A finished half-up curl set photographed from behind at the styling chair

Smoothing · Bond building · Gloss

Frizz, breakage,
or flat color.

Three complaints walk into this studio, and four treatments answer them. Keratin and a Brazilian Blowout change how hair behaves in Nashville humidity. Olaplex rebuilds what lightener spent. A gloss fixes tone and nothing else. Name the complaint first: the treatment falls out of it.

Book a treatment Smoothing over lightened hair? →

72hrBefore a keratin's first wash

3–5moHow long smoothing lasts

45minA gloss, start to finish

Start here

Which problem are you actually solving?

People book keratin when they want a gloss, and a gloss when what they need is bond work. No amount of the wrong one adds up to the right one. Find your sentence first.

It frizzes. It takes forever to dry.

Fine when it leaves the house, unrecognizable by noon, and a blow-dry is a forty-minute event. Nashville summers do this to almost everybody.

You want smoothing.

It snaps. It stretches. It feels gummy wet.

Usually the tail end of a lightening service, a home kit, or heat that got away from you. It isn't dry. It's structurally short of what holds it together.

You want bond building.

It's dull, brassy, or faded flat.

The shape is fine, the color was right eight weeks ago and now it's a shade of nothing. A surface problem, not a structural one.

You want a gloss.

In plain terms

What each one does.

Keratin smoothing

A protein solution worked through damp hair, dried in, sealed with a flat iron. It fills the cuticle and holds it flat, so hair dries faster and stops reacting to weather. It does not straighten. Your wave still reads; it just behaves. Three hours, and it wears off over three to five months rather than growing out in a line.

For coarse, dense or curly hair you blow-dry anyway.
Not for anyone attached to their curl pattern. Smoothing loosens it and you can't put it back.

Brazilian Blowout

A branded smoothing system, and the practical difference is aftercare: no waiting period. Wash it, tie it up, go about your day the same afternoon. Lighter-handed than a full keratin: less dramatic on very coarse hair, more forgiving on fine hair a keratin can flatten. Two hours.

For anyone who can't spend three days not touching their hair.
Not for very coarse hair that wants the strongest possible result. Go full keratin.

Alyssa Torres, cutting and extensions, photographed outdoors in black and white

Smoothing is a behavior change. Bond building is a repair. A gloss is a coat of paint. Nothing on this page is a substitute for the other three.

Olaplex bond building

Lightener breaks the disulfide bonds that give hair its strength; Olaplex reconnects a share of them. It isn't a conditioner and it won't make dry hair soft. That's moisture, and a cheaper problem. It goes in two ways: mixed into the lightener so damage is limited while it happens, or standalone for hair that's already been through it.

Ask at booking, not once you're in the chair. Mixed into the lightener it costs less and does more.

Gloss

A demi-permanent, ammonia-free color that sits on the surface. It kills brass, evens the difference between ends and roots, and puts back the shine eight weeks of shampoo took off. No lift, no line, no commitment. It fades rather than growing out.

For tone that's drifted warm between color appointments, and for virgin hair, where a clear gloss is pure shine.

Order of operations

Where these sit next to color.

Gloss goes at the end of a color appointment. The last twenty minutes, not a second visit, unless you're only refreshing tone.
Olaplex goes into the lightener, not after it. Say so when you book the color and we'll build it into the formula.
Keratin goes after color. Never before. Smoothing can shift a fresh tone, so color first, same day or later, and we'll re-gloss if it moves.
Smoothing over lightened hair is a judgment call, not a booking. High heat on hair that's been through bleach is where things go wrong, and a photograph tells us more than a form field.

Send a color consultation request See what color involves →

Pricing

What each one costs.

Anything past the shoulder blade takes more product and more time. The difference is quoted before we start, never added at the register.

Afterwards

The week after.

Keratin: seventy-two hours, hands off. No washing, no ponytail, no clips, no tucking it behind your ear. A crease set on day one is a crease for three months.
Brazilian Blowout: wash it today if you like. That's the entire reason the format exists.
Sulfate-free and sodium-chloride-free shampoo, both of them. Salt strips a smoothing treatment faster than anything else you'll do to it.

The honest version

Half the people who tell us a treatment didn't last washed it out with a clarifying shampoo in week two, without realizing that's what clarifying means. Check the bottle in your shower for sodium chloride, usually the second ingredient.

Questions

Good to know.

Will a keratin make my hair straight?

No, and if you want it straight this is the wrong service. It relaxes texture and removes frizz. Your wave still shows; it just dries in half the time. Air-dried, you'll see a looser, softer version of your own pattern rather than a different head of hair.

Can I have a smoothing treatment while pregnant?

Most traditional keratin formulas release small amounts of formaldehyde under heat, so we don't perform them on anyone pregnant or nursing, and our stylists sit those services out themselves. We keep a formaldehyde-free option for exactly this reason. It's gentler and shorter-lived, and we'll be straight about the difference.

Do I need a consultation for any of this?

Not for a gloss, an Olaplex treatment, an express keratin, or smoothing on virgin or single-process hair. Book those straight in. Send photos first only if you want smoothing over highlights, balayage or bleach, or if you're not certain what's already on your hair. That's the whole list.

Two ways in

Book it, or ask first.

Book it directly.

Two taps, no photos, no waiting on a reply.

A gloss, standalone or added onto a cut
An Olaplex treatment, in or out of a color service
Smoothing on virgin or single-process hair

Book now

ii.

Send photos first.

Twenty minutes now instead of a bad hour later.

Smoothing over highlights, balayage or bleach
Hair relaxed, permed or smoothed somewhere else
Anything where you're honestly not sure what's on it

Start a consultation

Not sure which side you're on? Call the studio: (615) 555-0193, Monday to Saturday.

Frizz, breakage,or flat color.