A Wash & Wear Relaxer™ is the technique and process of working with your hair's own natural texture using our curl releasing agent to create a more desired texture, as well as to achieve more softness and manageability in the hair. When you have Wash & Wear Relaxed hair, it offers you the versatility of wearing straight styles, by being able to wet-set or blow drying your hair as often as you choose, or the opportunity of having as we say, wash and go no fuss hair. We accomplish this by using precise section timing and some very unique, some might say revolutionary "off the scalp" application methods we have developed, that we have proven over the years is the safest way to relax hair. Our goal is to take your hair to its optimum curl release point, which varies from individual to individual, and by doing this allowing you to wear your in hair smooth styles or in a more semi natural look.

We have found that hair of African descent and super curly hair types tend to break more easily when taken to "bone straight", as has been the traditional way to do relaxers for many years. Part of what we found that causes this problem with breakage to occur is that when your hair is taken to a "bone straight" state, you are actually removing most of the hair's vital elasticity and strength. By taking the hair to a Wash & Wear state, we have found that people who formerly didn't think their hair grew much, now find their hair at much longer lengths and in superb condition and with much more body and shine to their hair.

We developed and formulated Kerasoft as a result of never being truly satisfied with the products we were using at our salon in the years before Kerasoft. What we found was to suit what we were trying to accomplish in terms of the health and condition with our clients hair, we had to carry many different product lines. The reason being is that we found no one manufacturer made a complete line of products we were completely satisfied with using.  We had always tried to find the best possible products available regardless of cost for our clients. So we would carry the conditioners from two or three different companies, the shampoos from another, botanical oils from another and so on. Lastly, with the relaxer, because we were using it with a very innovative technique, we always felt they lacked in many aspects and knew if certain modifications were made to the formula that our results could be much better and more consistent for our client's hair.

So we set about in 1992 to formulate a new line of products that would be better in all respects than all of those we were then currently using. It took us three years and with many rejections of formulas, that while good were just not good enough. When we felt we had a good formula, and by good we mean the stylists at our salon tried it on themselves and on our house models and felt it was excellent, with noticeable benefits to the hair compared to what we were previously using. In addition, it was important we observed no adverse reactions of any kind on the hair during testing, adverse reaction sometimes don't present themselves for long periods after first use, so we were in no rush, as we wanted to get it right. 

The next step was we had a group of our long term clients who agreed to help us with our final formulations. We relied on them, and they told us when something was good and when something better and when something was the best that we had ever used on them, when they said don't change this even a little bit and when will it be ready for sale, we knew we were there with a final formulation. We finally brought Kerasoft to market in 1995 and we feel we have exceeded even our own goals with this product line. Since then we have continued to develop Kerasoft by adding new items in our line, as well as to continually look at any new innovations in ingredients or formulations which might make improvements in our products. 

The product that we use in releasing texture from the hair is Kerasoft®  Release® Conditioning Creme Relaxer (*This product and the rest of the Kerasoft products used to process the hair are only available to licensed hair stylists who have taken our course or by people who have purchased our Wash & Wear Relaxer Application Video or Wash & Wear Relaxer Kit, they are not listed or shown at this site, so please e-mail us for information, we only list the retail products).

Release® is a sodium hydroxide based relaxer ("lye"). Its formula has been enhanced with extra conditioners and designed for a consistency to facilitate the off the scalp application techniques  we promote to prevent any irritation and scalp burns.  We use a "lye" based product over a "no lye" because simply put, it has been our experience that a lye based relaxer in the hands of a professional hairstylist will without exception always leave your hair in better condition with more body and bounce, than a "no lye" product will. We have also found that "no lyes" quite frequently  tend to leave the hair dry and rather dull looking. It is important to understand that Release® is not an experimental or a "new technology" product, go here for more a more in depth explanation of our thoughts on formulations and information

The "lye", "no lye" labels we believe are just advertising angles companies use to sell their products. One chemical is sodium hydroxide, the active ingredients used in our Release® Conditioning Creme Relaxer, while the others are typically calcium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide or lithium hydroxide. They are all members of the hydroxide family of chemical and all deemed caustics. By them not being the exact chemical sodium hydroxide or "lye" as it is more commonly known, other relaxers formulated using any other chemical within this group of hydroxides are allowed to label themselves as "no lye". However, they are all very similar products and in the same chemical family.

