Help! Chi hair straightening system

my hair is very thin now. at my hair line in the front it looks like i have a lot of baby hairs that go a couple of inches back. i have stopped putting it in a pony tail. my hair was in the middle of my back when i got it done. it is now at my shoulders and i am thinking of getting it cut even shorter, because it looks so thin. i have talked to different proffesionals and a dermatologist and they say there is nothing that you can do, but just wait for it to grow back. your hair usually grows about 1/2 inch a month. that is not very fast considering how long my hair was.

i am still considering the nioxin. does anyone know anything about this?

i finally got my money back plus a little more after settling with her insurance company. i was told by the chi company that a strand test is required on all straightners. she did not do a strand test on my hair. also she started the solution at my scalp and worked done. your scalp produces heat, which will make the product work more, which apparently fried my hair, because she left it on too long.

good luck.

i had the chi treatment done six months ago and my hair is still breaking off and falling out. i had to threaten to sue her for her to give me my money back. i have bent hairs all over. immediatly after the procedure some hairs at my part were totally broken off at the scalp. my hair looks so thin now. i have had it cut 5 times in 6 months. i even had to go to a dermatologist. i wonder if nioxin would help me, but i do not want it to make it worse. i called the chi compnay and they told me that i should still use the chi shampoo, conditioner and inusion. so i have been. i am scared if i stopped that my hair would fall out more.

i definitly will not ever use any chemicals on my hair again. my hair has was virgin hair. and because my stylist was careless and did not do a strand test and left the product on too long, my hair is fallling out at age 32.

OKAY, I AM IN YOUR EXACT BOAT. I JUST HAD THE CHI STRAIGHTENING 3 WEEKS AGO AND MY HAIR IS COMPLETELY BREAKING OFF AT THE SCALP. I HAVE LONG HAIR, THE MIDDLE OF MY BACK AND NOW HAVE A BALD SPOT RIGHT OVER THE MIDDLE OF MY FOREHEAD THAT IS CONTINUING TO MOVE BACK. EVERY LITTLE BEND IS BREAKING OFF AND I AM ABOUT TO JUST VOMIT. IT LOOKS LIKE IT HAS BEEN A WHILE SINCE YOU HAD THIS, WHATEVER ENDED UP HAPPENING? DID IT EVENTUALLY STOP BREAKING AND IF SO, HOW SOON? HOW HAS THE GROWING OUT BEEN? AM I GOING TO BE BALD IN ANOTHER WEEK? HELP!!!

Hi Paisley Girl,
I just finished reading all the postings about your Chi hair straightening experience and it''s really helped me alot! I went for a haircut a few weeks ago and my hairstylist was totally trying to sell me on this system. I was having doubts about it and I think after reading about your experience, I not going to get it done. He said he was giving me a "deal" at $400 :-). I''m sorry about your bad experience, but by putting in on the net, I''m sure you''ve prevented alot of others from going through this same thing, me included! So thanks alot for sharing your experence.

I see that it''s been a while since your last posting - how''s your hair now?

Hi Ally,

I'm SO sorry to hear that you're going thru this as well!!

Here's an update on my hair. It's been about 4.5 months since my TR. My hair ended up getting tons of patches of short hairs, from where the hair broke off at the bends. My hair started breaking off around week 2, then the worst of it was around week 4. It continued until around week 6 or 7. Now, I only see the ocassional broken hairs - but they do still break off. I've not done anything to "fix" my bends chemically or to get them straightened. In fact, I've not colored or done anything chemically to my hair since last October. And boy am I in need of some hair color with my greys!! :-0 I've kinda been leary of doing anything to it since it was in pretty bad shape there for a while. The dryness has gotten better (thanks to some of the products I'm now using I believe). All of the broken patches can be seen if I show someone, but outright they're not horrible looking. I just thank God that I have thick hair because I've lost TONS of volume. Also, I'm so thankful for one patch of hairs on top in the middle that hung in there and didn't break off because they help hide my broken patches. If it weren't for them I'd be bawling most days from nappy hair! But all in all, my hair doesn't look horrible. My regrowth is over 2 inches now - the broken bang hairs that I got are about grown out to be the same length as my other bang hairs. I've had to cut off about 6 inches or so since my TR. I unfortunately still see lots of split ends and will probably have to get even more cut off to get all of the dead hair trimmed off.

