Easy Straight = Easy Disaster! I wanted to educate all of you out there considering the purchase of this product, or thinking about chemically straightening your hair. I first must tell you that I have NEVER used this product and I NEVER intend to use it. This is going to be a bit of a long post but I have done alot to research it and I even have testimonials for you all to read. I want to caution all of you against doing a chemical service at home. Any chemical service should be left to a salon professional....As you know I recommend that you also get your hair coloured in a salon, but be it colour, a perm, thermal reconditioning or any form of relaxer do yourself and your hair a favour and get it done at the salon by a reputable technician (for information on how to find one, read my post entitled "How to find a TR technician") The biggest problems with Easy Straight have been breakage and hair loss there are many girls or ladies out there who have lost so much hair because of this product, some have even taken it a step further and gotten legal advice. I needed to warn you all and educate you...please read this carefully and think carefully before purchasing this product. I must remind you that the hair should be thoroughly tested prior to having any chemical service, the hair must be structurally competent before receiving any chemical service, proper strand tests should be conducted and the hair should have the right amount of strength and elasticity so it can withstand the process. Hair that is not structurally competent or fails any of the strand tests should NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES have a chemical service done! Again the opinions expressed in this post are those of the author, me (tigigirl) and remain property of tigigirl. Okay let's get started on this....Easy straight appears to be a relaxer, it seems very similar to X-tenso, except the first solution of X-tenso is not to touch the scalp, whereas with Easy Straight it can touch the scalp. I may from time to time refer to Easy Straight as ES. TR is intended to give the client pin straight hair, this is an option for those who want pin straight hair with no frizz or excess volume. X-tenso instead is intended to relax the curl reducing the frizz and excess volume. X-tenso and TR products all use thioglycolate as the main straightening ingredient, easy straight also uses thioglycolate as the main straightening ingredient.
Okay ready for the rest? I hope so... On the easy straight website they compare their product to TR(themal reconditioning) and traditional relaxers. I'm not really going to go into detail about their views on traditional relaxers since thioglycolate relaxers (x-tenso) are now more widely used. So let's compare.... Easy Straight 1-Claim- Low ph Response - I'm not sure what they are trying to say....the relaxer is alkali so I'm confused as to what they are saying. I'm not sure the Ph values that their product creates, no response from them as to that one. 2-Claim- Ingredients improve elasticity Response- Again I don't get it, how does it improve elasticity? In order for the hair to withstand the chemical straightening process the hair needs to have a certain amound of elasticity, it needs to pass the strand test for elasticity...oh but on the website there is no information about strand testing is there...oh wait its not there because only a professional can truly understand the results of a strand test. 3-Claim-No heat Response- Umm...what is a blow-dryer? Last I checked it emits heat in order to dry the hair. 4-Claim- Good for most coloured and highlighted hair Response- Thing is how do you know if you hair can last or hold through the procedure without conducting a strand test....it doesn't talk about bleached hair...most of the time they tell you to call one of their "straightening experts" straightening experts, umm how are they supposed to make an accurate assessment about someone's hair when they cannot see it through the phone. Just a word of note, most highlighted hair is bleached...not a good idea to have a relaxer over bleached hair. Again this is where a professional who can see your hair can help you. Bleached hair tends to be already quite weak strucuturally so why put more stress on your hair? 5-Claim - Natural regrowth and leaves the hair with movement and body Response- Natural regrowth sure it is, obviously your regrowth will be the way your hair was before the treatment...if they are saying that it will blend in with the rest of your hair, well let's be honest no it really will not. Okay I'll explain, hair that has been relaxed will still have a bit of wave in it so when the regrowth starts coming it will be noticable to the person but