Keratin Treatment Ruined My Hair: What's Happened and What Can Be Fixed

Short answer: Stop adding anything. Don’t book another treatment “to fix it” this week. Work out which of three things has happened (too flat, too dry, or breaking), because each has a different fix. Some you can sort at home. Breakage needs a specialist and sometimes scissors.

Type “keratin treatment↓DOWN ruined” into Google UK and it finishes the sentence for you: “my hair”, “my curls”. You’re not the only one. Fixing other salons’ work is a big part of what I do in Mayfair. Here’s how I think it through.

1. “It’s gone flat and my curls have gone”

What happened: the product was stronger than your hair needed, or it was ironed too hard.

What to do:

• Wait 2–3 washes. Some flatness is residue and heat, and it relaxes.
• A clarifying shampoo can speed up the fade on a smoothing↓DOWN treatment.
• If it was strong enough to change the structure, the treated hair won’t fully go back. Your new growth will be your own curl, so we plan the grow-out with the cut.

2. “It feels like straw”

What happened: usually over-processing, too much heat, or the treatment went onto hair that was already bleached or previously straightened↓DOWN.

What to do:

• Keep heat off it. No iron for a few weeks.
• Gentle shampoo, proper conditioner, trim the worst ends.
• Don’t pile on another smoothing “to add moisture”. Layering is how a bad month becomes a bad year.

3. “It’s snapping”

What happened: the bonds are compromised. Common causes are overlapping (re-treating hair that’s already done), putting a thio straightener on relaxed hair, or any straightener on heavily bleached hair.

What to do:

• Stop every chemical service, colour included, until someone has looked at it properly.
• Book a consultation with a strand test. Nobody can fix this blind, and nobody should price it blind.
• Accept that cutting might be part of the answer. I’ll say that out loud if it is.

Straight talk: I don’t slag off other salons. Most bad results aren’t malice. They’re the wrong product for the hair, or a history nobody asked about. What matters now is not doing it twice.

More straight talk → The Brief

How a correction works with me

1. Consultation: online (£9.95) to see if it’s fixable, or in person (£74.95, 30 min) with a strand test on your actual hair.
2. Written plan with a firm figure before anything’s committed. Sometimes it’s one careful service. Sometimes it’s a few months. Sometimes it’s a cut and a grow-out.
3. Correction starts from £449.95, and that’s a floor, not an estimate.

I’ll also tell you if I think you shouldn’t have anything done.

Before your next straightening anywhere

Read is keratin treatment safe and take the five questions with you. Nine times out of ten, the disaster could have been caught with one question: “What’s been on your hair before?”

— Zoltan

Sources

• Search phrases from Google UK autocomplete, 26 Sep 2026 (“keratin treatment↓DOWN ruined my hair”, “keratin treatment ruined my curls”, “my hair is damaged after keratin treatment”, “how to reverse keratin treatment damage”)
• Dias, Int J Trichology 2015 — relaxer/thio incompatibility