Redken • Extreme CAT Protein Therapy Treatment (2011 formula with IPN) • Treatments

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lulabell7 on 6/10/2013 9:46:00 PM more reviews by lulabell7

Age: 25-29   Skin: Dry, Medium   Hair: Blond   Eyes: Brown    

I am so thankful I found this product. I have been using it once a week with the extreme shampoo and conditioner and it has made a huge difference. All of the other days I use the all soft shampoo and conditioner so I can't give all of the credit to the extreme line but this combo has been a lifesaver!

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*TOP REVIEWER* dbmiller on 4/9/2013 1:18:00 PM more reviews by dbmiller

Age: 30-35   Skin: Very Dry, Fair-Medium, Warm   Hair: Blond, Wavy, Fine   Eyes: Green    

Saved my hair. First I used a color remover, then attempted to dye it blonde with a box dye and finally had to get it fixed (very light bleaching). This was all on already damaged hair. After the stylist was done, my hair, while a gorgeous bleach blonde was falling onto the cape like snow. The hair stylist was apologizing profusely insisting that I purchase the Aveda damage reconstructor (which is worthless by the way). I knew I had better products in my arsenal but I humored her anyway. When I got home I used Nexxus Emergencee on it which helped a lot, along with several softening masks to follow. They helped but it wasn't enough once my hair was dry. Went to Ulta and already had this on my mind to purchase. I needed something to spray on the damage once my hair was dry. Purchased this, went home, sprayed on damaged parts and this has already fixed the breakage when my hair is dry as well as nearly eliminated the gummy feeling while it's wet. I'm going to be careful not to go overboard because I know what happens with protein overload. But this has gotten me on the path to nearly healthy hair in a couple of uses, which is a result even I'm amazed with because I know how to use protein treatments. Still, I thought it was going to be at least a few weeks before my hair started feeling better. This is by far the best reconstructor I've ever used. BTW, I use it when my hair is dry and leave it in until next shampoo.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

dannixoxo on 3/25/2013 10:19:00 PM more reviews by dannixoxo

Age: 19-24   Skin: Combination, Olive   Hair: Brown   Eyes: Hazel    

This has ruined my hair!!
I get my hair done every 6 weeks (half a head of foils)
bought this thinking it would revive by chemically damaged blonde locks.. but it did the opposite it over proteined my think hair and now i am left with alot of breakage and im so upset.. it might be safe to use once a week... but i wont be doing so till my hair has recovered. I do swear by the anti snap though that thing does wonders.

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jameyskye on 1/31/2013 7:17:00 PM more reviews by jameyskye

Age: 19-24   Skin: Combination, Fair, Cool   Hair: Brunette, Straight, Fine   Eyes: Blue    

This worked amazing - when it got in my hair correctly. Was extremely hard to apply in the shower/on wet hair. So a lot of product was wasted unfortunately but even if it wasnt waste, its so bloody expensive it isnt worth it.
I can afford it but wont bother because theres not much in the bottle.
i would probably repurchase it though, but it is tested on animals and i am only using cruelty free products from now on.

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anna8607 on 5/16/2012 9:34:00 PM more reviews by anna8607

Age: 25-29   Skin: Normal, Olive, Warm   Hair: Brunette, Curly, Medium   Eyes: Hazel    

I have been using CAT for years, the old version, and now this one. This is liquid gold in a bottle. Its truly a miracle product. I was having crazy breakage from a bad chemical straightening (and I mean horrible.. my hair was destroyed) and from my GHD iron when I started using this. When the breakage was bad, I used it twice a month, now I use it once every 8 weeks. I use it like this:

1. Clarify
2. Towel dry a bit and spray in CAT, I leave it in about half an hour
3. Rinse, towel dry, and apply moisturizing deep conditioner, leave in for half an hour
4. Rinse and style

You MUST use a moisturizing conditioner after this, and any other protein treatment! If it didnt work for you, or left your hair tangled, this is why!

I recently went to see Steve Tcherkezian (best stylist for TR in Toronto) and he put my hair through numerous tests, including hooking it up to a trichometer, which measures hairs strength. The normal range for my hairs density and all that is between 60-70, my hair came in at 92. So my hair is very strong now and I truly attribute its strength to Redken CAT.