there will not be a harsh demarcation as there is with TR. TR has a harsh demarcation line because the hair has been permanently straightened and the regrowth is your natural hair texture so it will obviously be very different. As for hair having movement and body, regardless of whether its' ES, TR or a thioglycolate or traditional relaxer the hair will regain body after about a week. Most people who have their hair relaxed or straightened notice less body after the procedure but after a week the body returns. As for movement, all hair moves, if you are looking for more movement in your hair then your stylist should cut your hair in a way that increases movement. Now ES makes alot of claims about TR....there is however a difference between ES and TR. ES is meant to relax the hair and TR to straighten it, nonetheless here are their claims 1-Claim- Has a high Ph Respnse- High ph to what...it's alkaline like a relaxer and the Ph levels are from 8-9. It needs to be at a level like that in order to penetrate the hair and break the bonds of the hair so that they can be reformed...again I got no response as to the Ph levels in ES. 2-Claim- Need a flat iron Response- Well in order to reform the bonds of the hair to a straight position you need the flat iron. The flat iron rearranges the bonds of the hair so that they become straight, the iron is set at the proper temperature, about 130 degrees celcius. 3-Claim- Not for highlighted hair Response- Okay again in order for the hair to hold throughout the process the hair needs to be structurally competent and when one bleaches their hair they are destroying the cystine bonds of the hair. These bonds are important to the strength of the hair. So if you destry the cystine bonds the hair becomes weaker and therefore more prone to damage...or breakage. Highlighted hair can have TR done but it's tricky, talk to a qualified technician who can inform you if your hair is a good candidate for TR. My only point about traditional relaxers...ES says that traditional relaxers rely on the continous combing of the hair to get it straight, which can be damaging. Funny thing is in the ES video (that can be seen online) they tell the customer to comb through the hair for some time.....how the lies are exposed! Remember that for the first week after any chemcial straightening service the hair is still "weak" and should be considered fragile and handled with great care. I went through all the FAQ's and this one just hit me...I have to share it with you all "Will I get any breakage?" Answer- No as long as you follow the directions and diagnose your hair correctly there will be no breakage. If you need help call the toll free help line and someone who cannot see your hair will try to help you although they are just as good to you as you are since they can't see your hair. Oh did they forget to mention that the hair should be structurally competent and that proper strand tests should be conducted...yes they did...why? The average consumer has no idea how to interpret the results of a strand test properly and they do not have the knowledge or expertise to know if their hair is structurally competent. Ah the things they don't tell you. Oh they also say that misdiagnosing your hair leads to over-processing...and over-processing is breakage my friends! Now they have a place on their site to diagnose your hair I went to it and I was like wow, this is so easy to mess up, again most consumers tend not to know their hair's texture...but basically how it goes on the site....(probably similar to the packaged directions) They tell the customer that they will need to diagnose their hair...first they tell the customer to assess the texture of their hair- so it asks them to describe the diameter of eac strand using words like thick, fine, coarse etc....PROBLEM- what I take to be coarse may not be the same to you...since most consumers do not really understand what these words really mean problems can arise ans a misdiagnosis can happen! Next they ask the customer to asses their porosity - the customer is asked to describe their hair's ability to absorb liquid (and you thought the texture assessment was bad...look at this one) They say that virgin hair MAY be resistent or normal porosity and that coloured(incl. highlighted) hair is MOST LIKELY extremely porous....oh this is great the customer is relying on the company's probability skills...how lovely, in a salon your chemical technician is able to assess your hair using strand tests and other tests in order to get a real answer.....why settle for this? Now in this diagnosis there is no mention of previously permed or relaxed/straightened hair....this can be a problem...simply because if you have had your hair