How Do I Repair My Chemically Damaged Hair?

You’ve been coloring your hair since forever — maybe even dabbled with a perm or two — and now when you look in the mirror, the once smooth and defined tresses are much more frayed and damaged. But you cannot and will not stop. So, how can you bring your hair back to life?
With unprocessed or virgin hair, the hair cuticles lay flat with no visible damage. All hair types (natural, curly, fine, straight, etc.) derive most of their integrity from healthy, properly paired, disulfide bonds. Disulfide bonds give your hair its elasticity and strength, but when hair is damaged via thermal, chemical, mechanical, or environmental factors, these disulfide bonds are broken apart, resulting in single sulfur hydrogen bonds. Left broken apart, the keratin starts breaking down. However, if you can reconnect the bonds, strength and hair integrity are restored.

So, what can I do? Besides letting your hair go au naturel, there are definitely some restorative products available, so don’t distress. Olaplex or K-18 to the rescue!

Olaplex

Your hairdresser may have provided an Olaplex treatment by mixing salon strength Olaplex into all colors and lighteners to lessen the damage caused by these services. At home, you can continue repairing your hair with an additional Olaplex product. Olaplex restores the damage by repairing it from the inside out. It can repair all types of hair damage, including that from high levels of heat from the hot tools you use.
Every time you use Olaplex, you provide your hair with more resilience and strength.

K-18

There’s also another brand available to you called K-18 Mask. It also works by reforming the disulfide bonds and reconnecting the keratin chains in damaged hair. That being said, K-18 is more of a permanent treatment and doesn’t wash out during the shampoo process the way Olaplex does.
When we wet and shampoo our hair, the hydrogen bonds break. However, they reset when the hair is dried. For K-18 to work, the hair needs to be shampooed and wet (hydrogen bonds – broken) so the cuticle is open, creating an entrance portal to the inner structure of the hair.

The K-18 can then travel into the hair and release the amino acids. Once in the hair, the amino acids work like a transplant, re-linking and repairing the broken keratin chains and disulfide bonds, in turn restoring hair back to almost virgin-like quality! K-18 then remains in the hair, no rinsing out and no conditioning, sealing itself inside the inner structure of the hair as it dries. K18 is designed to be used consecutively for six washes and then every three to four washes to maintain your healthiest hair possible.

If you use styling products while the hair dries, you just need to give K-18 four minutes to activate. Once the four minutes are up, you can add products to achieve the finished style.

Both Olaplex and K-18 provide amazing results when you want to heal your hair at home. Two thumbs up from us at Marie’s. Visit us in Anchorage now to find these products and restore your hair to its healthiest state!