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 Sodium Hydroxide

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tbh_hanna View Drop Down
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Joined: Nov 26, 2006
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Posted: Nov 26, 2006 at 12:02pm

Are relaxers made with Sodium Hydroxide able to leave my mid curly hair straight(not to loosen the curls but to dissaper with them)with just aplying the relaxer and dont having to blow dry or use a flat iron?
Does anyone know the loreal matrix line?http://www.matrixbeautiful.com/

Thank you!!Tongue


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tbh_hanna View Drop Down
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Joined: Nov 26, 2006
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Posted: Nov 30, 2006 at 12:02pm
So none of you know anything about this?

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tbh_hanna View Drop Down
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Posted: Dec 04, 2006 at 12:02pm
they alredy analized my hair and told me that it could handle it, anyways i'm looking for a relaxer to reduce the volume and kill my curls!
so what do you know exactly about sodium hydroxide?

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Sharyg11 View Drop Down
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Joined: May 05, 2005
Location: United States
Posted: Dec 04, 2006 at 12:02pm
Sodium Hydroxide (lye relaxer) is recomended for african american type hair. It is probably the strongest type of relaxer and can be very damaging even to healthy hair. You will still have to use a blow dryer and/or flat iron to make your hair straight. The only process that is designed to permanently straighten hair is Thermal reconditioning (also known as re-bonding). However it only works if your hair is wavy or has a really soft curl (Think Julia Roberts). Otherwise you will still have to blow dry to get it straight. It is also very expensive ($500-$1500) depending on hair lenght and texture. And you must make sure your stylist is a chemical expert or you will end up with mayor damage and hair loss.
 
How do I know? I've had them all done.
 
What type of hair do you have? If you have kinky, tighly coiled hair then sodium hydroxide would be the way to go. However like I said, it will not give you permanetly straight hair, you will have to blow dry, and your hair will frizz up in high humidity. It will however eliminate the curl, and reduce the bulk, but will not eliminate frizz, hence the need for a blow dryer to smooth and straighten the hair.
 
If you have soft curls then thermal reconditioning will give you the results you are looking for, but you must be very careful when choosing your stylist, and you must be prepared to spend a small furtune, as well as spend 4-6 hours at the salon when getting it done.
 
If you have really curly frizzie hair, then your best choice is a Thio relaxer such as Rusk anticurl, or Loreal Xtenso. Is a milder version of the thermal reconditioner. No heat is used and it is applied on wet, shampooed hair, instead of dry hair like the Sodium Hydroxide. It is less damaging than sodium hydroxide, but will produce far better results. However it will not work on really napy hair (such as african american hair) It will texturize the hair, loosen up and smooth out the curl. Once you blow dry your hair, it will be smooth, shiny and straight, even in high humidity. When you wear it curly, the curls will be smoother, softer and shinier, and will have looser curls. And the best part is that hair has body and movement, and opposed to looking stiff, like with sodium hydroxide.
 
Anyway, if what you are looking for is hair that will allow you to just step out of the shower, and dry up straight without the use of a blow dryer, Sodium hydroxide will not give you that, and any stylist that tells you it will is one you want to run away from. If anything, you will have to take better care of your hair, Do alot of deep conditioning, and blow dry all the time, since your hair will look aweful when left to air dry.
 
Hope that helps
 
Good luck and great hair
Shary
Sharyg112007-08-08 14:42:44

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Sharyg11 View Drop Down
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Joined: May 05, 2005
Location: United States
Posted: Dec 07, 2006 at 12:02pm
Yes Matrix is Thio. I personally don't like it, but some people do. I only use Rusk Radical anticurl or L'oreal Xtenso. The difference between the cold smooth and hot smooth(from Matrix) is that the cold smooth will do the same thing than Redken Vertical or Rusk Radical Anticurl would do. It will not permanently straighten the hair, it will texturize it, allowing it to  stay smooth and straight and frizz free after heat styling. The hot smooth is just another name for thermal reconditioning, but it is the same thing. However the real experts don't like the Matrix brand and consider it low quality compared to japanese brands.
 
I personally have never seen anybody be able to achieve permanently straight hair with sodium Hydroxide or guanidine (calcium hydroxide) which is just as strong as sodium hydroxide, just a different chemical. They are simply not designed to produce permanently straight hair. The hair still has to be heat styled straight and the frizz and curl will come back with humidity. Plus you can't really wear it curly because it dryes stiff and frizzie. I recently moved to the caribean and I spend alot of time at my friends Salon, which is one of the most famous ones there. I see people every day get their hair relaxed with Sodium Hydroxide ( hundreds of them) and I haven't seen one who doesn't have to heat style. Even the ones with just wavy hair.
 
