Keratin or nanoplastia: which one is right for you

«Valeria, which one do you think is better?». You ask me every day, almost always in those exact words. It's the right question asked at the wrong moment. Better for whom, on which hair, after what: those are three things that change the answer, and none of the three fits in a message.

Keratin smooths and protects

Keratin smooths and protects the fibre. A protective film forms on the hair: it's what makes it disciplined and what cuts blow-dry time dramatically. It does not rebuild the fibre. It protects what is there, and it does that well.

On the price list you'll find it as «Lisciante alla keratina» and as «Lisciante Bixyplastia». They are the same treatment with different products, and which of the two to use is decided in the consultation, based on your fibre: it isn't a matter of taste, it's a technical choice. It takes three and a half hours, the price starts from €250 and includes cut and blow-dry, which we don't do on their own.

The effect lasts three to six months. Repeated, it lasts longer, because the product builds up on the hair and the film gets thicker: you get to six or seven months. On damaged hair, though, it lasts less; on healthy hair it lasts longer. That's the first reason the same question has different answers on different heads.

Nanoplastia smooths and rebuilds

Nanoplastia works deeper. Proteins and sixteen amino acids in nanoparticles go inside the fibre: it smooths and rebuilds in the same step. It isn't a stronger keratin, it's something else, with a stronger formula. Before applying it we put on a lipid restructuring treatment, which protects the hair from the heat of the straighteners and repairs the damage.

It's five hours of work, the price starts from €400, cut and blow-dry included. It lasts six to eight months, twice as long as ordinary nanoplastia treatments, which stop at two to four months. It's the longest-lasting result we do, and it's the one I choose when you want a hundred per cent mirror-smooth finish, on curly or very frizzy hair.

There's one thing you need to know before and not after: being a very strong smoothing treatment, nanoplastia can lighten coloured hair by two or three shades. If you've just had a colour you care about, that sentence alone can change the decision.

Why I look at your hair wet

Dry, hair lies. Not through any fault of yours: a good blow-dry, an oil on the ends, a product that weighs it down just enough, and the fibre looks in order even when it isn't. Wet, the hair has nothing on it any more, and it shows me two things I can't see when it's dry.

The first is elasticity: wet hair stretches, and from how it stretches and how it comes back I understand how much it still has to give. The second is how it drinks: porous hair absorbs more product, and not always in the same measure along the whole length. From there I understand how much product is really needed and, above all, whether the fibre can take what you'd like to do to it.

The questionnaire you find on the website is there to know what happened before: what result you want, how long your hair is now, what the last chemical treatment was and how long ago, whether there has been any bleaching, even old, what happens with humidity, what products you use at home. It's six questions and they're all needed, because they tell the story of your hair. Wet hair tells what of that story is still inside, and the two things almost never coincide.

Then there's the step that really decides, and it's the strand. If in the consultation the test strand doesn't respond well, we don't proceed. We suggest a course of restructuring treatments first and talk again afterwards.

Why I don't give you an answer over the phone

If I answer you over the phone I'm guessing, and I'm guessing with your head. Two people can tell me the exact same story — same length, a colour done a few months ago, hair that puffs up as soon as there's humidity — and have on their heads two kinds of hair that don't resemble each other at all. A badly done smoothing treatment can break the hair: that's why we always start from a diagnosis and choose the product based on your fibre, not on a standard protocol.

The same goes for the price. The figures you read are a starting point: they vary with the length and the amount of hair. A quote given over the phone, without having seen anything, is either inflated to be on the safe side or low and then changes in the chair: I don't like either. The final figure I tell you in the salon, after the diagnosis and before we start. The appointment for the treatment is secured with a deposit calculated on the price of the treatment, which is deducted from the total on the day.

When the answer is something else

On bleached hair I advise against nanoplastia. In its place I suggest a more concentrated smoothing treatment combined with a restructuring one: on bleached fibre that's the route that holds. And if the bleaching is recent, you wait, but how long I assess in the consultation: it depends on how much it has affected the elasticity of the fibre.

I know perfectly well that this part loses appointments. I write it anyway, because a treatment done when it shouldn't have been stays on your hair for months and on my name for years.

There's another case where the answer is no: while breastfeeding we advise against chemical treatments, smoothing treatments included. At that stage the priority is your wellbeing and the baby's, and the treatment can wait.

And it often happens that the right answer is neither of the two. It isn't a fallback. If you don't want absolutely straight hair but you do want to get rid of frizz and puffiness while keeping the natural movement, there's the anti-frizz: it's a light keratin, it keeps the structure of the hair and doesn't straighten. If instead the hair is worn out and breaks, the first thing to do is a restructuring treatment: it works from the inside, and on very damaged hair it's the step that makes the smoothing treatment possible later on.

One clarification that avoids a common mistake: the regrowth treatment is done only with smoothing treatments, never with the anti-frizz, because you would see the line where it meets the lengths that are already straight.

What happens afterwards

Whichever of the two you choose, how long it lasts is decided in the months that follow, not on the day of the appointment.

Colour is done after the treatment, a few days later: a strong smoothing treatment can lighten coloured hair by two or three shades, and a colour done before is lost. We don't do colour here, but if you have it done elsewhere you don't need to fit it in around the smoothing treatment. For the first few days, instead, the precise instructions I give you in the salon, together with the products that were put on your hair: they change with the treatment and with what we used, and I'd rather tell you face to face than write the same thing for everyone.

Then there are the products at home. Sulphate-free and salt-free shampoo, lukewarm water and not boiling hot, hairdryer and straighteners on a low temperature: sulphates and salt are the two ingredients that shorten the life of a treatment the most. And if after a smoothing treatment your hair feels greasy, it isn't the treatment gone wrong: it's the pH that hasn't been rebalanced, and it's fixed with a restructuring treatment.

In the end the choice between keratin and nanoplastia isn't a choice between two products. It's the consequence of what your hair can sustain today, which is a different thing from what it could sustain two years ago and from what your sister's can. That's why the only honest answer I can give you from here is that from here I can't give it to you.

The consultation takes fifteen minutes, it's free and you book it from the website. Come, we'll wet it, and then I'll tell you.