We have been pioneering the Wash & Wear Relaxer™ at Jazma for over 22 years, long before "texturized" looks started to gain the popularity that they have now started to achieve. Over the course of those years we have tried a number of different products, always seeking products that would give us the very best possible Wash & Wear result with the least amount of harm to the hair during the process. We've found that none we have tried so far has given us the strongly consistent performance of a well formulated sodium hydroxide based relaxer. The Kerasoft®  Release® Conditioning Creme Relaxer allows us to be very precise in our timing and placement, this is very crucial in achieving a good Wash & Wear Relaxer™ texture. It also gives us excellent results on all hair textures, from fine, soft hair to very coarse kinky hair.

Moreover, a great deal of people that come to us already have a traditional hydroxide based relaxer in their hair, and this is of critical importance for people who want a semi natural look in the fact that some products that promise a texturized result are absolutely not compatible with any hydroxide based relaxers, and if they are used over one another will cause breakage, ranging from minor to the disastrous. We've seen clients who have lost most of the hair on their head because these cautions were not emphasized strongly enough by some product manufacturers or warnings treated too lightly by some consumers.

Many people now days are leaning towards more so called "natural" products that will loosen up the texture of their hair, to help improve their hair's look and manageability. We feel this quest for a more natural solution to loosening the curl in our hair has been brought about because of frequent burning and irritation of the scalp caused by traditional relaxing methods that many people have experienced in the past. On top of that, many people can trace the breakage problems they are now having directly to their relaxing service. Now days more than ever, we want to embrace and work with our hair's own natural texture, we just don't want to suffer the repercussions associated many times with traditional relaxing methods and products. 

The problem we've found with these "more natural" products is consistency in result, especially on coarser textures of hair and the real concern for some of these more natural products to cause breakage problems if a traditional hydroxide relaxer is used over them, or if they are used over any traditional hydroxide relaxer. Our thoughts are that sometimes we can get just  too caught up with thinking all things that are labeled or marketed as "natural" are supposed to be a better choice, when that isn't always the case. Even on the most sensitive of clients, our off the scalp techniques and the products we use allows us to give them what they are seeking, which is no irritation or burns, a consistent great looking result and most importantly; healthier hair.

There is nothing natural about flying over the Atlantic at 30,000 feet going 600 miles an hour, a case could be made that a hot air balloon might be closer to a more natural way to fly across (this is also a much more dangerous way, fraught with any number of perils), many thousands of lives are saved every day using drugs that are synthesized and  manufactured in laboratories around the world, the list could go on and on. We as a salon, and as consumers ourselves, feel we should all be more aware of just what we are putting on and into our bodies.

What we want is a betterment of condition, with the goal always being, the very best possible result with the least amount of potential downside risk, harm or injury to the body, and that goal is sometimes better achieved through methods that are not always "natural", and this is the case we feel when it comes to great looking results in semi natural hair, or what we call the Wash & Wear Relaxer™.

Most types and textures of hair of African descent can be processed this way as well as other types of super curly hair and Afro textured hair. How often you get it done depends entirely on your natural texture and whether or not you like to wear your hair in mostly straight styles or are going to leave it semi-natural or "Wash & Wear" most of the time. If you like mostly straight styles we recommend that you get a touch-up on much the same schedule that suited you for previous relaxers, generally every 8 weeks or so.

The reason being is that in most instances if you go beyond this time with true Afro textured hair, your straight look style is not going to look so straight because of the new growth present. However, if you plan on leaving it in a Wash & Wear Relaxer™ look most of the time, I find that our clients who do this come every 3 - 3 1/2 months to get their hair retouched, this is on true Afro textured hair. With hair that is more naturally curly or mixed textured than true Afro textured we have clients who come in from 3 - 4 times a year, to once or twice a year for their re-touches.

The answer to this question is perhaps. By that we mean, if your hair is natural with no other chemicals processes done to it, the answer is probably yes. The process can be done on all lengths of hair, although it truly looks its best on longer lengths or hair where gravity pulls the hair in a downward direction, adding to a corkscrew, ringlet or crimped looking style. But there is no reason you can't start out short and grow into a longer length.

However, if you have hair that has been previously relaxed and all of the natural texture has been taken to "bone straight", there is nothing that any chemical or any other process can do to put back the elasticity and natural curl into your hair once it's been removed by taking it to "bone straight". What can be done is the new growth may be processed Wash & Wear and you would continue to wear your hair in straight styles as usual. The Wash & Wear Relaxer™ look will not really be possible until all of the hair you are wearing is processed Wash & Wear, or else you would have the old relaxer at the ends straight and the base curly when you tried. The total conversion process may take many months or even a year or two depending on the final length you want in your hair. However you would not notice that much of a change or difference than what you may have previously been doing, as you will be receiving wet-sets or blow-drys and your every day look will remain the same.

By slowly trimming off the old "bone straight" hair we will eventually have all of your hair in the Wash & Wear Relaxer™. In the meantime during the conversion process, you will notice quite a difference in the feel, texture and overall condition of the hair that has been processed with the Wash & Wear Relaxer™. 