TR'd or X-tenso'd the chemicals should not overlap...if not breakage can occur. With lye or sodium hydroxide relaxers (traditional relaxers) once the Easy Straight comes in contact with the previously relaxed hair (the ones containing lye or hyroxide) the hair will litterally begin to melt...why? Well in nair the two main ingredients are thioglycolate and sodium hydroxide.....so these two chemicals cause the hair to melt...Easy Straight contains thioglycolate and traditional relaxers contain lye or sodium hyroxide (remember x-tenso contains thioglycolate and I'm refering to it as a modern relaxer) so you know what happens then. In step 2 of the video they tell the customer that the hair is fragile, well how is it that a customer can truly understand that without it being explained to them...they need to be told that the bonds of the hair have been broken and that the hair is prone to breakage now since the bonds have been broken, extreme care needs to be taken after the first solution is applied up until the second solution is washed off. Solution one breaks the bonds and solution two reconnects the bonds...this applies to TR and X-tenso as well. So I'd like to know why they do not make that clear to the customer.....They also tell the customer to work quickly, why? Because if one takes much to long to apply the cream the area that the cream was applied to first runs the risk of becoming over-processed. It can be difficult for people to know how quickly they need to work. Step 3- Oh I love this because here the lies are exposed...remember before how in comparing ES to TR and traditional relaxers they claimed that ES was different than traditional relaxers because it does not require continous combing well that's a lie. In step three they tell the customer to comb their hair using the wide tooth comb provided! They tell the customer to comb for a number of minutes...I thought they said that combing is bad because it can cause damage...hum...maybe they thought customers were dumb and would not notice. I personally would not recommend combing the hair that way after the process. The hair is still very fragile and prone to breakage, it is for 72 hours and the hair should not be combed or brushed aggressively for at least a weak. I think the combing is too harsh for the hair at a time when the hair is very fragile.... Now let's investigate the claims associated with the product... Claim- Safe, gentle, nourishes and conditions Response- Safe how? Against mishaps or hair loss or breakage, now that's silly should you misdiagnose then you have problems already, shoudl the hair not be structurally competent then you are going to have problems...breakage included. As for nourishing and conditioning, ummm I'm not so sure, how does it's condition the hair....if they are talking about ingredients most have something in them to give the hair a bit of a boost, sometimes after the service the technician will use a mask or some sort of product to give the hair a bit of a boost....think of it as a vitamin. Claim- Safe for colour treated hair Response- I already mentioned this above, again not recommended for bleached hair. Claim -Healthier hair Response- How? You are altering the interior structure of the hair and as that occurs you are damaging the hair a bit. Most people need protein and moisturizing treatments after a chemical straightening service. Protein being the most important because since the first solution breaks the bonds of the hair it causes the hair to lose some protein (which relates to the hair's strength) and people need to restore that protein and therefore protein treatments are needed Claim- Revolutionary Response- It's quite similar to X-tenso which is a salon only relaxer.....in my opinion ES is revolutionary because it actually convinces people that they can straighten their hair at home with no problems and that the people at ES and customers think that they can accurately diagnose their hair and the hair's structural compence without the help of a professional. It's a gamble. It's also revoltionary in my opinion because it's damaged more heads of hair than helped. Claim-Does not requore heat appliances Response- Last time I checked a blow-dryer was considered a heat appliance and at the end of the procedure ES tells you to blow-dry your hair...don't be fooled you will still need a flat iron to achieve a truly straight look only way to really ditch the iron is TR. Also chemicals damage the hair, I mentioned that protein and moisture are lost during the procedure and also in the hands of an unexperienced non-professional chemicals can spell disaster Claim -Non damaging formula Response Read my response to the previous claim...this claim is a pure laugh!
