My gut reaction is: STAY AWAY
I first heard about it while researching BKT. The CB company is very marketing-savvy and they regularly post (against BKT and pro CB) on hair boards,etc.
I was initially excited but soon realized it's an overpriced relaxer with a lot of expensive hype and misinformation attached. I don't like dealing withcompanies who treat me like an idot. Here's the list of ingredients:
Caribbean Dream Ingredients
Lotion: water,
cysteamine chlorhydrate,
ammonium hydroxate, polyacrylamide, isoparaffin C1-14, laureth-7, cetearyl alcohol, steareth-10, oleth-10, lanolin peg-75, fragrance
neutralizer: water, sodium bromate,cetearyl alcohol, steareth-10, oleth-10, lanolin peg-75, propylene glycol, tetrasodium EDTA, diazolidinyl urea, methylparaben, propylparaben, fragrance.
More info about it in article found here (this is a stylist's opinion):
http://www.verticalsinhair.com/index.php?option=com_joobb&view=topic&topic=3874&Itemid=90
Re: Caribbean Dream Relaxer
by Steve Tcherkezian on Friday, 07.August 2009 06:39 PM
Hi Rachel,
I heard about the Caribbean Dream Relaxer, but I haven’t used it. Some people can sell castles in the air and my guess is the Caribbean Dream Relaxer people fall into that category.
Thio-free, damage-free, no guanidine hydroxide, no sodium hydroxide, or formaldehyde - these are just marketing tools that doesn’t click with stylists that understand the science behind their art. Cysteamine hydrochloride, bisulfite (a reactive sulphur-containing chemical used to break disulfide bonds within the hair), these chemicals are not as popular with stylists because they do not give good hair straightening results or last as the thioglycolic acid compounds.
Cysteamine straightens at a lower pH than thio so it is considered somewhat milder. The negative to Cysteamine is that it smells like cat urine in the hair if not rinsed out and the smell persists. My gut feeling is that they are using the bromate to oxidize not only the hair cysteine back, but to oxidize the Cysteamine to kill the odor and make it more rinsible. *Not having done this, I don"t know for sure but it"s a good guess. I assume they probably blot out as much as possible first before the sodium bromate neutralizer is applied.
I find that the various systems differ pretty much in the external products and conditioning with the thermal process. Some feel better, look better but the effect comparing equal strengths and some iron is about the same.
I haven"t heard anything new and exciting about Caribbean DR.
Cysteamine is compatible with thioglycolate and vice versa. That means they are interchangeable. However, cysteamine is NOT interchangeable with sodium hydroxide (lye) or guanidine carbonate hydroxide (no lye) relaxer, and if God forbid the stylist mistakenly overlaps, as a result, the hair will most likely melt down. So I don’t know what these guys are talking about. (EMPHASIS MINE) This is bad judgement and very bad advice on the part of the Caribbean "Dreaming" Relaxer people, and it could cause nightmares, especially for stylists that are new to permanent hair straightening. Call them if you like to listen to gobbledygook stuff about the: “can overlap with proper formulation relaxed hair."
Over the past ten years, two miracles had happened. First, Japanese Hair Straightening/TR; using ammonium thioglycolate and the second miracle is the Brazilian/BKT. That’s all!
Good for you though. I like you. I like the way you’re navigating to explore your options.
My summer is good, winter is good, the change of the seasons is good. Likewise, I hope that you are enjoying it too.
Steve
They blow dried the hair and flat ironed it to much for my liking.
