I first had Olaplex No 1 and No 2 done when I had balayage in June of 2015. My stylist added it to the bleach mixture and I was rather surprised that he was using it because it’s a small one man salon in my small college town neighborhood. I had certainly heard of it, mainly from the hair board forum on makeupalley.com and I knew it was a new technological discovery and promised to revolutionize hair care especially where hair color and bleach are concerned. I was in my stylist’s chair because I had attempted to correct a too-dark shade with a color remover and ended up with a very orange Bozo the Clown shade that most definitely needed correcting. (Otherwise known as “blorange”, lol!) I didn’t expect such a small one man operation to be on the forefront of such a revolutionary hair care advance so I was really happy when he decided to use Olaplex in my bleach. It did slow down the processing time considerably and I sat there for close to 45 minutes, mostly twiddling my thumbs and watching him do a color service on another client. He not only used bleach on me but also wove in two other permanent color shades so that there would be a nice amount of contrast and he added Olaplex to everything. After the requisite 45 minutes, the color and bleach were rinsed and Olaplex No 2 was applied for 10 minutes.

He then shampooed and conditioned as usual. I usually don’t have a blowout but he wanted to see how everything turned out so I let him have his moment of glory. My hair looked amazing and the overall shades were perfectly suited to my coloring. He took pictures for his IG and I left feeling like one happy camper. When I got home, even my hubby noticed the difference and he complimented me heavily. But other than the beautiful color, I immediately noticed how soft and silky my hair was and that it wasn’t dry or damaged at all. It was as if I hadn’t put it through the stress of a remover or had bleach applied at all. In fact, no one would know I wasn’t a natural blond, the color looked that believable. And my hair felt better than it had in years. In fact, it felt like I had never colored it at all and frankly, it’s been decades since I had virgin hair so it was somewhat hard to believe. However, over the course of the next week, I didn’t treat my hair any differently.

I shampooed and conditioned as usual and I used a curling iron several times also. But my hair looked amazingly healthy and seemed much stronger to boot. And the effects lasted, which was a surprise to me. I did go back to the salon to purchase Olaplex No 3, which is the at home treatment recommended for weekly use. I used it on unwashed damp hair and initially left it on overnight (the instructions say to leave it on for at least 10 minutes but I figured longer couldn’t hurt and may be even more beneficial) but later discovered through the company website that it stops working in 90 minutes. Nevertheless, I shampooed and conditioned in the morning as usual. The end result was that my hair was unbelievably soft and shiny and it felt and looked great. It obviously had an effect and seemed to continue the good work of No 1 and 2.