Children’s Keratin
Kids have curls too. And a lot less patience.
Most families come to us worn out by the morning — the time it takes, the detangling, the negotiating before school. Their child’s hair isn’t the problem. The routine around it is.
What it does
Hair that’s easier to live with
We work with a lot of children. There’s usually a little one in a chair somewhere in the salon.
Keratin softens the hair strand, which makes detangling dramatically easier. For a tender-headed kid, that difference is enormous. It’s also a serious time saver on a school morning.
There’s a second thing that matters more than people expect. Washing textured hair well takes technique, and most kids haven’t built it yet — their hands don’t always make it all the way to the scalp. Softening the curl slightly gives them access to their own scalp, so the routine they’re already doing in the shower does more for them.
Detangling gets easier
A softened strand lets the brush move through instead of catching. Gentler mornings, on both sides.
A scalp they can reach
A slightly softened curl means their own hands can get to their scalp, so their wash day counts for more.
Mornings back
The routine goes from a negotiation to a few minutes. That’s the part parents notice first.
What changes for them
Their hair starts working with them
When the routine stops taking so much out of the morning, how a child sees their hair changes. They get curious about their texture instead of avoiding it.
Over time that turns into something bigger: confidence in their own natural hair, and the patience to learn how to work with it — instead of reaching for the bun before they’ve really started.
Eventually they need us less. That’s the whole point.
See it
A few of our littles
Two of our long-term littles, followed across years rather than a single appointment.
Teya
Teya has worn braids most of her life and had never worn her hair out. Between that and a soccer schedule, there was never a routine that felt manageable.
This clip is three months into her second treatment — so the before you’re seeing is after only two. Look at how much moisture her hair is holding now, and at what it’s done for her confidence.
Watch Teya’s clip
Isis
Isis came to us at fifteen, wearing her hair up every day. She plays volleyball — she’s going to college to play — and between practices she hadn’t found a routine that let her wear her curls down with confidence.
Three years and five or six treatments later: it’s grown, the curl is softer, styling takes a fraction of the time. And she loves her hair now.
Watch Isis’s clipWe love working on children. It’s some of the most satisfying work we do.
When you’re ready
Children’s keratin is its own appointment
It doesn’t book as a standard treatment, and it isn’t priced like one. Working with children is the most expert-level keratin we do, so it’s booked separately and only with a Senior Smoothologist.
Part of that is the customization. We’re protecting your child’s curl pattern while making the hair manageable for someone who isn’t going to run a full curl routine on their own yet — and may not have much luck when they try. That takes more planning, and a lot more explaining and coaching from the stylist, for you and for them.
Part of it is the appointment itself. Many of our kids are tender-headed and fidgety, and for plenty of them it’s their first time in a salon at all. Even when we ask for hair to arrive detangled, it often doesn’t. It’s simply a longer appointment that takes more time, more energy and more patience — which is why the first treatment costs more than a standard one.
If you’ve been caring for your child’s hair at home, you already know how much goes into it. We’re glad to share it with you. And as your child settles into the treatments and their hair lands in an easier place, the appointments settle too.
A children’s keratin is $750, and that’s usually where the second and third sit as well. After the third, hair tends to arrive in a much more manageable place, and from there your Smoothologist may have the option to move to $650.