Brazillian Hair treatment review – Sorbet Dry Bar, Tygervalley

Ok, so I’ve been trolling the wonderful world of blogging and I see lots of people do product reviews and so on. When I started taking this a lot more seriously I thought I’d never do the review thing. But today as I was sitting under the wonderful hands of Chantal at Sorbet Dry Bar in Tygervalley – I thought, “hey! I should share this experience and what she’s doing on my head”.

So here it goes people.

Ok, So I’ve got a lovely head of ethnic hair. I don’t have extremely tight curly hair, but I also don’t have loose hanging curls like my daughters. I have the bonus of being able to leave my hair to grow into an afro and also blow drying it and making it into straight flowing locks.

Now, to all of my ethnic hair sisters out there – understand that I completely love and embrace my afro. I’ve done my fair share of shaved head looks, to afro, to blond afro styles. (I have pics to prove it all) I’ve completely enjoyed every single one of those styles.

But I’m in a season of wanting to grow my hair to a mid-back length and be able to try out the “Kardashian” mane. So, in order to get there without driving myself insane with 3 hour long blow drying sessions and biceps that ache from holding up a hair dryer and brush – I go for treatments to help make my life a little easier.

Now, all through my life I’ve done the whole relaxer treatment, permanent straightener thang. I also started using the Brazilian blow out treatment about 6 years ago. Now, when I started these, it was when the treatments had formaldehyde in them and once we found that out we pulled massive brakes on the whole process because the fumes that happen when heating – cause various forms of diseases to activate in your body that I wasn’t prepared to risk. Plus, it’s formaldehyde – Egyptian mummies come to mind (yuk, blegh)

So, after accepting that “afro” was going to be my life story – my mother happened to trip upon a new form of Brazilian treatment that was specifically designed for my kind of hair and didn’t have the deadly chemicals in them. Instead of using the formaldehyde, it uses more keratin that gets fed into the hair root and cuticle. This is to make it softer rather than trying to preserve the hair strand.

So with her financial blessing – I went for it. (thanks mom)

I entered Sorbet Dry Bar, Tygervalley and braved the chair of someone I didn’t know and entrusted her with my afro mane. Now, understand that I have had the same hair dresser for the last 15 years and moving to someone else is massive for me (I’m sure anyone would feel like that, right).

Anyway, I was insanely impressed with the process she followed. I felt like I was being assessed for intense surgery. She wanted to know my hair history, what I was planning on doing with my hair, the goals, the treatments and so on. As much as I wanted to give my hair the best reputation – she read it like a book. Lifting it and assessing it and explaining to me what the treatment was going to do to it, how it was going to feel and what to expect in the future. She then proceeded to use a treatment specifically designed for my type of hair from the brand INOAR. It’s the Afro Keratin infusion system. Promising to maintain the curl without the hard work behind the blow dry.

I felt so safe.

So, I am presently sitting here waiting for the treatment to do it’s thing on my hair and I can honestly say that these were my answers to her professional questions.

1. My goal is to grow my hair
2. I don’t want to lose my ethnic option – which I had lost with previous treatments. I want to wear my afro when I want and yet be able to blow dry with ease when I feel like being a “Kardashian”. Lol
3. I also didn’t want to be in her chair every 6 weeks – this should last me for long periods of time – I’m busy – I don’t have the capacity to be making it to the salon ever 2 months to sit for 4 hours and sacrifice time in my effervescent life. (plus, let’s be honest – the procedure is expensive. I don’t feel comfortable having that much money being spent on my hair, that often)
4. I want long term benefits of the treatment and not something that just deals with the hair on the outside, but the inside of the follicle/cuticle as well.

These goals sound simple enough but it’s hectic to find things that actually work and I also run the risk of trying it out and then being horribly disappointed after spending copious amounts of money.

So with all of these stated, she explained that to achieve these goals, I would require the first two times to be 3 months apart, but after that it would have done it’s penetration and I would only need it every 6 months.

And here I sit, 6 months since my last treatment, only doing it because I wanted to and not because I was struggling to deal with my hair. I can not brag enough about how I was able to blow dry my hair last week and get it all done in 1 hour without the strain on my biceps and scalp. This is huge for me because before I would sit and have to ‘single’ row, brush blow dry my hair from the root to tip for an hour and then spend another hour and half flat ironing my hair to make it look anywhere decent. Only to be caught in the cold, damp weather and return to poodle mode in a matter of minutes.

I can now, wash my hair and loosely ‘hand’ blow dry and flat iron to get it looking like I’ve been to the salon. AND, walk through the rain and not have my hair rise like yeast in bread. This is 6 months AFTER the last treatment!

So, I’m going to brag a little bit about the service I’ve received at Sorbet by Chantal. She’s been amazing and honestly knows her stuff. She was completely realistic with the expectations I should have with my hair and for sure – she’s been right. As much as my hair looks like it hasn’t had anything happen to it after she’s washed the treatment out – it “feels” so much softer, shinier and way more manageable. That’s huge in my “hair” world. And that’s what I wanted for my hair. I wanted to maintain it’s “fullness” without the hard work.

As I’m having my hair blow dried – I’ve quickly trolled the internet to check for any bad reviews of the product and amazingly, there are none from people wanting the same results as I do. Obviously if you’re wanting to go natural the whole way, then this isn’t the way to do it – but I want the option and this most absolutely makes my life easier and gives me the mind blowing option to do so.

Before I close and share the photo steps of the process – Understand that in between treatments I have to treat my hair with the care and respect it deserves after undergoing this pampering. I have the Shampoo and Conditioner that is Salt free and purchased from a salon and not off the shelf. This is because salt is the enemy of moisture and the curlier the hair, the more moisture it needs. (that’s probably why straighter hair gets greasy a lot quicker than curlier hair) I could easily get the ones from Clicks, or Dischem – but it’s my one indulgence that is just for me and worth the great results at the end of the day. (plus it lasts me 4-5 months anyway) So my shampoo and conditioner are also under the brand INOAR. It has an argan oil system that moisturizes my hair over longer periods between washes.

So I asked her a few more questions about how to care for my hair when I make wild decisions like “swimming” or letting my hair go afro free.

It’s amazing how asking helps, because I “thought” that it’s not a good idea to put coconut oil on your hair to feed it and make it shine. So I asked her because the product she was treating my hair with has coconut oil in it. Coconut oil, suffocates the hair if there is no moisture in it already. So it needs to be applied when wet – this was my understanding right.

She then explained, that it’s better to have the salon products because the oils are more refined and the molecules are closer to the real thing than the masked ones in the shops. This completely made sense and the results are there to show for it. That is why I have the INOAR Argan Oil system, specifically produced for ethnic hair. I also supplement with a Morrocan oil (which smells amazing) – that’s my head, the kids heads and Tim’s. We don’t have to use a lot of it and the bottle hasn’t even hit ¾ down.

It’s important to questions about your hair and understand. I asked what I could do for my daughter, who swims everyday and because it’s winter – I want to be able to blow dry her hair without damaging it and losing it’s beautiful natural curl.

She then explained that if I feed her hair with a protein spray before she swims then it will protect the hair from both the chemicals of the water and the heat of the blow drying. Hair education 101. I absolutely love living like this. Everything can’t just be done for the sake of doing it – learn from your experiences, take the information in and decide what you want to do with it.

This was a good move for me and I don’t think I’ll be looking back for a very long time.

The proof is in the Hair do.

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Just before I go, I thought I’d make you aware that the Sorbet Dry Bar, Tygervalley run a special on a Tuesday. When you have a Keratin smoothing treatment there’s a bonus of having a free mani/pedi while you get your hair treated.