You can check out the post "best relaxer. HELP PLEASE" on this same forum. Steve T who is a TR and chemical relaxer expert gives a professional explanation on this.
 
Hanna, if what you are trying to achieve is hair that will allow you to just hop out the shower, and not do anything to it, Sodium Hydroxide will not do that for you. It is a harsh chemical and I personally will not put it in my hair. Thio will give you better results, but you will still have to style your hair straight, unless you get it thermally reconditioned (provided your hair has an s pattern soft curl).
 
If you have any questions you can ask Steve. He can give you all the answers you need. He is the best on the field.
 
I wish you beautifull hair
Much love, Shary
Sharyg112006-12-07 14:34:35

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tbh_hanna View Drop Down
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Joined: Nov 26, 2006
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Posted: Dec 09, 2006 at 12:02pm

Thanks for the replies!!

Well my problem is that i used xtenso a year ago and it did basically nothing for my hair it continued with that uncontrolled volume and frizz, so i thought that a thio relaxer was junst a really mild thing as i read in many places and it just wont work for me again.

I dont have afro hair i have hair with mid curls i think, but its way less than Julia Roberts! heres a link for a hair that looks like mine(on the left)   http://www.hair-styles.org/fs23.html i have this kind of curls and i dont want to loosen them i want to remove themThumbs%20Down

Btw i tought that matrix was a sodium relaxer!
tbh_hanna2006-12-09 08:08:57

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Sharyg11 View Drop Down
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Joined: May 05, 2005
Location: United States
Posted: Dec 10, 2006 at 12:02pm
Hi MzfrizzSmile,
 
Yes Sodium hydroxide is the one with the lye in it. Question: did your hair stay straight and smooth when relaxed with it, or did you get that frizzie straight? Just curious. I have never seen anyone get permanent straight results with it. And when I got it done, my hair would dry stiff and frizzie.
 
The Thio that I use shouldn't really be combed, it should be applied with a tinting brush, if any combing is done it has to be done with a wide toothed comb with polished teeth (such as a mason pearson comb). Otherwise you might get that rubberband effect, or even cause damage. But that is true for any Thio. The hair should never be combed. Depending on the hair texture, some stilysts might even just use their fingers or even the back of the comb to smooth out the hair instead of using a tinting brush. But those are the real experts.
 
Hanna, if that is your hair texture, the Xtenso should have worked great. If it didn't, it was either applied incorrectly, the hair was not processed long enough, or the wrong formula was used. If they used formula 1 and that didn't work, then formula 3 should have been used. Unless you color your hair and they used formula 2, which never gives you the same results. I have super curly, super frizzie, type 3b hair(I mean stick your finger in a socket curly frizzie hair), and the Thio works great for me. If I can figure out how to post a picture here I will post a picture of how my hair looks. You would never believe I have curly hair. No one knows until I tell them. Even when I'm in the caribean, with the heat and high humidity, it will stay perfectly straight. That was never possible with a sodium hydroxide relaxer. My hair would turn into a frizz ball as soon as it got humid. So I don't think your problem was the thio. It was either the formula or the technique. If the person applying the treatment is not an expert, they might not process the hair long enough. My hair takes about 35-40 minutes to process. Most stylist will only process the hair for 20 minutes because that is what the instructions say. However the manufactures put that on the instructions to prevent un-experienced stilysts from overprocessing hair.
 
Also a word of caution. If you used a thio relaxer last year, and the treated hair has not been cut off, you can not use a Sodium hydroxide relaxer. The chemicals are not compatible, and using it will relsult in what is called a chemical hair cut. The chemicals in both types of relaxers, when combined form a substance that is comparable to Nair. So you can imagine what would happen to your hair. It will be destroyed. Once the relaxer overlaps the previously treated hair, is bye bye hair.  That is one way to find out if your stilyst is an expert on chemicals. If they don't know that piece of info, run away, and don't let them perform the service on you.
 
Anyway, with your curl pattern which is almost non-existant, Thio (when performed correctly) will give you straight hair, that is soft and smooth. Sodium hydroxide won't. 
 
Well I hope this helps
 
Good luck and great hair
 
 
 
 

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tbh_hanna View Drop Down
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Joined: Nov 26, 2006
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Posted: Dec 10, 2006 at 12:02pm

Hummm... do you really think i should try xtenso again?

i dont know i had a lot of people telling me that sodium hidroxyde was stronger to get those curls out, by the way i used the normal xtenso not the cera-thermic one.

