For years, frizzy hair meant relying on heat styling or expensive salon treatments. Professional keratin smoothing treatments cost around $400 and take at least four hours in the chair — worth it for silky results, but not exactly budget-friendly. After hearing good things about the ANWSR At Home Keratin Treatment, I decided to see if an $82 kit could deliver similar results without the salon price tag. It came surprisingly close.
Why Salon Keratin Treatments Cost So Much
I started getting professional Kerasilk treatments about two years ago. The results were great: less frizz, faster drying time, and hair that actually stood up to humidity. But each session cost around $400 and required a full afternoon in the salon. At-home options like $20 Kativa boxes existed, but Reddit reviews and my hairdresser warned me off them. They said the cheap ones either didn’t work or caused damage.
Then a friend with similarly frizzy hair recommended the ANWSR kit. At $82 (or sometimes $65 on sale) from Sephora or Adore Beauty, it seemed worth a try.
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The kit includes a 100ml spray bottle of keratin treatment, plus a smoothing shampoo and conditioner. The key is to use sulphate-free shampoo afterward. You’ll also need a wide-tooth comb, towel, hair clips, a hairdryer, and a flat iron.
I started with clean, dry hair. The process took about two hours from start to finish — half the time of a salon appointment. The instructions inside the box are straightforward: drench your hair with the spray, leave it for 45–60 minutes, rinse, blow-dry, then straighten thoroughly. Once straightened, you can’t wet your hair for 24 hours.
There’s no strong chemical smell, which was a relief. I left the treatment on for 50 minutes while answering emails. After rinsing and rough-drying, I used a ghd Chronos to straighten small sections — about six passes each. At that point, my hair looked just as glassy and smooth as it does after a salon treatment.
For an accurate before-and-after, I washed my hair 24 hours later with the included shampoo and conditioner, then roughly blow-dried it without any brush or product. The difference was noticeable: straighter, smoother, far less frizzy. My natural hair never looks that good after a simple rough blow-dry, and it only took 15 minutes.
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Once I used a Dyson Airwrap, the results looked even better. The keratin treatment cuts drying time significantly, and styled hair stays smooth longer — especially on humid days or during cold winter mornings. The box promises results lasting up to two months.
At-home keratin treatments like this one have come a long way from the cheap drugstore kits that often fell short. Early versions were either too weak to make a difference or required harsh chemicals that could damage hair. Modern formulations, like ANWSR, seem to have found a middle ground — easier application, fewer risks, and results that approach what you’d get from a professional.
I can’t speak to long-term results yet, but my hair now behaves exactly as it did after a $400 salon treatment. For a fraction of the cost and half the time, that’s a pretty good trade-off.
