More Help for Fine or Weakened Hair

If you know me as a hairdresser, you also know that I am the go-to guy if you have fine or weak hair. You know, the kind of hair that doesn’t seem to grow past a certain length? It’s always fly-away. Never shiny. And it’s the kind of hair that is often mistaken for dry hair and yet, if you load it up with moisturizers, it goes limp and looks like you’ve used olive oil for a styling product.
You also might know that I have, for years, used a little known product (among others) called, Emergencee, by Nexxus to help me bond a polymer to weak hair shafts in an effort to increase diameter, strengthen, add body and allow my clients to have longer hair. Well now I’ve found my new favorite product(s). It’s made by Kérastase, a French brand that the salon, where I work, just partnered with. I’ve been aware of the line for years but I had never worked in a salon that used it. But now I’m very impressed Kérastase and pleased to tell you about its treatments for fine or weakened hair and that it’s now available at Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa.
The entire staff was being given the in-salon product knowledge class where we got to work with the products and see, first-hand, what the treatments lines can do for our clients. These types of classes are great for stylists because we get to use the products on ourselves to touch, feel, work with and experience them before we even apply them to our daily repertoire of hair remedies for clients.
Since I don’t have any hair no one picked me to be their partner for trying out our new Kérestase treatments.
But I got the last laugh because I had the opportunity to see everyone else’s results from the different treatments for varied hair problems each staff member was asked to address. All of the results were instantaneous and substantial, from dry or curly-rebellious, to mature hair.
But the fine weakened hair of my friend & co-worker, (& part-time gorgeous model—she’s on the cover of my book!) Eileen was definitely the most dramatic. Eileen has the kind of hair that looks fine yet straight when it is blown out and flattened with a heating tool. It is long and appears to have body due to the blond demensional highlights. But when it’s freshly shampooed, it feels dry and tangles easily and no amount of conditioner seems to make it feel nice until most of the water is blown out of it. This is the exact type of hair that I used to coat up with the polymers or weightless oils so that can be thicker and not flimsy once it’s styled.
The stylist who did Eileen’s treatment shampooed her hair with Kérastase Bain De Force shampoo. It’s made specifically for hair that is weak or damaged (highlights!) and hair that doesn’t have a lot of elasticity (think: stretchy = bad). A good fine-hair shampoo will not over-cleanse the outer layer of the hair shaft but should leave a top-coat of protection and this one does just that. If a person has dry and weakened hair you would use Bain Age Recharge and Eileen could easily also have used this one too. Both are available for home use.
The in-salon treatment that was used on Eileen was called Concentré Age Recharge. It would cost a client $35 in our salon to have it done and it’s worth every penny. The stylist applied the strengthening liquid on her hair and suddenly her hair was smooth, shiny, radiant, and it looked like younger and naturally colored hair. But the proof was in the blow dry. Her hair was easy to blow dry and the length had bounce and shine.
How long will it last? I tell my clients that their treatment lasts as long as they keep on supporting what I did in-salon at their very own homes. That means using the right shampoo, hair masques, and strengtheners vs. moisturizers and/or thermal protectors. Everyone is different and has different lifestyles. For Eileen, she’ll use either of the shampoos I mentioned and Care Volumactive, an at-home conditioner.
I hope that you check out the Kérastase line. I’m going to be blogging more about the results I get in the future and I want to hear from you too.
jon-david is a professional writer as well as a Master Stylist at Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa.

We are Green at Joseph Michael's Salon and Spa

I work at Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa and we are green. At least, as green as we can be. There isn’t a certificate or green seal of approval we could apply for, but I think we would qualify if there was one for our industry. We are learning how not to pollute and to be more sustainable every day.
One of the basic and simplest of ways that we try to be sustainable is to recycle. We do a lot of hair coloring services in our salon which means that we throw away a lot of plastic hair color tubes/bottles and plastic developer containers. It would be criminal for any salon to not recycle these things. In Chicago, we have “single stream” recycling, which means that we don’t have to separate basics like plastic, glass, and aluminum. This makes it easy. In Cook County, every business is supposed to recycle, by ordinance, and any business not in compliance with a recycling program could be fined. Seeeee: Criminal!
Did anyone see Chris Rock’s film Good Hair? It’s a recommend and I bring this movie up because it’s about the human hair industry and how hair is “harvested” from the grower and then sewn into “weaves” and used as wigs, pieces and full heads of hair on other people. Talk about recycling! At Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa, we sweep all the hair we cut off our clients’ heads and we collect it and ship it to Matter of Trust, which uses this hair to dredge and clean up oil spills. Our clients’ hair is getting a second life!
We use washable cloth towels and washable rag mobs for all clean ups, which lets us avoid using paper towels and that can add up to saves trees. At home, I always use cloth napkins and I take home old and holey towels from work and I used them for my own floors and mess clean ups. (I have three dogs!) If you need some rags, just ask us. We would rather them be reused than throw them away.
If you like Bumble and Bumble Products, shampoos, conditioners, styling product: you are welcome to refill your product bottles at our salon and receive 10% off your refill. (We suggest that you call first to make sure your favorite product is one that we have the product to refill.)
Since we do a lot hair coloring in our salon, we ask that our stylist avoid wasting product. We all use grams when measuring color. This actually helps. 160 grams seems like a lot of color, but if we were using 5.7 ounces, which is the same amount… well, it’s a mental thing and it helps us not to use too much and then waste and throw unused color away. Which is another thing: we NEVER throw excess color or any food products down the drains. We know that the Chicago water system is overburdened as it is and to add chemicals or food down the drains only creates more stress on the system to have to remove these things. All waste and chemicals get scraped out of bowls and gets thrown into the trash before things are washed again.
And let me introduce our latest and best green effort, INOA hair coloring by L’Oreal. First of all: it rinses clear when we shampoo it off a clients head after processing. This means less chemicals slide down the drain! AND this permanent grey defying product has no ammonia in it. INOA = Innovation No Ammonia! No ammonia means no smell and no irritation. (More and more clients are becoming sensitive to hair color and I wrote about all that last year.)
I’m jon-david and I’m proud to work at
Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa
1313 N. Ritchie Court
In the heart of the Gold Coast in Downtown Chicago
Check out my co-stylist’s profiles & find the stylist for you.
Follow me @mafiahairdreser and Joseph Michael’s @mychicagosalon
and buy my book, Mafia Hairdresser at www.mafiahairdresser.com/
and Joseph Michaels Salon & Spa