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Keratin Coppola Smoothing Treatment

in Hair

Ladies, the time has finally come. After dozens and dozens of emails with questions regarding Brazilian Blowouts and/or Keratin Coppola Smoothing Treatments, Tera documented a a step-by-step Keratin Coppola Smoothing Treatment in hopes to help explain the concept and show the amazing results from the treatment.

If you have questions for Tera, please leave a comment and she’ll do her best to answer you!

Now, let’s get to it!

This is Cindy. She has very curly, unruly hair. It is sometimes cooperative, and this is a pretty good day. Our goal was to eliminate all of her frizz and make her curls more manageable. She also hopes that with the smoothing treatment , she will be able to blow her hair out straight, something she hasn’t yet been able to master.

Here is Cindy pre-treatment.

After retouching Cindy’s color, we shampooed her hair with the Keratin Complex Clarifying Shampoo to remove any color residue or oils that could prevent the treatment from adhering to her hair. I then quickly dried her hair so I could begin to apply the treatment. Immediately following color is the best time for a treatment as it seals the hair so color stays vibrant, shiny and lasts longer.

I sectioned Cindy’s hair into sections and begin applying the Keratin Complex Smoothing Treatment. It is applied to the entire head.

The entire head is covered with the treatment. Next it is covered with a plastic cap and she will sit for 30 minutes. In this time the treatment is finding it’s way into the open spaces in the cuticle.

When thirty minutes has passed, the hair is again quickly blown dry with the treatment in it.

The hair is then flat ironed with a 450 degree iron in very fine sections. This is when the magic happens! An activator in the treatment reacts with the heat of the iron sealing the treatment into the hair. The hair becomes extremely smooth, shiny and soft.

The finished product! Cindy will not shampoo her hair or get it wet at all for 3 days. When she shampoos it, her hair will be 100% frizz free and slightly less curly. Her own hair but only better!!!

Gorgeous.

What about three days later, after washing and air-drying?

Still great curls without any of the frizz!

And three weeks later…

Remember how Cindy couldn’t blow dry her hair straight before the treatment? This photo was taken after she dried it straight with her fingers. (She didn’t even use a brush!!) Pretty damn impressive…

And here’s a more specific comparison of her curls before and after the treatment.

Absolutely lovely. I have had several personal friends do the Coppola treatment and they can’t stop raving about it. (Literally. I GET IT, PEOPLE.)

If this process is something that would be perfect for your hair type and you live in Southern California, Tera is offering the process for 20% off! ($280 instead of $350.) Additionally, if you add another service (cut or color), she will give you 25% off. You can book your appointments with Tera at her website.

Thanks for taking the time to do this, Tera! Don’t forget to leave your questions for Tera in the comments.

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153 comments

  1. Berlin Hair Baby

    February 24, 2010 at 1:09 pm

    what a well researched and written post! fantastic, I love it!

  2. Tera Stephens

    February 24, 2010 at 2:52 pm

    @Court the treatment washes out very gradually so you won’t even be able to tell where it begins and ends. Also, by the time you have noticible regrowth you would be due for your next treatment.
    @Suzanne I’m a stylist with 10 years of experience and had to take a certification class to use this product. The iron has to be 450• and you can very easily burn and permanently damage your hair if you don’t know what you’re doing. I would recommend having this one done professionally.
    @Berlin hair baby thank you so much!

  3. Jackie W.

    February 24, 2010 at 3:19 pm

    Loves the before curls too !

  4. Curlystraight

    February 24, 2010 at 4:50 pm

    Hmmm.

    The professional blowout looks amazing but I like the curly before pics better too.

    But it is intriguing that she can straighten it like that with her fingers.

    It’s rough for curly headed girls, rough for straighted-haired girls, too. Everyone always wants what they do not have.

    I have the best (ahem – cough cough) of both worlds – curly AND straight! (I even named my blog in honor of my hair.)

  5. cindy

    February 24, 2010 at 6:26 pm

    Cindy here again. It is so funny how so many people like the ‘before’ curls. Please understand that I certainly don’t necessarily ‘hate’ the hair I have/had. When you have hair as curly and thick as mine, there are so few options as to how to style it, unless you want to spend hours blow drying and then flat ironing your hair, just so you can have a different look every now and then. I refuse to do this. Not only did it never come out very well, but it would be so damaging to my hair to do it on any sort of regular basis. The only time I had hair that I could actually run my fingers through, was right after I had it done by my awesome stylist, Tera. Now, I can do it straight myself (it takes a total of about 20 minutes from wet head to dry and straight – no joke!) or I can diffuse it to have the wavy curls, which I like just as well. That takes about 10 minutes total. What the process has done is given me options, which is sooooo nice. I am not a high maintenance girl and refuse to spend too much time primping! The best way to describe this is to say that it is still my hair, only BETTER. And, if for some reason I decide that I like the tight curls better, they will come back in about 6 months. For now, I am LOVING this :)
    @curlystraight – you are right, everyone always wants what they don’t have, but now I really feel like I have it all. I can even run my fingers through my wavy hair and not turn into a fur ball! NEVER can do that with the tight curls.