I love this product and will never be without it.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

fragrance on 5/7/2012 2:07:00 PM more reviews by fragrance

Age: 36-43   Skin: Normal   Hair: Brunette   Eyes: Brown    

This is a fantastic product. Use it between shampoo and conditionner. Texture of your hair is weird after application but rinse well and apply conditionner.
I also hate that it is a spray bottle. Spray it in your hand and apply it with your hands, it helps and you loose less product.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

LuHu82 on 5/4/2012 4:29:00 AM more reviews by LuHu82

Age: 25-29   Skin: Combination, Fair-Medium, Neutral   Hair: Blond, Straight, Fine   Eyes: Brown    

I use this once a month in conjunction with the Extreme shampoo & daily conditioner (which i use every 3rd wash). My highlighted hair is damaged but not overly so, so I don't need to overdo the protein element.

I wash with extreme s&c, towel dry, spray with CAT and leave in for 10 mins and rinse. I do follow with Redken's Smooth Down Butter Treat under a hot towel for 20mins as I do find it quite drying. The CAT (with the s&c routine) adds the missing strength and the butter treat adds the gloss, moisture and manageability back in. It's a winning combination and because I use it about once every 3 weeks it is pretty economical cost-wise.

I would give it 5 lippies but I do find that my (normally very easy-going) scalp is a little irritated by the proteins in it, it's not too much of a problem because I use this treatment so infrequently. It might cause a problem if I used it more regularly and the proteins built up though.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

laurendo on 2/13/2012 6:32:00 PM more reviews by laurendo

Age: 19-24   Skin: Combination, Fair-Medium, Neutral   Hair: Red, Wavy, Fine   Eyes: Green    

Firstly, my hair has always been able to take anything I throw at it, however eventually years of drying and straightening and dying took their toll!

I had long platinum blonde hair (dyed) up until a couple of weeks ago. This suited me quite well as I am naturally blonde, however I found it a bit pale, and decided I wanted a change. I'd fancied red for a while so thought I'd go for it.

Teensy bit of a mistake! I used the same pharmacy brand of permanent dye that I had been using for my platinum blonde, and it looked fantastic. I like to change colours but do tend to be picky, so I was really happy that I liked it. However, one wash later (with colour protect shampoo, cold water) and it was faded enormously. I thought this must be due to over bleaching my hair, making it more difficult to take colour, so, I dyed it again. And again. And basically my hair called time out. It became very brittle and straw-like. When I brushed (as a comb would not go through it), tiny bits broke off and scattered everywhere. It was horrible. I chopped off a couple of inches of the worst, and just like that my formally long glossy hair was frizzy, dull and shoulder length.

Enter Redken Extreme Cat spray. Following some reviews, I decided to give it a go. I took the advice of I think another poster on here, and did it like this:

1.Wash with clarifying shampoo
2.Blot dry
3.Spray CAT spray all over
4.Leave for 4 mins
5.Scrunch my hair (like trying to accentuate curls)
6.Rinse

I then repeated steps 2 - 6 twice more (so 3 sprays of redken in total), and then I used a fairly cheap pharmacy deep conditioner. I wrapped my hair, conditioner on, in a towel and laid back for 15 minutes.

I then dryed my hair on a low heat with heat protector spray and VOILA! My hair was almost back to normal (albeit faded). I had previously tried a deep condition on it's own, so I know it's the redken spray that did the trick.

However, I still want colour so I went over with Directions semi-permanent dye, which is far less damaging and actually conditions hair. Yes, it will fade quickly, but I'd rather have healthy hair and have to chuck some semi-permanent on regularly than dry, crispy straw hair! Definitely recommend! However, I think you do need to make sure that your hair is in bad enough shape otherwise protein could make it worse - perhaps try a deep conditioner first and if like me it makes no difference, then go for it!

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

*TOP REVIEWER* underage on 11/24/2011 11:24:00 PM more reviews by underage

Age: 19-24   Skin: Normal, Fair-Medium, Warm   Hair: Blond, Straight, Medium   Eyes: Blue    

If you bleach your hair you need this. I forgot how well it worked & left this in my shower while I was away at college. I came home and sprayed it in not expecting much but it completely revitalized my hair. Spray it on after you shampoo, leave on for 5 mins, and follow up with a deep conditioner. My hair felt 50x thicker and stronger. I use heat on my hair everyday and bleach it but this made it feel like my old hair again. You need to use a good conditioner after though because it is drying but overall an amazing product!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

rocketinthesky on 7/1/2011 5:59:00 PM more reviews by rocketinthesky

Age: 18 & Under   Skin: Acne-prone, Fair-Medium, Warm   Hair: Blond, Medium   Eyes: Brown    

