Knowing what a keratin treatment does is not enough to maximize its effects; you must also find out what happens after six months of applying keratin.
Keratin Complex, a popular product, states that “when keratin is optimized, it leads to stronger, healthier hair.” [1]
Keratin treatment also changes natural hair texture and smoothens hair into fine, silky goodness!
But the question remains…
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Maintenance is Vital: After a keratin treatment, a continuous hair care routine, including using sulfate-free shampoos and conditioners, can extend the longevity and efficacy of the treatment.
- Optimal Hair Health: Six months post-keratin application, hair often exhibits increased shine, less frizz, and improved manageability, indicating improved hair health due to keratin-induced smoothing and strengthening.
- Retreatment Considerations: At this stage, initial keratin effects may start to diminish, making it an ideal time to assess hair condition and consult with a professional to decide if retreatment is needed.
What Happens After Six Months of Applying Keratin To My Hair?
After six months of applying keratin hair treatment to your hair, the used keratin protein will be worn out. Your natural hair keratin is all that’s left.
Keratin hair treatments involve a chemical process that helps make your frizzy or curly hair straight and smooth by creating a keratin coating on the outer layer of your hair shaft.
Keratin is a structural protein that helps to seal the bonds in the hair cuticle to give you straight hair.
After six months of keratin treatment, several things can happen to your hair depending on the specific type of treatment you did and how you treat your hair after the procedure.
The duration of the treatment’s effects depends on what type of you had e.g., Brazilian keratin treatment, Japanese treatment, etc. (1).
Most salon visits usually take 4-6 hours, but the results can last 3-6 months.
But after six months, you should return to your normal hair texture, and all of your natural hair type features will reappear.
This is because the applied keratin does not stay permanently on your hair.
Meanwhile, your natural hair keratin is unaffected as your hair follicles will continue producing keratin proteins.
As your hair strands get longer during these six months, the new hair texture will resemble your natural hair.
The downside to this is that you will be back to dealing with the hair condition you were trying to improve pre-treatment.
After six months, those with coily, frizzy, or brittle hair might need another keratin treatment to maintain sleekness.
To learn more about what happens six months after applying keratin, you can watch this video:
How Long Does it Take for a Keratin Treatment to Wear Off Completely?
Your keratin hair treatment can last up to six months before wearing off. However, for it to last this long, you need to give your hair proper care.
This includes sticking to regular hair care habits and following rules that only apply to keratin-treated hair.
For example, within the first three days after the application of keratin to your hair, you should not get your hair wet.
This is to allow enough time for the keratin to work its way into the core of your hair and seal every hair bond in the cuticles completely.
If you flout this rule, you will wash off some of the keratin solutions, and in a few weeks, it will have worn off completely.
Furthermore, after keeping the 3-day rule, you must wash your hair less frequently in the future.
Hair washing frequency for keratin-treated hair should be 2-3 times weekly. Anything more than three times a week will reduce your keratin treatment’s length.
When getting your hair wet, it is important to note that you shouldn’t wet your keratin-treated hair with pool or ocean water.
This is because chlorinated water, i.e., water containing sodium chloride salt, can mess up your treatment.
According to research, sodium chloride constitutes 77.7% of the total salt composition in seawater (3).
Also, using only sulfate-free shampoos and conditioners to maintain your keratin treatment would be best.
If you must style your keratin-treated hair, ensure you don’t do so within the first two weeks after the application treatment.
With all these rules and proper treatment with professional-grade products, it will take six months before the keratin completely wears off.
Does Repeated Keratin Treatment Damage Hair?
Repeated keratin hair treatment can damage hair if done more than three times a year.
Generally, I recommend doing keratin treatment only twice a year.
However, the type of keratin hair treatment you get wears off in under six months, and you should still stick to no more than three times a year.
Keratin protein does not harm hair, but several other active ingredients in the chemical composition of keratin treatment products can be harmful to your hair.
The ingredient list includes formaldehyde (sometimes glyoxylic acid) and sodium hydroxide/lithium hydroxide (3).
Formaldehyde is the chemical solution used for preserving dead bodies. Repeated exposure to formaldehyde can damage the hair and risk your health.
Moderation is key in using formaldehyde for hair treatment, as it can make your hair porous and give you coarse strands.
Depending on the solution’s formaldehyde concentration, it may also cause scalp irritation and extreme hair loss.
For those with finer strands, I recommend my write-up on “Keratin Hair Treatment for Thin Hair“. Also, find out “How Long Do Keratin Treatments Last” in my other article.
FAQs
1. How Harmful Is Keratin Treatment For Hair?
2. Is It Safe If Keratin Doesn’t Wear Off After Six Months?
However, a keratin treatment is not permanent and will rarely last beyond six months. The treatment will have worn off from the seventh month.
3. Can I Maintain Keratin Treatment To Make It Last 6 Months?
Conclusion
By now, I believe it is clear what happens six months after applying keratin to your hair.
Although keratin treatment is quite expensive, it’s worth the cost if you consider how long it takes to wear off.
With the right measures in place, you stand to get the best from your hair within six months of keratin treatment.
Resources
- 1. Keratin: Benefits, Uses, Treatments, and Hair Care… [Internet]. Keratin Complex. [cited 2022 Sep 21]. Available from: https://keratincomplex.com/blog/what-is-keratin
- 2. Gavazzoni Dias MF. Hair cosmetics: An overview. International Journal of Trichology [Internet]. 2015 [cited 2019 Mar 13];7:2. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4387693/
- 3. Ocean Salinity [Internet]. Research Gate. 2022 [cited 2022 Sep 21]. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358140626_Ocean_Salinity
- 4. Combined formaldehyde and glyoxylic acid reactions [Internet]. Research Gate. 1975 [cited 2022 Sep 21]. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bengt-Falck/publication/225359778_Combined_formaldehyde_and_glyoxylic_acid_reactions_-_I_New_possibilities_for_microspectrofluorometric_differentiation_between_phenylethylamines_indolylethylamines_and_their_precursor_amino_acids/links/5cc1ba5ea6fdcc1d49adacbb/Combined-formaldehyde-and-glyoxylic-acid-reactions-I-New-possibilities-for-microspectrofluorometric-differentiation-between-phenylethylamines-indolylethylamines-and-their-precursor-amino-acids.pdf