As a result of formula hydroxide based, our Kerasoft Release® Conditioning Creme Relaxer is compatible with the majority of other relaxer and texturizing systems on the market, so transitioning into our system should not pose a problem for most people.

Our Wash & Wear Relaxer™ is a system we developed to help hair grow to longer and stronger lengths, although it can be used for shorter hair styles as well. Our Wash & Wear Relaxer and “texturizers” are both done without the use of any heat, perm rods or rollers. This is done by using a curl releasing agent to loosen the texture in natural Afro textured and super curly hair to give more manageability to the hair and versatility in style, so it's semi natural.

In 1983 when we started developing our Wash & Wear Relaxer method, the word texturized to our knowledge was still being used in the beauty industry to describe a technique used in hair cutting. At that time as well, Jheri curls were the rage. A few years later, men who had been wearing Jheri curls stopped doing so as style trends and fashions changed. Manufacturers in an effort to give men an alternative hair styling option and to replace lost revenues from curly perm sales, came up with "wave kits" or "texturizers" as they were also to become known. Women also started to like the look of short "texturized" hair. As this look became more popular with both sexes, “texturizer” became the common word to describe this style.

In our salon, we were always developing new styling techniques, it's part of what we do as hair design educators to stay ahead of the curve. In the early 1980's we started using a relaxer in a more creative fashion to try to accomplish what people were seeking in a curly perm. We coined the term Wash & Wear Relaxer™ for our system. The advantage of our system was the elimination of the "greasiness" associated with curly perms, problems with breakage in trying to maintain longer lengths of hair, the long period time it took to do a curl service as well as providing a more reasonable price for this new service. 

We are asked all the time “isn’t your relaxer just a mild relaxer and can’t I use any relaxer to do the same thing?” I usually explain the answer the way my husband who helped formulate the line does. If you take a bagel and a doughnut, at a casual glance they look the same and are made using the same ingredients, but the products themselves are really quite different. As I say elsewhere in our web site, for the first eleven years we did use other relaxers before we started to manufacture Kerasoft. The reason we developed our Kerasoft Release® Conditioning Crème Relaxer was because the other relaxers were lacking key aspects needed to noticeably improve our developing Wash & Wear system. 

We want to be quite clear and mention again our active ingredient is sodium hydroxide, which is the same ingredient found in the majority of other professional relaxers on the market. The formulation changes we made with our relaxer makes it different and much better suited to our Wash & Wear Relaxer process. 

The challenge for us was to ensure a method of maintaining the desired curl pattern of any previous relaxing services without the previously relaxed sections going too straight by removing too much of the natural texture. When too much texture is removed, you end up with poor looking results. The whole hair, from root to end has to end up with the same texture and wave pattern, with no demarcation lines, from service to service. This is crucial because it is at these demarcations lines that friction between different textures takes place and the result may be breakage when this friction occurs. This is the key reason people who have tried to grow their "texturized" hair longer and are not using our system find their hair tends to break. After trial and error we developed perfected our application techniques, and Kerasoft products to accomplish great results for people who desire semi natural hair and we called it the Wash & Wear Relaxer™. 

The innovative application techniques we have developed over the past 20 years are just as important as having the right products for the hair. For example, we start our Wash & Wear relaxer by either doing what we call a Wet-Down or by doing we call a Pre-Clean as well as a Wet-Down. This is where your hair actually gets wet before your service is started. This is a revolutionary way to begin a relaxing service. There are some real benefits and important reasons for us doing these pre-relaxer treatments to the hair and is much different from traditional methods.  Moreover, the way we apply the relaxer, the sectioning methods we use and our off the scalp application methods make our system the best way to ensure consistent results and a healthy scalp.

The purpose of our website is to not only sell our Kerasoft line of products, as we do feel they really are exceptional. Our goal is to also share our expertise and knowledge in hair with others, because there really is so much more to giving a semi natural hair service the way we do it than just combing a mild relaxer through the hair. We’ve put a system together over the last 22 years of achieving and maintaining great Wash & Wear results. Our system and products are unique, and they work

Yes and no. Yes, by the low maintenance involved in the daily upkeep, it really is wash & go hair. Many of our clients tell us that the save hours a week not having to have their hair blow dried or set if the don't want to. They have the freedom to make the decision to style and wear their hair without a lot of fuss when they are wearing a Wash & Wear Relaxer™.

