In the realm of keratin hair straightening services, it's essential for a professional to identify the degree of hair damage during the client consultation. There are five levels of hair damage to recognize:
- Healthy hair: This is the ideal state, where the hair is in its best condition, showing strength and vitality.
- Healthy hair with minor issues: The hair is generally healthy but may have slight imperfections or minimal damage.
- Heat-damaged hair with split ends: This degree involves hair that has been weakened or damaged by heat styling tools, leading to split ends and brittleness.
- Color-damaged hair: Hair at this level has been compromised by coloring treatments, showing signs of damage from the chemicals used.
- Severely color-damaged hair: This is the most critical level, where hair has been significantly weakened by repeated coloring processes, leaving it extremely fragile and damaged.
Degrees 4 and 5 of Hair Damage: The Difference That Matters
The distinction between degree 4 and degree 5 hair damage might not always be noticeable at first glance, especially when examining a client's dry, styled hair loaded with various styling products. However, understanding the specific situation we're dealing with is crucial. So, how do we determine the exact hair problems we need to address?
We asked our most experienced technologists to share their life hacks:
Firstly, what can help us unravel the situation is water and an elasticity test. Regardless of the home care routine, we can only see degree 5 damage after washing the hair with Deep Cleansing Shampoo and gently pulling a small wet strand to the sides.
Secondly, having an utterly honest conversation with the client about their hair treatment history over the last 1-3 years, depending on the hair length, is vital. Often, clients with problematic hair are reluctant to be open, feel embarrassed to tell the truth, embellish facts, and downplay the number of procedures they've undergone. Here, it's important to act as a psychologist, reassure the client, make them understand that there will be no judgement following their story. You are a professional and ready for anything; you just need to accurately assess the hair's condition. Let's remember and consolidate the difference between degrees 4 and 5 of damage:
- Degree 4 - Coloring with 9% or 12% peroxide or a single bleaching session.
- Degree 5 - Repeated bleaching, typically involving alkaline or acid washes. The hair's integrity is nearly depleted.
The difference between degrees 4 and 5 is that degree 5 hair lacks the cuticle. However, degree 5 damage is not hopeless! Hot treatments are categorically inadvisable, but cold care treatments can mimic the cuticle, thereby improving the hair to a condition suitable for botox treatments. Generally, achieving such an effect requires 6-8 sessions of cold restoration. The Total Restore complex, specially developed for such cases, would be ideal here.