Do you currently use  xtenso SharyG?

post a picture for us at imageshack.comStar

What about you mzfrizz?

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Sharyg11 View Drop Down
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Joined: May 05, 2005
Location: United States
Posted: Dec 10, 2006 at 12:02pm
Yeah I agree with you, lye is the best choice for african american hair. When you said the hair stayed straight I thought you meant regular curly hair. That's where I got confused.
 
In reference to the smoothing with thio, the product should never touch your scalp, or be smooth against your scalp. That's why not all stilysts can perform the service, or not everyone can do it at home. There is alot of info that needs to be learned (believe me I knowLOL!) But I'm glad the easy straight works for you. I guess is one of those freak products that doesn't work for most people, but will work wonders for a few. I personally never tried it, but have read alot ot bad reviews and seen pictures of serious damage. Then again, many people also don't like Rusk anticurl and I love it. So I guess it depends on the individual, as well as their avility to apply the product.
 
Thanks for sharing the info with me. I'll try to post a picture as soon as I get a chance.
 
Much love, Shary

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Sharyg11 View Drop Down
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Joined: May 05, 2005
Location: United States
Posted: Dec 11, 2006 at 12:02pm
No Xtenso is not is not TR. Is regular thio (no heat).

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Sharyg11 View Drop Down
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Joined: May 05, 2005
Location: United States
Posted: Dec 11, 2006 at 12:02pm
No, you can not use heat with Xtenso. The only thios you can use heat with are the ones formulated for TR. I had TR done as I explained above and was not happy at all. I now use the Rusk Radical Anticurl or Xtenso and I am super happy. I wouldn't switch to anything else. Works great, my hair is shiny, smooth and frizz free, and it works great on the regrowth. And since is so cheap, I buy it, and have my friend who owns a salon apply it for me anytime I need to touch up my hair line, which is the only part where the re-growth is really noticesable. The rest of my head only needs to be touched up every 4 months or so.
 
I'm not looking to switch to a lye relaxer. I hate those things. You must be confusing me with hanna. She was the one inquiring about Sodium hydroxide. I wouldn't let that stuff near my hair. I'm a straight thio girl. I haven't figured out how to post a pic, but I posted a picture of my hair at Folica.com on 3/29/06. You can take a look at it if you want. Is under the reviews for the Sedu flat iron and is under my nickname (Shary). The only difference is my hair is much longer now, but it is still as straight and shiny.

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Sharyg11 View Drop Down
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Joined: May 05, 2005
Location: United States
Posted: Dec 11, 2006 at 12:02pm
I found my picture at the Folica.com website. The customer reviews for the Sedu 1 1/14 inch iron. At the bottom of the page click page 6 and you will find my picture. The before picture is what my curly hair looks like now (after being relaxed with the Rusk radical anticurl). Before it was a frizzie, super curly nightmare. If you click on page 3 you will see pictures of my nieces. Their hair is of course not relaxed but I do flat iron it once in a while. My hair is as curly as the first picture, but as frizzie (actually more frizzie)as the second picture. Before the thio my hair looked like I stuck my wet finger in a socket. Thank God for Rusk! Sharyg112006-12-12 16:51:11

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tbh_hanna View Drop Down
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Joined: Nov 26, 2006
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Posted: Dec 12, 2006 at 12:02pm
cute girls!Smile
did you hair look like theirs before relaxing?

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Sharyg11 View Drop Down
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Joined: May 05, 2005
Location: United States
Posted: Dec 12, 2006 at 12:02pm
Thanks, I don't mean to brag but they are cuteEmbarrassed LOL!
 
And yeap! my hair looked like theirs before relaxing. It was actually as curly as the first one, but as frizzie (well, actually more frizzie) as the second one.

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Sharyg11 View Drop Down
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Joined: May 05, 2005
Location: United States
Posted: Dec 12, 2006 at 12:02pm

I just looked at their pictures again. Yeah, my hair was deft. way more frizzie than theirs. It would take a ton of products to make my curls look half as smooth as my niece (the one in the first picture, with the lighter hair). I'm telling you, I was a frizz ball.

I wish I had a picture, (but I would never let anyone take one, unless my hair was perfectly blowed dry lol).
 
Thank God for Rusk, I don't know what I would do without it. By the way I still use Rusk. I just recently started using the Xtenso. I only use the Xtenso on the new growth around my frontal hairline. It works just fine, but I have never done my entire head with it.
 
