Protein Treatment Mystery

[TaraDanina]

So, in light of some research about how to take better care of my semi-bleached hair, I opted to do a protein treatment a couple months ago.
I believe I bought Aphogee Reconstructor- a little two dose pack. I used the first one right around Thanksgiving. My hair felt amazing! But it was also...at least one inch shorter?
I don't have any experience with shrinkage whatsoever. Is this normal?
I repeated the treatment a little over a month lyre and noticed shrinkage again, to a much lesser degree.
Had my hair just gotten stretched out from bleaching/handling/conditioning?
What do you think?

[meteor]

^ First of all, I'm happy you got great results with Aphogee, it's a really powerful protein treatment for chemically treated hair! :thumbsup:

I'm not sure what happened with visible shrinkage, but my thinking is: is your hair naturally somewhat wavy or curly? :hmm: The thing is, when we bleach hair, it loses some natural protein (structure) and loses some of its natural texture to some extent (and this only gets worse with over-lapping or with added heat or chemical treatments, of course...). But protein treatments can help bring back a bit of that texture, if temporarily. And wavier/curlier texture "eats up" more length, due to shrinkage. Maybe that's what happened in this case, too? :)

I'd avoid heat, UV, chemical, mechanical damage and keep doing protein treatments from time to time (well spaced out), followed by intense moisturizing treatments and oiling (pre-poo, oil rinses, added to conditioner, LOC...). :)

[Islandgrrl]

Interesting. I know that years ago (like pre LHC) I had a little hair color mishap in which my hair got overprocessed and mushy feeling. It was super stretchy and weird feeling. When I blow dried it (eeek!), it seemed like it was longer than it had been before the hair color thing, and I assumed it was my imagination.

But maybe not. Maybe it was sort of semi-permanently stretched out from the damage. I never did a protein treatment - I ended up giving myself a buzz cut to get rid of the damage because it was pretty horrible.

I don't know if that could happen in reverse, though...if protein would make your damaged hair shrinky.

[meteor]

^ Oh yes, that over-stretched, over-processed, gummy, mushy hair when wet is a classic case of needing hydrolyzed protein! :agree:
I still remember how it feels, too. :)

Colorists often check the "stretchiness" of colored (or otherwise chemically treated) hair when it's wet and often require a protein filler before you can go to a next chemical treatment, because at that point the hair is way too compromised and any other treatment could be too risky.
(Aphogee 2-step is often used as a prep treatment in salons before chemical treatments.)

[TaraDanina]

^ First of all, I'm happy you got great results with Aphogee, it's a really powerful protein treatment for chemically treated hair! :thumbsup:

I'm not sure what happened with visible shrinkage, but my thinking is: is your hair naturally somewhat wavy or curly? :hmm: The thing is, when we bleach hair, it loses some natural protein (structure) and loses some of its natural texture to some extent (and this only gets worse with over-lapping or with added heat or chemical treatments, of course...). But protein treatments can help bring back a bit of that texture, if temporarily. And wavier/curlier texture "eats up" more length, due to shrinkage. Maybe that's what happened in this case, too? :)

I'd avoid heat, UV, chemical, mechanical damage and keep doing protein treatments from time to time (well spaced out), followed by intense moisturizing treatments and oiling (pre-poo, oil rinses, added to conditioner, LOC...). :)
Thank you, Meteor! My hair isn't really curly, but it definitely has some wave which had disappeared over the last couple years, so that must be it.

I don't use heat, and I do a lot of pre-poo and hair masks, etc. About 2/3 of my hair is highlighted/single processed. I was planning to do a protein treatment once a month. Do you think this is too often?

[meteor]

Thank you, Meteor! My hair isn't really curly, but it definitely has some wave which had disappeared over the last couple years, so that must be it.

I don't use heat, and I do a lot of pre-poo and hair masks, etc. About 2/3 of my hair is highlighted/single processed. I was planning to do a protein treatment once a month. Do you think this is too often?

I'd go by how your hair feels and the stretch test, of course. ;)
That's not necessarily too often, but it's a very strong treatment and if you don't have much damage (low vol. bleach left not for too long, no over-lapping on roots...), you might not need to do this so frequently. And I would expect the law of diminishing returns to kick in. The company says the effect can last up to 6 weeks and recommends this once every 4-6 weeks (http://aphogee.com/faq/), but it largely depends on how often you wash, how fine your hair is, the extent of damage, the kinds of conditioners you regularly use (since many conditioners for damaged hair already have a lot of hydrolyzed proteins, like Joico K-Pak Reconstruct, Redken CAT, ...), etc...


You might also like DIY gelatin mask, if you get great results from Aphogee: http://science-yhairblog.blogspot.ca/2014/04/gelatin-protein-treatment-recipe-update.html
If you plan on continuing with bleach in the future (say, for root touch-ups), consider doing this over heavy coconut oil soaks (or coconut + argan oil soaks): they are mildly protective. http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=10495