  6. Frannie

    February 24, 2010 at 10:48 pm

    Cindy, I am so glad that you feel you can have the best of both worlds and still keep your hair so healthy. My problem is that I have really straight hair (attributed to being half Asian), and if I use a curling iron, despite protection products, it still damages my hair. Can anyone recommend a treatment for straight hair?

  7. Sam

    February 25, 2010 at 6:15 am

    I had this treatment done in November. A common problem for curly haired girls is that to have nice curl you need to air dry and because its so coarse and thick that can take a long time, 3+hours. I live in the Boston area and this time of year its just cold for that. One of the biggest benefits of my treatment has been that it can air dry in well under an hour and still look great. My curl is slowly coming back but the texture is still softer and the dry time still low. I think I should get at least another month or two out of it.

  8. Tera Stephens

    February 25, 2010 at 9:29 am

    @Frannie The first benefit we always talk about with this treatment is smoothing frizz but it can also be done on ALL hair types. At a recent hair show I was speaking with a Keratin educator who pointed out that everyone loves shiney, healthy hair. Because the keratin is sealed into the hair, all types would benefit. He says it is also great for people trying to grow out their hair because the hair is more protected and is less prone to breakage and splitting. My own hair is mostly straight but extremely overprocessed from being very blonde for years, it has given my limp, dull locks new life!

  9. erika

    February 25, 2010 at 10:03 am

    This treatment sounds wonderful and I love the results. I wish I could get those waves with a flat iron or curling iron.

    I have a question for you Tera even though it doesn’t have to do with this topic.

    I have a ceramic flat iron by Hai and I am ready for an upgrade. What flat iron would you recommend?

  10. Tara

    February 25, 2010 at 10:17 am

    Anyone have experience with the Keratin process & colored hair? I’m also almost totally grey, and I dye – and I get roots showing in about three weeks. I worry that putting dye over this process would ruin it. (I’m just not ready to go gently into that good night of grey!) I have curly/frizzy hair (more like Andi McDowell/Kim Delaney type of curl) so it’s curly (dry) and colored (dry). Currently I’m wearing it just above shoulder length, and I have never been able to do a decent blow dry/straighten at home. (Most of the time I just get a sort of pouf helmet.) Has anyone done this process on colored hair? Also, I’ve tried just about every curly hair product out there, and I’m always looking for “the one.” I will give the Kerastase Oleo Curl Creme a try!

  11. Emily

    February 25, 2010 at 8:07 pm

    Ooo, my hair is so annoyingly wavy (and not in a cute way) – I might do this when my hair grows out. Is it good for hair that is fine? My hair is on the finer side but I have a lot of it.

  12. Zoe

    February 26, 2010 at 7:38 am

    Tera – can this be done on seriously over-processed hair?

    I’ve been bottle blond, and flat-ironing for over 10 years, and have very damaged, FRIZZY hair. I’ve been looking into this for a while as it sounds like the perfect solution to my 5 hour weekly ritual of air drying and flat-ironing, but I have read some nightmares about lots of breakage near the root, and over-processing resulting in burned hair.

    Is this common, or due to a bad stylist? Or are there different types of treatment for super-processed hair?

  13. tera Stephens

    February 26, 2010 at 3:05 pm

    @erika- I always tell my clients to buy an iron that has a thermostat so the iron can be controlled. Healthy hair can be ironed at about 300 degrees and more damaged around 275. The damage from ironing comes from going over and over the hair, usually with an iron that isn’t hot enough. Also, I highly recommend using a thermal protectant.
    @Tara- Cindy is also going grey and we tint her base. You sound like a great candidate for this treatment. I would recommend doing it the same day as color as you wouldn’t be able to color for at least 2 weeks after your treatment. You should also make sure your colorist uses a shampoo and conditioner that don’t contain sodium chloride as that is the one ingredient that will pull the treatment right out of your hair.
    @Emily- I just did a treatment yesterday on a client with very fine hair, I honestly can say that EVERY hair type would benefit from this treatment.
    @Zoe- Drum roll please!!! Keratin Complex recently released a new formula for your exact situation. It does exactly the same thing as the original formula but is formulated to activate at a lower temperature to prevent more damage to the hair. I think you would see a huge improvement in the condition of your hair, especially after a couple of treatments as it has a cumulative effect. I have also heard of some nightmares… it would be caused by improper ironing of the hair. We work with an extremely hot iron and moving it too slowly or going over the hair too many times could absolutely burn the hair. Make sure to see a stylist that is very experienced in this process!!!

  14. Steph

    February 27, 2010 at 8:38 pm

    I am seriously scared now that I’ve read that some women are losing their hair at rapid rates after using this treatment. I’m also reading that it contains formaldehyde. I was so excited to try this but now I’m scared to.

    http://www.oprah.com/community/thread/113583?start=15&tstart=0

  15. Tera Stephens

    February 28, 2010 at 11:57 am

    @Steph I read the message board you linked as I hadn’t heard of this before and also contacted my Keratin educator. She is doing some research on her end and I will post what she comes up with. Two points I would like to make… Both women had issues with hair loss to begin with. One says she was doing hair counts even before her treatment and the other had already suffered alopecia (spots of hair loss). The other point is that any treatment, procedure, surgery, medication, etc. COULD have an adverse reaction in a FEW people. I have had excellent results with EVERY treatment I have done. This is something we are looking deeper into.