Anywho, that's my update. Hope ya don't regret asking for it!

There are some suggestions that I would recommend you do to help your hair. Questions though - when did you get your TR? What system was it? When did you notice the bends - do you know what the stylist did wrong? Have you seen breakage? Just curious about what you've been going through.

Anyway, here's some of these things I did when I found out I got the bends, however some of it I didn't know about til later (sure wish I had known about some of it sooner than I did, maybe I could have saved my hair some). Here's my recommendations:

1. Make sure you get some protein treatments. Products such as PPT ID Care, Redken's Deep Fuel, Rene Furterer's Okara Hair repair treatment mask, or Frederic Fekkai's protein RX Hair Mask are some good products. Some are used different than others. PPT Id Care should only be used once every 3-4 weeks for damaged hair. I believe others you can use more regularly. If your stylist will do complimentary deep-conditioning treatments on your hair (complimentary of course since they botched your hair), I would highly recommend doing them about once a month.

2. You need deep moisturizing shampoo & conditioners. I regularly use Redken Allsoft Shampoo & Conditioner or Yuko Phiten Bella Shampoo & Treatment. There are other good brands out there.

3. Jojoba oil!!!!!! This is wonderful for dry hair or for lubricating the bends so that they don't split or break off. You can probably use other types of hair oil as well. I know of someone from the Lovely Loon forum who got the bends last summer and she's not gotten much breakage at all, possibly because of using this product (as well as taking great care of her hair). Some people douse this in their hair and sleep in it overnight (with a towel on your pillow) and then shampoo like normal. It's really helped my hair since I've been using it. I don't see the dryness like I did before.

4. Be gentle and take care of your hair. Don't tug, don't use tight ponytails, don't use clips if you can help it, don't use a brush on your hair while it's wet. Try to use a wide toothed pick to brush your hair - it'll run thru your hair smoother and won't tug on those dry/bent areas.

5. Get regular hair trims.

6. Taking vitamins and being healthy probably helps too! :)

I hope this advice helps. I've not really found a whole bunch of people who have tried to get their bended hairs chemically "fixed" or straightened - at least successfully. It's possible that fixes can be done, but if you even try one I'd recommend you wait at least 4-5 months or even longer for your hair to grow out from the scalp as well to try to get it more healthy. I decided that it's too risky for me to try to get them fixed since I've had so much breakage and the other hairs that haven't broken yet don't need any manipulation done to them cuz they'll probably break off as well. I'm not even sure if I'll ever get a TR again. I love having straight hair and it takes SO much less time getting my hair ready - but not sure it's worth it. If I do decide to get another TR, I'll probably travel to NYC or Toronto to some experts I've heard of that work there - but of course that means lots of $$$.

I wish you the best and hope you don't see breakage. Keep us posted!

Take care,
Paisleygirl

To Paisleygirl:
I'm doing research for a story on japanese straightening. Would like to speak with you about your experience. If you will email me at straighthair@abctv.com I'll give you direct contact info. No obligation to be quoted or otherwise part of story unless you agree. TIA

Michelle,

I'm sorry to hear that you've had breakage too. It's been 6 weeks since my CHI TR and I've had tons of breakage from the damaged bent hairs and it's continuing to break off. I've got patches of small little hairs on the top and one side of my head. Luckily I have somewhat thick hair, plus I have some long hairs that are kinda hiding the patches of broken hairs, so for now no one would notice just by looking at me (unless they looked closely at my hair). However, the long hairs that are left that are hiding the patches are also damaged with sharp 90-degree bends and I'm afraid before long they'll break off (which by the way, my bends are at about 1 inch from the root right now). It'll be interesting to see what happens, especially once all those 1 inch hairs start growing out longer (which btw, I have long hair to mid back). I'm still not freaking out yet, or at least not trying to. I've definitely lost alot of hair and if it wasn't for my semi-thick hair, I'd probably look pretty bad because of the thin-ness. But for now it's not horrible, even though it is frustrating.

