With permanent hair straightening systems improving all the time, some even claiming to improve the texture of your hair, where does this leave our beloved hair straighteners? Should we be ready to say hello to permanent straightening and goodbye to our straighteners?
Although chemical straightening can save you endless hours of straightening when you want to get rid of your waves and curls, it’s not without its faults. To permanently straighten hair, firstly alkaline chemicals are applied that penetrate the hair and destroy the protein bonds within it that cause the kinks and curls. Once straightened, a neutralising solution is applied that restores that hair’s natural pH and sets the hair in its freshly straightened form. Although some alkaline chemicals used are gentler than others, even with the best permanent hair straightening systems this procedure does risk causing significant damage to your hair, leaving it brittle and dry.
It’s true that even the best hair straightener won’t be good for your hair, but heat protection sprays can help to reduce the likelihood of any major damage and the level of potential damage is much less than with chemical straightening systems.
The huge bonus of permanent hair straightening is the massive time saved when it comes to styling. If you hate your curls then you can spend hours each day taming them with your straighteners, whereas with permanent straightening you can pretty much wash and go! You are losing out on versatility though – if you stick with straighteners you can stick with your natural waves one day, straighten the next. With chemically straightened hair you’re stuck with straight until it grows out – of course you could get the curling iron out, but it’s really not advisable to use heated tools on chemically processed hair.
Cost wise, permanent hair straightening certainly isn’t cheap and you’ll need to keep hitting the salon to have any regrowth straightened. Although top end hair straighteners can be pretty expensive, you don’t need to pay top dollar for a good quality pair, and they should last you for years.
So if you really can’t bear daily straightening then permanent straightening systems are definitely worth thinking about and there’s no doubt they’ll save you masses of styling time. Don’t throw away your straighteners just yet though because when it comes to cost, versatility and minimal potential damage they win hands down