I no longer post or give advice on other Forums except my Forum - Steve’s TR Forum. Please redirect and post your questions and concerns to Steve’s TR Forum and I will be happy to help answer your question.

Here’s a link to my Website: http://www.verticalsinhair.com/ - http://www.verticalsinhair.com

Steve’s TR Forum: http://www.verticalsinhair.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl - http://www.verticalsinhair.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl

I have many Lisa’s in my life, so I don’t know which Lisa you are referring about. As I said in my previous post, I do not post on other Forums, except my Forum (Steve’s TR Forum), but I will make an exception.

First, I am very sorry to hear about your ordeal.  Second, Redken is a reputable company and there is nothing wrong with Redken’s Vertical Curl Reducer.  So before you knock the product down, go back to the stylist and show them what had happened.

Permanent hair straightening is NOT about leap of faith or a reputable salon or a stylist who is very nice. Allowing a bunch of well-intentioned hairdressers to do hair straightening will eventually cause irreversible damage to the hair and follicle. The stylist's skill and experience and understanding the science of permanent hair straightening, is of utmost importance.  
 
Cosmetic procedures such as Vertical of Redken, do not damage the hair follicle within the scalp, and so do not cause hair loss. Only a serious chemical burn to the skin of the scalp that destroys the follicle cells can do so. Burns like this can follow indiscriminate over-use of permanent hair straightening solutions, and therefore these solutions must be handled carefully at all times. But take an enthusiastic amateur embarking on bleaching and doing a hair straightening without any basic knowledge or experience, and combine this with a hair dryer used on its hottest setting: you have a recipe for disaster.  

FYI: The reactive chemical in Vertical of Redken is thioglycolate or Ammonium thioglycolate. Thioglycolic acid is strong and irritating to the skin and is not used in waving and hair straightening solutions as an acid, but as a salt or derivative. For example, ammonium thioglycolate, a salt, is used in alkaline permanent waving, COLD straightening and TR products. In this case, the thioglycolic acid has been neutralized with ammonia. Over the 60 years, thioglycolate had been and still is the preferred choice.

Thioglycolate is used to straighten as well as curl hair. The same chemical reaction that put curl in hair during the permanent wave procedure, takes curl out of hair in chemical relaxing. At this point a reverse action occurs, instead of hair reforming to the shape of the permanent rod, a smoothing or pressing action is applied. This causes the entire protein structure to relax and be held in the new straighter formation. Thioglycolate relaxer is used primarily on hair which has a very soft curl and soft wave pattern. Generally, it is not effective on African hair type, overly curly, excessively kinky, wiry hair.

PS- I will be on vacation June 17 to July 2^nd, inclusive. -Steve