About the products. Here's what I've been using. I use the PPT ID Care for a protein treatment - if you have damaged hair then use it once every two weeks, if you have normal hair then use once a month. This is a very important product to have. Then I've been using Redken's Extreme Shampoo & Conditioner as well as Redken's All Soft Conditioner, Heavy Cream Conditioner, Addictive, and Anti-snap. I love these products and kinda change them out depending on what I feel that I need. My favorite is the Addictive. It works wonders. The bottle says to rinse it out, however I find that if I use about 3-4 squirts on my wet hair and leave it in and style that it gives my hair LOTS of bounce and body, and shine. Although, because my hair is damaged (some of the hair that's bent is actually splitting near the bend and then breaking off) it still doesn't look so great the day after shampoo/styling (i wash every other day), so no matter what products I use, my hair still ends up looking dry and dull right before I wash again. It may just take some time before my hair can really get healthy again (although I'm sure if I was faithful in taking my vitamins and eating right that that could help some...) Some people rave about the Crede products, however I won't use their shampoo because it's got sodium hydroxide in it which is Lye (look at a Draino bottle!!). Also I've read some negative responses in addition to all the positives on Crede.

Anyhow, those are the products I've been using. I would mainly suggest you get some protein into your hair so that it can become strong and repair itself. Keep us posted! Good luck to you!
~Paisleygirl

I am totally terrified now that i have read all this stuff of your horror story with the chi straightening system! I was actually considering having this done to my hair. I had not done it because i was scared since it's something so permanent. I would like to keep my hair slightly curly so i could switch between hairstyles. Thank goodness i waited!

My hair is extremely coarse and with extremely rebellious curls and top of that one side is curlier than the other. In the past i have tried products on myself that i have bought in Sally's Beauty Supply, called One n Only Curl Reducer. This product didn't really do anything drastic to my hair but i did notice that my hair would be a bit more flatter, not making my hair look so puffy, which was awesome, but still when i would blow dry it, it would immeadiately get frizzy.

Two years ago i started going to go to the beauty supply and getting this product from Quantum done. I loved this because it would soften my extremely curly hair and once i would blow dry the hair it would not frizz up even in high humidity. A month ago I went back to get it done again, but the hairstylist did not want to put that product on because my hair was not virgin anymore, because of my newly acquired highlights. It totally sucked because she then went on to use the one n only product i have used in the past that really does not work on my hair.

Do you know of any other products out there that could be strong enough to control my hair but gentle enough not to break/damage my highlighted hair?

Thanks.

Heidi,

Thanks for your well wishes! :)

Just so you know, my stylist is certified with Chi and she actually trains other stylists on how to perform Chi across the U.S. So...I'm not really sure what happened, but I guess even those who train others can make mistakes. She said it's possible that she got the solution too close to my scalp and/or ironed my hair wrongly.

My strong opinion is that she left the solution on too long to my hair. I remember she came back 2 times after the initial time limit for the solution and did something with one of my hairs on the back of my head, testing it I guess, and told me I needed to bake about 5 more minutes. Hmmm or was it longer, I can't remember now. I just know it was two separate times she said I needed to sit longer. Which by the way, most of the hairs in the back (where she tested) are totally fine with no bends except for the very top and the nape. From what I hear, Chi's solution is thinner than other types and if it sits too long on your hair or is too close to the scalp, body heat (from it sitting too long) can cause the solution to be sucked into the scalp. I truly feel this is what happened to me. I knew something wasn't quite right, because after she completed my hair and styled it, most of my head (especially the areas of my hair that are now bent on the top and sides) felt VERY tight! It was if I had a helmet on...or better yet, it felt like my head had some kind of facial mask on it , you know the kind that pull and stretch your skin where it feels tight. That to me is proof alone that the solution got too close to my scalp. I had even mentioned this to her after she styled my hair, at how tight it felt and weird. It took 1 to 2 days for that to go away.

Anyhow, sorry, I'm rambling too much now. I just wanted to let you know more about my situation. :) I'm hanging in there and trying not to panic. Hairs are continuing to break, but I'm hoping it'll stop soon.

I'm glad to hear your experience was positive. I've done tons of searching about TR's since mine 3 weeks ago, and believe me, Chi seems to have the most horror stories out there from botched jobs. I really don't feel like Chi does enough training for their stylists. That, plus I don't believe it's as good of a system as others like Liscio.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy your new hair!! :)
~paisleygirl

OH NO! I am SO sorry to hear about your hair loss. Keep up the protein treatments - think how much worse it would be if you weren't doing them. Have you spoken with the shop? The least they can do is refund your money. Not a solution to your problem but SOME satisfaction.

Hang in there. We're all pulling for you!!