listen to me, take from a black girl, you want your hair straightened and not with chemicals? Use a hot comb....its very easy to use, just don't get it to hot to burn your hair, if you don't like the idea of doing it yourself, go to a hair salon, they will do it for you

So I just woke up. Usually when I sleep on my curls, I always wake up looking like I'm trying to grow dreads. However on this wonderful morning, my hair still looks perfect.

I have had to cut many mats out when my hair was curly-I don't miss that at all.

KLP, I paid $800 to have that process done on my hair about 4 years ago and it permanently damaged it to the point where it was irreversable.

I was getting ready to go to Puerto Rico for 2 weeks, and I had hair half way down my back. My hair is naturally wavy, and I had been straightening it with a flat iron forever, and had received a very large bonus check from work, and decided to treat myself. The upkeep was only $150 every 6 months, so I thought this would be a good investment to have hair that I didn't have to spend 45 minutes on every day to get straight.

You can't wash it, or put it up for 4 days after...so as you can imagine, showers were hard...I had to squat in the tub and take a large cup over me to bathe to keep from getting my hair wet, because you aren't supposed to use a clip a shower cap, nothing!

So when the day came that I got to wash it, as soon as the water hit it, I felt the cuticle come back open (if you get it done you'll know what this feels like..your hair feels RAW), and it didn't smooth back down.


What I was left with, was something that resembled broom straw and it could not be fixed, and could not be repaired, covered up or anything. I had to cut a significant amount of my hair off.

I went to a top salon in my area to their stylist that actually was an educator for the system. To this day, no one knows why this happened to my hair.

Obviously people have this done with great success, but the results if something goes wrong is horrible. Medications that you may be taking, like birth control pills, also can affect the process negatively.

I would NEVER recommend this system again, and because of what happened with my hair, the salon stopped performing the process entirely for future clients.

I also had another hairdresser that I told this story to, that he once attended a hair show where they demonstrated the system, and selected a volunteer for the show. Her hair started coming out in handfulls at a HAIR SHOW!

NOTE: Sorry, I saw where you already had this done...I sincerely hope your hair is ok, because I don't wish what happened with mine on anyone.

That's a great idea....I never thought of that! I had a black woman that I told once that I used to wax my eyebrows, she was like, "Girl, you are wasting your time with that!" She showed me how to do it with a razor, and wow, what a difference! The precision you can get is amazing and it doesn't hurt like tweezing.

I am sorry to hear that it happened to you. But my hair looks and feels great now. The salon I went to told me not to wet my hair or put it in clips for 48 hours.

I was thinking that it was either developed in Japan or gets its name from results: straight, silky and shiny hair (which is what "Japanese hair" usually looks like to me)

I believe it was derived in Japan. The brand that makes the chemicals for it is Sheisheido which is a Japanese company.

That makes sense.

I'm glad, seriously. I still mourn the loss of my hair too :)

When I first read about the process, the article I saw said that the majority of Japanese women actually have curly hair and have been using straightening systems for years to get that classic look. I'm not sure how true it is, because I've never seen a child of Asian decent that had curly hair.

It may have been when I had the process done, it hadn't been in the states that long.

I was wondering about that. I don't recall seeing too many Japanese women with curly hair and that must have to do with what you said. If straightening systems were common in Japan for years, of course we'd rarely see a curly haired Japanese woman.

I've never seen a curly haired Japanese child.

The indigenous people of Japan had curlier hair than is considered typical of East Asians. So, there are probably quite a few of their descedants who have the less coarse, curlier hair type.

Examples
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/agc/7a0500...0/7a05183r.jpg
http://images.rgs.org/webimages/0/0/...0/S0014879.jpg

Wow, that's interesting.

Oh, that's unfortunate. The straight hair sounds really pretty, but I would miss my poofy curls, lol. Now that I've learned how to take care of them, it's a lot easier. Back in the day I would have had to cut out mats too, lol.