No, in two main facts; first with curly perms (curls) it is not recommended that you set or blow dry your hair frequently. Curly perms, also referred to as Jheri curls or body waves, are done using products that contain as their main active ingredient ammonium thioglycolate, this chemical can be extremely drying to Black hair. This dryness has to be compensated for with an abundance of maintenance products. It's from this over compensation with maintenance products from which curly perms have the reputation of being "greasy". Secondly, no in the fact that we don't use perm rods of any kind when we process the hair, just Kerasoft® Release® Conditioning Creme Relaxer using our processing methods to achieve the Wash & Wear Relaxer™ look.

The Kerasoft®  Release® Conditioning Creme Relaxer and other products that make up the professional items that go into doing the Wash & Wear Relaxer™ are for purchase by anyone who has taken our Wash & Wear Relaxer course as well as by people who purchase our Wash & Wear Relaxer™ Video Instruction Guide or buy the complete Wash & Wear Relaxer Kit for at home use, and are not available for general consumer purchase without doing this. You can e-mail us for details.

Yes, all that you would need to do is have your stylist process your hair to "bone straight" again. Unlike some of the products we've mentioned prior, were there are some real precautions to be emphasized with incompatibility.  With our system, there really are no precautions (except the usual ones in applying any relaxer), warnings, or waiting periods, since we are using a hydroxide based curl releasing agent which is compatible with a majority of other relaxers on the market. The only matter would be if you are only part way through the conversion process from a traditional relaxer to Wash & Wear hair and still have part of your hair "bone straight" at the end parts. Your stylist would have to do what we call a corrective relaxer, which simply means that they match textures without any overlap, which may cause over processing that could lead to breakage, when they take all of your hair back to "bone straight".

Again the answer is yes. Although super curly hair types are most frequently found in people of African descent, many times these hair types can be found in people with European and Middle East backgrounds. We would be processing your hair to control the curl, allowing you to obtain more manageability and ease of style in your hair's own natural texture. Following our Wash & Wear Relaxer™ program will help your hair to be less frizzy and puffy. 

We have four after care products, all made by Kerasoft®, that we recommend to maintain your hair when you are wearing it in a Wash & Wear Relaxer™ look and since the process is not thio based as are curly perms and body waves, it is does not dry out the hair requiring that you compensate for this with lots of after care products. 

Some people use all four of the products some people use none or only one, it all depends on the individual and the natural texture of the hair that we are working with. The products we recommend are all water based  so they are never greasy, very light, they rinse easily and do not promote product build up on your hair.

In our salon* the cost for a relaxer, or for any service, is based on the length of your hair, it's natural texture and density. When you have your hair serviced with our Wash & Wear Relaxer™ and leave the salon with it semi natural, as in the first picture at the top of this page, the cost is actually less than what you would pay for a relaxer and style with us, that is where your hair is blow-dried and curled or wet-set. Although wet-sets and blow-drys' are added options you can always have with a Wash & Wear Relaxer™ if you desire. 

The products that we use to do our Wash & Wear Relaxer™, such as our Kerasoft®  Release® Conditioning Creme Relaxer, are designed for use only by people who have taken our Wash & Wear Relaxer course or by people who have purchased our Wash & Wear Relaxer Video Instruction Guide or our Wash & Wear Relaxer Kit which includes the video and all the products needed for the service and after-care, feel free to e-mail us for more information on our home relaxer kit. 

We feel to achieve the kind of results you see displayed at our site and on our steaming video testimonials, the Wash & Wear Relaxer is best done by people who have a better understanding why we do what we do, and how to do what we do at our salon, by being properly instructed through our classes or our Wash & Wear Relaxer Video Application Guide. Written instructions, even very detailed ones, would not be adequate enough to convey all the important information we feel is necessary in understanding and mastering our system. We also feel this is the surest way to ensure the satisfaction of those who wish to use our Kerasoft Release® Wash & Wear Relaxer, as we want people to have great results when using our products.

* This applies at Jazma, other salons set their own pricing policies.

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© 1999-2005 Jazma Hair. All rights reserved. The content of our web-site, including graphics and all the pictures, is copyright material and may not be redistributed in any way.

The information at this web site is meant to increase your knowledge and is not meant to be, and should not be, a substitute for professional advice. Because everyone is different, you should consult with a professional hair stylist or other personal care expert when experiencing problems,  have concerns or need personal recommendations. They will be your best guide.

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Jazma Hair Inc.   8 St. Joseph Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4Y 1J7

© 1999-2008 Jazma Hair. All rights reserved. The content of our web-site, including graphics and all the pictures, is copyright material and may not be redistributed in any way.

The information at this web site is meant to increase your knowledge and is not meant to be, and should not be, a substitute for professional advice. Because everyone is different, you should consult with a professional hair stylist or other personal care expert when experiencing problems,  have concerns or need personal recommendations. They will be your best guide.