So now I have educated you on this....I'm going to add my initial reactio to Easy Straight that I posted at www.verticalsinhair.com and then I will post some other comments on ES and a newspaper article My first reaction about it as posted on www.verticalsinhair.com I was looking at some messages on a forum and people were raving about Easy Straight....this is an at home striaghtening system...in my opinion its more like an X-tenso treatment since it claim's that it reduces curl and frizz, but that is not the worry. Here is my concern, and I figure as people find out about it they will ask...I'm asking now Okay here is my first problem....people are having problems with the results they get from so called professionals doing TR's and X-tenso's and now this product claims that you can have straight hair and do it in the convience of your own home. This seems problematic, and the other big problem is that one has to analyze their own hair, yup someone who possibly has no idea about hair has to analyze their own hair...they have to determine the porosity and texture of their hair...oh boy if the critical step is the analysis then if you get it wrong won't the results be a horror story. Oh it's got a magical oil to protect your hair...oh goodness I just watched the video..oh my gosh I can imagine all the problems that can happen...first we had so called tr tech's learning from a video and now people can do it themselves! I don't think that they emphasize how fragile the hair is after they have applied the first solution, they have to wash it out in the shower,shampoo and condition it, and they say gently...that can differ from person to person. This easy straight apparently works with colour treated hair...although no mention of hair being bleached, it can't be double processed or very fine. This worries me very much. I've already read some horror stories and this girl who is my age, 19, is freaking out because her hair is falling off, being a 19 year old girl myself I know that hair is very important to a girl, and guys to. I know that they want pin straight hair, and they just resort to anything they see, easy straight is also cheap $30US. Sometimes when we desire something so badly we do whatever we think, we want miracles for our hair, I know because I want them to, but too many people just jump to any chance that they get and do not understand what they are doing to it. Anyways Steve I'd love your input on this product, they have a website and their instructional video is there and the toll free # to speak to someone is there too. In the end easy straight is something that is going to add to the problem that people are having with their hair...first untrained TR techs now people who have no clue about hair doing it themselves! Here is the stie www.easystraight.com I look foreward to hearing what you have to say Steve. Thanks again p.s. they do not mention the ingredient that allows the hair to straighten..I'll ask though The ingredient in the cream is Thioglycolate...just as I thought. They said in regards to the bleached hair to call a straightening expert between certain hours...again I'm not too pleased with their answers or the product.
Here is Steve's (a TR and hair reconditioning expert & one of the hair guru's this blog is dedicated too) reply:
The Power of words + the Power of Internet + the Power of advertising can lead to EasyStraight hair disasters! I read somewhere that in the year 2020 Women will have hairless head of hair. For stylists and people who are not versed with chemical hair straightening products, EasyStraight is an Easy sell, especially the way they described the comparable of TR vs EasyStraight and specifically the environment they used to capture the EasyStraight video. Their description of diagnosing the hair and the explanation is absolutely correct, but the comparables and the pH stuff and most of the other stuff that they're talking about, is NOT true. It is just a marketing tool. Actually, some TR products are far less damaging to the hair than most conventional thioglycolate hair straightening products. You're right. According to EasyStraight, the reforming solution in step #2 is ammonium thioglycolate and ammonium hydroxide. As for step #3 the neutralizing solution; it is hydrogen peroxide, but they use a fancy word and refer to it as "Straightening Sealant". In fact, there is nothing magical about EasyStraight, except of course the way they set it up. It looks appealing. Look at it this way, hairstylists are ruining people's hair [botched thermal reconditioning due to lack of expierence and knowledge of hair] and charge big dollars. And since hair straightening is a big thing now, small companies are finding ways to capture the market and capitalize on profit. EasyStraight went one step ahead and captured the video at-home, with two girls in a casual atmosphere so that every person can see that the process is easy to do. This actually makes this part of the product Easy to sell! As for the Straight part, maybe it is as good as any other hair straightening product, but I don't know! And as you had mentioned, it is somewhat similar to X-Tenso, but not exactly. The technology in X-Tenso is a little different; X-Tenso is designed to limit bond breakage by having a lot of dithio in the formula (dithioglycolate). Dithio is like auto control, so we get bond breaking but without complete conversion of cystine to two cysteines. So as it progresses, the situation occurs where the hair is softened but not completely converted to all cysteines. I know this is complicated, but suffice to say - in the hands of an expert stylist almost all hair straightening products, including EasyStraight, can remove excess curl and make the hair quick and easy to style. However, I don't ever recommend anyone to do this process at home. Home-jobs are usually done by people with out the ability to troubleshoot. People doing their own hair lack the physical perspective which can make all the difference in the outcome.
