why hair gets frizzy. So If after the explanation about to give, you feel you want to learn more, feel free to go and check that post out by clicking the highlighted text above.

In short:
The reason curly coarse hair is prone to frizz is because the cuticles (the fishlike scales that make up the outside layer of the hair) have a much higher level of porosity between them as opposed to straighter more silky hair types.

Basically, frizzy hair is the result of your cuticles being very open and “fanned out” which means the hair:

1. Looks and feels quite rough to touch.
2. Is incredibly dry because the cuticles are so open, they cannot retain any moisture.

Open Cuticle Close Up

Closed Cuticle Close Up

Ok, so now we understand that frizzy hair is the way it is due to your cuticles being open wide all the time. The next most practical question is, how the hell do we close them?

There’s various methods of hair curling and products that can help you gain more control over your cuticles on a daily basis. However, if you want a more thorough and longer lasting solution, a keratin treatment is going to be your best bet.

Keratin treatments are specifically designed to close and smooth your cuticles to give it a more relaxed and smooth appearance.

A lot of people mistake the effects of a keratin treatment with a chemical straighten, thinking that once your have the treatment done your hair will become completely straight. This is not true. A keratin treatment will not permanently straighten your hair, it will only relax your existing curl by smoothing cuticles which then revert back to their normal state after a bout 4 months.

Depending on how long you have the treatment on for will depict how much the curl pattern in your will relax. If you have really tight curls, a 45 minute treatment will significantly relax your curls to a softer more manageable state and if you go for the full hour, you’ll most likely end up with a beach wave (thing is my favourite)

On the other hand, chemical hair straightening is the opposite. It’s actually one of the worst things you can do for your hair. The chemicals that go into them can be harsh and they cause permanent damage to the structural bonds of your cuticles. This means the hair that you get treated can never revert back to it’s normal state and the damage caused from the chemicals will make it weaker and more prone to breakage.

To give you a side by side of what the difference between a Keratin treatment and Chemical straighten is, I’ve left some dot points for you just below.

• Smooths and relaxes the cuticles without damaging the structural bonds of your hair.
• Treatment lasts for up to 4 months.
• Made of keratin (the same protein your hair is made from).
• Can cost anywhere from $250 - $450 depending on how much hair you have.

• Breaks the structural bonds of your hair to completely eliminate the curl pattern in your hair.
• Treatment is permanent on the hair that your treat.
• Make of harsh chemical to destroy the hairs natural structure
• Can cost anywhere from $300 to $400 depending on the amount of hair you have.

The short answer to this question is no.

You may have heard before that keratin treatments have been linked to multiple cancer cases. This is true and upon further investigation of those cancer cases, it was revealed that a chemical called formaldehyde was being used in keratin treatments to enhance the smooth end result.

The use of formaldehyde made the hair appear fair straighter for far longer which is a good indication of where this idea of Keratin treatments permanently straightening your hair comes from.

Anyway, in Australia, it’s now illegal to have formaldehyde in keratin treatments and before getting one you should only go to hair dresser that you know and trust. I’d also ask them what brand of keratin treatment they use and then do some of your own research on it to find out exactly what it contains.

I also thought I should touch on cases where people claim their hair completely fell out after getting a keratin treatment. Let me just tell you now, if you get a keratin treatment your hair falls out it means the hair dresser has miss used the product causing your hair to break or your hair was already too weak to be able to handle the treatment.

So again, I’d like to re affirm that before you get one of these treatments, it’s important to:

• a) Know and trust the hairdresser you are getting the treatment from
• b) Find out what type of treatment they use and find out what’s in it.

Ok, enough with the negative and now let’s get to the good bit!

So far we’ve covered why our hair get’s frizzy, why a keratin treatment is the best solution and why keratin treatments have been considered dangerous.

Now it’s time to look at which keratin treatment is the best on the market and why!

So if you keep up with me on YouTube, you’ll know that recently I went down to phoenix and fire hair and did a video collaboration with bhave to demonstrate the effects of their new XT Keratin treatment.

Even before this collaboration, bhave was one of my favourite hair care brands ever. In fact, ever since I started getting serious about creating hair videos, I’ve been really impressed with the quality of their products and the XT Treatment certainly didn’t disappoint.

The thing that’s different about bhave, is a lot their products contain bioactive keratin derived from sheep wool in New Zealand. The process used to extract the keratin from the wool allows the keratin to remain in it’s active state hence the term “bioactive keratin”.

