Smooth at What Cost: Keratin Treatment Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe keratin and smoothing treatments, including a progressiva in Sao Paulo, Japanese straightening in Singapore and a home kit in a small Cairo bathroom. Writers came for easier mornings: frizz after a second baby or menopause, chemo curls after breast cancer, a wedding, nineteen job interviews, humid Durban summers and a holiday in Thailand. They include a delivery driver, a night-shift paramedic, a swimming coach whose pool undid it within a week, a pharmacist who wears a hijab, a woman trying it for the first time at seventy-two, and stylists in Miami, Manila, Dublin and Istanbul who describe coughs, headaches, reading labels and a cheap imitation brand. They write from Leeds to Lagos and Warsaw to Nairobi. The accounts cover patch and allergy tests, eczema and scalp psoriasis, bleached and grey hair, pregnancy, recovery from a hysterectomy, and mothers deciding what to say to daughters of eleven and fifteen. Not every story ends well: a teenager's scalp blistered, another scalp burned for days, a home kit brought on dizziness, hair snapped or went lank, shedding went unexplained and tight coils never came back the same. Others loved the result and kept it up for years, and several learned to like their own texture untouched.

Who it's for

For anyone weighing a keratin or smoothing treatment, parents asked by a teenager for one, stylists who breathe the salon air every day, and anyone growing their natural texture back out.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 233 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.