hair ib touch-up (third visit)

I know a number of you have been waiting for this post, sorry! On top of my part time job, I'm currently attempting 18 credits. Trying to juggle everything the best I can.

Almost two months ago, November 29, I made my third visit to Hair IB to get a Japanese straightening touch-up. Again, the experience had its pros and cons. The biggest con being the language barrier, which I will talk more extensively on with a following post. But all in all, my hair came out in one piece. It was the first time going to the salon and getting everything I planned on getting, a Japanese straightening touch-up with protection cream protecting my sodium hydroxide relaxed ends.

An overview of my salon visit:

• I paid the extra $20 for them to put their form of protective cream in the Japanese straightening solution. I also brought my container of Milbon Straight Liscio Protection 30 Cream and they agreed to apply it the way I described. 
• First my hair got washed, then my hair was detangled, rather badly. They were trying different tools, raking the combs from top to bottom. There was breakage, but luckily not as much as I thought there would have been. It was only when they eventually used the tangle teezer-like brush that detangling sessions got somewhat easier. Now that I have them protecting my ends the way I want, maybe detangling will be the next thing. 
•  It took about an hour ( of sitting with an astro egg aroma on my head ) for my hair to process like last time. Not sure how to feel about that, but the girl was constantly checking my hair, playing with a strand to see how far in the process my hair was.
• Before my hair was fully processed, the Milbon protection cream was heavily and thoroughly applied to the bottom half of my hair. I had also mixed the cream with Roux Porosity Control and grape seed oil, so that my hair cuticles were closed when the JHS solution was rinsed out. The salon workers even went the extra mile and agreed to lift the bottom half of my hair when first rinsing out the touched-up roots, and doing this by having one worker hold my hair up while another did the rinsing. They really try to follow the customer's wants and directions.
• Unlike the other times, they blow dried then flat-ironed my hair instead of starting the flat-ironing on semi-damp hair. I was a little afraid my hair could revert, but my end results still came out nicely, and drying the hair fully before flat-ironing is less damaging. 
• After the last blow drying and flat-ironing session, for the first time, they used some product and serum in my hair. Instead of having naked, dull-looking hair until I got home and applied some grape seed oil like the other times, I walked out of the salon with shine. 

Conclusion, though the salon has the ability to do afro textured hair, they are not kinky textured hair experts. They do not have proper detangling technique, lack understanding of the common relaxer ( will talk about this in follow up post ), and sometimes, I feel a little like an alien. When the girl finished blow drying my relaxed ends without product, she curiously asked if I flat ironed or what I usually do to my ends to tame the dryness and frizziness. Most of the other clients are Caucasian, white and east Indian. Unlike all the other clients, my hair seems to take big dramatic transforms. I think I get some curious eyes sometimes, which gives me... on the spot, mixed feelings. ( Aaw, they're curious. Wait, are they negatively judging me? Wow, the relaxed bottom half of my hair is so frizzy when blow dried and without any product, even I don't recognize it. If this is my reaction, what's theirs? )

The salon isn't perfection, but the most important part to me is that the salon knows how to apply Japanese straighteners with minimal damage to my hair, is friendly, cheap, and tries to do all the extra things I ask them to. This was also the best my hair looked coming out of the salon. It had shine, it wasn't stick straight because they blow dried this time, and my ends were even. I plan on going again for my next touch-up.

A salon review means a length check is coming up~