By keeping the protein active, it’s able to bond to the natural keratin that your hair is made of, as opposed to hydrolyzed keratin which essentially doesn’t work as effectively.

See images below for a visual representation.

The fact that bhave have found a way to extract bioactive keratin from sheep wool is extremely unique as most brands that use “keratin” in their products, usually source it from rather disturbing sources like horse hoofs and other animal parts that you probably don’t want to know about lol.

Moving on, the XT Keratin Treatment is indeed one of bhave’s most prestigious products. It’s formaldehyde free and made using bhave’s signature bioactive keratin.

Unlike normal keratin treatments that require you to leave the product product in for 48 hours without wetting your hair, the XT treatment is instant meaning half an hour after the treatment has been completed you can wet your hair without ruining the effects of the treatment.

For anyone who has had a keratin treatment before, you’ll know the pain of keeping it dry for 2 days without sweating or wetting is extremely hard. So being able to bypass this problem with the XT treatment is purely heaven and totally fuss free.

On top of being able to wet your hair half an hour after the treatment, you can also colour it. Other keratin treatments don’t allow for this, however the XT treatment allows for it.

Earlier this year, I teamed up with bhave and their Queensland rep Jo, to show a demonstration of how exactly the bhave XT Keratin treatment would work on my obnoxiously frizzy hair. And boy were the results amazing!

My hairdresser Josh, the owner of Phoenix & Fire Hair in Labrador was kind enough to let us use his salon to film and when i arrived Jo gave me the run down on my options for the treatment.

She said I had 3 options with the treatment that would create multiple different outcomes for my hair type. My options were:

• The 30 minute treatment for reduced frizz and slight drop of the curl.
• The 45 minute treatment for reduced frizz and significant drop of the curl.
• The 1 hour treatment for reduced frizz and dramatic drop of the curl.
  

Because I hadn’t experienced this exact treatment before, I decided to go with the 45 minute treatment because I wanted to see a significant difference but didn’t want to risk losing my curl all together.I was really happy with the result in the end and would strongly suggest you give the video a watch if you are thinking of getting this treatment done.

The steps of the treatment were fairly simple. Jo started by dampening my freshly washed hair and began to evenly apply the treatment leaving about 1cm from my scalp.

After the 45 minute time period, she rinsed the treatment out and added some of the bhave deep intense conditioning mask for extra softness for about 10 minutes and then performed one final rinse.

From there she use the blow dryer to dry my hair and then began the setting process which requires multiple passes on the hair at 250 degrees celsius.

When setting the treatment, the your hair dresser needs to perform 20 passes on your roots, 10 passes on your mid lengths and 5 passes on your ends.

I know this may seem like excessive heat, however, a treatment like this is the only exception to the rule. Without setting the treatment, the cuticles will not close properly and the effects of the treatment will not work.

From a customer perspective, it’s not really need for you to know what all the steps in the treatment are, however, I believe it’s worth knowing because if you get a hair dresser that does not follow the steps properly, you will end being highly dissatisfied with your results after paying good money. In other words, if you know your shit, then no hairdresser will be able to take advantage of you.

Here is a little clip of my shimmering hair straight after the XT Keratin Treatment.

See how sparkly and shiny it is? This is because the follicles have been completely sealed. If you don’t see this after you get the XT Keratin Treatment, then I would question your hair dresser.

You’ve probably also noticed in the thumbnail of my video I’ve included a before and after shot. I can understand that it may be miss leading and contribute to the idea of Keratin treatments permanently straighten your hair, but the reason I’ve use those pages if to reflect a great deal of difference to people who are looking for content about keratin treatment on YouTube.

If you want to see the final results of my hair after the XT Keratin treatment, head to 7:09 in the video and you can see the difference in my curl pattern 2 days after having the treatment. You can also just see the image below for reference lol.

In conclusion, if you really want to make frizzy hair less of a drama for yourself, an XT Keratin Treatment is definitely a solution to consider.

• It’s formaldehyde free so you don’t have to worry about the cancer stigmas that have been given to keratin treatments.
• It’s not permanent your hair will revert back to normal after a few months.
• It relaxes the bonds of your hair instead of breaking them, so it’s not harmful or damaging.
• You have multiple options depending on the results you are looking for.
• There are different pricing options depending on how much hair you have.

If you have any other questions about keratin treatments in particular, make sure you leave a comment and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

The XT Keratin treatment has truly been the best solution for me when it comes to taming my frizzy mane and I would recommend it to just about anyone who wants a bit of frizz relief.

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to swing by my channel after reading this post!.

Yours in good hair,

Thomas.