The reason why I use the Xtenso in front is because, you can save whatever is left over. So you can just use a little and save the rest. With the Rusk, one you open the tub, the product must be used within 48 hours. So I would have to waste an entire container just to do my hairline. So I use the Xtenso instead. And every 4 to 5 months I use the Rusk to do the all over root touch up.
Hope that helps.
Sharyg112006-12-12 17:08:43

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Sharyg11 View Drop Down
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Joined: May 05, 2005
Location: United States
Posted: Dec 13, 2006 at 12:02pm

SorryEmbarrassed, I meant so say the 1 1/2 inch. The picture should be on page 6 now if not then check page 7.


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tbh_hanna View Drop Down
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Posted: Dec 17, 2006 at 12:02pm
OK thanks to both of you for the assintance i will give it a thought and see what im going to do!!
I hope whatever my decision is it will give me curless hairLOL
Bye bye!

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Sharyg11 View Drop Down
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Joined: May 05, 2005
Location: United States
Posted: Dec 17, 2006 at 12:02pm
You're very welcomeSmile. Please let us know how it turns out.

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tom1 View Drop Down
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Joined: Mar 30, 2007
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Posted: Mar 30, 2007 at 12:02pm

Sharyg11,

I'm a guy with very curly Napoleon Dynamite hair.  How long would you recommend I leave a thio product on my hair.  Right now, my stylist leaves on for about 15-20 minutes.  It makes my hair 100x more manageable but I still get a decent curl in some spots.  Would you recommend I leave the thio product on perhaps twice as long?
 
Also, what happens if one tries to get their hair TR'd using a product such as Xtenso, which is not for TR?  Just curious.

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Sharyg11 View Drop Down
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Joined: May 05, 2005
Location: United States
Posted: Apr 08, 2007 at 12:02pm
Hi tom, sorry I took so long to answer. I was out of town and without a computer. I really can't make any recommendations on the time you should leave the thio treatment on your hair, because I'm not a professional stylist and wouldn't want to give you the wrong advice.
Everyone's hair is different, so even someone with hair exactly like yours might take longer or less time to process.
 
Just so you know, you should have some curl left with the thio treatment, so it sounds like your stylist is doing it right. You should discuss with your stylist if it might be a good idea to process the hair an additional 5 minutes (maybe even 10). For someone with hair that curly you might need some more time. Your hair should look pretty straight when wet. You know hair is done processing when you pull a small section and it doesn't spring back. Hope that helps.
 
If you are using a product such as Xtenso, and want to have TR done (or the other way around), that is fine, because they are both Thio based and are compatible.
 
Much love, Shary

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babygirl720 View Drop Down
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Joined: Mar 30, 2007
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Posted: Jul 22, 2007 at 12:02pm
Well, I have no idea.. but I heard someone say that it is used on african american hair? My mom tried one made for ethnic people a while ago, I was like 10 years old and I had the worst frizziest hair ever and it made it really bad and I had it to get it chopped really short.
 
I succesfully used an american relaxer from walmart a few years back. At that time I was regularly dying my plain brown hair dark brown and once had carmel highlights and I love dhow it made my hair so much straighter. But no, I still had to use a straightener.
 
I just recently used that same product last week and it totally fried the bottom layer of my hair. The reason because, about 8 months back I tried bleaching the bottom layer of my hair blonde, (you know, the whole layered blonde and brown look) and it totally damaged my hair. I thought 8 months would of been long enough since I had only died my hair 3 times since than (my regular dark brown) but now my hair is in it's worst condition ever and... once I get the money I'm going in to get it chopped, which is depressing for me... I've been wanting to grow it out a little past my breasts, while using extensions in the mean time... so it'll put another 2 year hold on my length...
 
 
 
final advice... if you want your hair straight... go to a pro, get magic straight, jap perm, or whatever they offer... 800, maybe even as much as 1500 may sound a lot but if I had 800 dollars I would definately pay that to get my hair back that i once had.

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shaeluv View Drop Down
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Joined: Aug 15, 2007
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Posted: Aug 15, 2007 at 12:02pm
I have a really big need and dont know if anyone has an answer, My stylist is professional but no longer in a salon because she changed professions. She has been using the japanese istraight on my hair for the past year and a half, she recently ran out of product and then found that her contact was no longer good. Does anyone know where to get this product? She doesnt have the time to get out and look for it really so I am trying myself so I can get my straight hair again!!!! :(

If I cant find Istraight can she use a different thermo product on me? and where do you get that?
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