Some of the most common problems that people are complaining of is breakage and hair that is falling out...here are some I've read -Just a note the reviews posted are property of the author and the website in which they were posted on. These reviews are the sole opinion of the author. There have been some good reviews about this product although I am warning you all against the use of it because it seems to me that the amount of negative reviews outweighs the number of good ones....based on what I have told you I think you would agree that it is too risky...you got to read the advice of a professional Steve as well....your choice. This is from HarleyMom from www.makeuptalk.com Count me in has another Easystraight disaster. I am still kicking myself for believing the imformation advertised on the box about how it is so easy and safe to use, I followed the directions to a T and like others I also rinsed it out earlier. I had to have about 3 inches cut off of my hair and also had to pay for a deep conditioning treatment and my hair is still fried, I will probably have to wear a bandana or scarf for quite a while and continue to have dead hair cut away, my hair length was almost midway down my back but now it is up to my shoulders and will probably have to have more cut off, I just want to cry everytime I look into the mirror now. Please spread the word and do not use this product, the results cause nothing but heartache. This one really touched my heart when I read it because as you all know I'm 19 as well and being a teen in this day and age, looks are important and your hair is a part of you! This post is by Beth Ann and is from http://www.lamasbeauty.com/talk/chitchat/messages/518.html Oh my gosh! please don't use Easy Straight! I had healthy, thick, virgin hair. My favorite hair dresser and I applied this product on my hair together for less than the recommended time just to be catious. After about three weeks my hair started to break off by the hand fulls. I am now a nineteen year old who has to wear a hat everyday. This was the worst experience of my life. I am speaking to a lawyer now. Please don't use this product. Tell you friends!-Beth Ann This one is from Julie B. Johnson from http://www.lamasbeauty.com/talk/chitchat/messages/484.html I decided after several dollars were spent and several months past to check a web site that i may be able to warn people about this product. i lost so much hair that i looked like i had been skinned. all of my bangs fell out and a large portion of the back of my hair fell too. when i called to complain about the product on the 1800 line they told me that i should have used the whole container and that they would note my problem and maybe add and adjustment in directions for use saying the whole product should not be used. my hair was about 4 inches lower then my bra strap line at the time i used the products. since then, it has been cut and treated with so many conditioning products that i have actually lost count. it is now november and i used this product march or april of last year. oh, and when i spoke to someone at the 1800 line they also promised to send some conditioning product. i had to call for this product twice and they sent me a 30 dollar refund check. too bad that i have spent about 3000 fixing it! The final one is from a newspaper - The New York Post Arpil 12, 2004 found on page 6 http://entertainment.iwon.com/celebgossip/pgsix/id/04_12_2004_5.html BURNED UP OVER HAIR HORROR NOTE to fashion lemmings: if you want to straighten your hair, go to a salon! Sarah Hooper, an editorial assistant at CosmoGirl! Magazine, is threatening to sue Haime Munoz, whose namesake salon has appeared in Allure as one of the "best," because his do-it-yourself straightening solution left her balding and burned. "I was trying out the product for the magazine," Hooper told PAGE SIX. "I followed the instructions explicitly and even took the solution off earlier than it said, but when I washed it out, my hair started falling out in clumps. When I tried to contact Haime he was rude and insinuated I didn't follow instructions properly. He insisted I come to his salon, but I told him I had already missed a day of work due to the trauma and I would rather him come see me. I have spent over $100 on hats now. The hair that didn't fall out is frizzy and burned. I told him he could talk to my lawyer." But Munoz said: "[Hooper] did a bad application. I must see her hair. I have used this product for 12 years and it has been on the market for three months with no complaints. I can't be responsible if she doesn't come see me."
Now you know what I think about this product and you have Steve's opinion as well, Steve is a TR and hair reconditioning expert, he's been chemically straightening hair for over 25 years, he is a hair guru. You are also armed with the reviews about people who have actually used the product and you have read a newspaper report. I have educated you to the best of my ability, but should you want more clarification e-mail me, below this post and every post their is a e-mail me shortcut, click my e-mail address and there you go. The choice of whether or not to use this product is now in your hands.
"width="1024" height="569" hspace="0" vspace="40" border="0" align="absmiddle"
usemap="#Map" />