I'm a bit upset that the other 65 reviews for this product are now under a 'discontinued' version of this stuff, but if this is an even NEWER reformulated version of CAT, then I really should be posting here anyway.
Redken CAT is a spray-in formula specially made for severely damaged, processed, bleached, coloured, whatever kind of hair. You'll know if you need this if, while your hair is wet, your hair is very rubbery/gummy feeling, and easily snaps when combed. Also, your ends will look very thin/gross. If you never use heat, never colour, never do chemical processing, then this product more than likely isn't for you. Now, onto the review.
Packaging - I personally love the colour of blue, maybe it's just me, but I love seeing it on my shelf because of the colour itself. It's also not as hard to grip the bottle with wet hands as everyone seems to be complaining about. I personally have never dropped the bottle and have used it multiple times already.
Scent - I can't say I like it too much, but if protein had a scent I'd think it would smell like CAT along with some artificial perfumes to mask the scent.
Consistency - VERY watery. Why else would it come in a spray bottle? A little does NOT go a long way with this product because of it's consistency, and I almost want to take 1 lippy off because you need a lot of product to thoroughly saturate the hair, and it's very expensive for such a small amount of product.
Does it deliver? - I'd have to say yes, although it seems to work better when I use it in conjunction with my Deep Fuel treatments. I use it about every 2-3 washes, but I'm trying to cut down just because I can't afford to spend $25 every 2 weeks.
How I use it - fully saturate my hair with it, leave it in for 5 minutes, then lather it up in my hair and leave on for another 5 minutes (read how to do this from previous reviews on the original formula), rinse, and repeat 2 more x. It lathers because it contains Magnesium Sulfate (epsom salts), but you need quite a bit for it to lather, which is probably why I'm using so much every time, but I want to be able to get as much use out of it one time as possible. I wouldn't recommend leaving it in longer than 10-15 minutes, as I believe it stops working after a certain amount of time.

Honestly, I think I'm going to repurchase, just because it allows me to add more protein to my 6x bleached and toned hair. Hope this review helps!

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

*TOP REVIEWER* mymelody87 on 6/3/2011 5:18:00 PM more reviews by mymelody87

Age: 19-24   Skin: Very Oily, Fair, Cool   Hair: Blond, Straight, Fine   Eyes: Green    

All I have to say is be careful with this product, as well as all protein hair treatments, because if you don't actually need them they will damage your hair. I have no horror story to tell except that I used this thinking it would help my dry hair and it didn't because my hair, I believe, was merely dry, and not structurally damaged. Two weeks and all kinds of conditioners later, my hair is difficult to brush through and beginning to split badly at the ends - problems I never had before using Redken Cat.

Besides this, the product itself has a few pros and cons I'd like to mention. For starters, as a protein treatment I believe that this works if you need it. It's light, doesn't stink, and can be used in the shower in a reasonable amount of time. On the other hand, it has the consistency of water and is impossible to spray out of the poorly designed bottle, which simply can't be grasped securely enough in the shower to use appropriately. You'll probably wind up bending over and using both hands to spray it on, like I did. As a result of the lack of viscosity and the bottle design I had an impossible time telling where and how much I had sprayed, so I wound up using roughly 1/3 of the bottle in the first use simply trying to make sure I had thoroughly saturated my hair.

Overall, I think the Aphogee 2 Step Treatment is far superior to this. It's a little more "labor intensive" and smells like bile, but it works and I've never had a negative result from using it, as I did with the Redken.

Edit (6/29/11):
A few days ago I had my first professional trim in a long time (try at least a year) by a super nice lady at Holiday Hair down the street from my house, and she recommended the entire Redken Extreme line for my (duh) extremely damaged hair. (I went in asking for a body wave style perm. Well, it just so turns out that despite my hair's healthy appearance it would not be able to withstand the chemical assault that is a perm. To prove this she left a lock of my hair in perm solution for 15 minutes as a 'strand test', and I was shocked when I saw the results. That strand turned out like a dried out rubber band.) Her guess as to what has caused the damage is my addiction to box hair dyes, and I'm tempted to agree with her, since frequently dying my hair from a box is literally the only thing I do that could possibly have stripped my hair of protein so badly.

Anyways, after purchasing the Redken Extreme Shampoo, Daily Conditioner, and Extreme Cat Protein treatment, I've changed my rating from 3 stars and no repurchase to 5 stars and definite repurchasing. Redken CAT, when used as directed with the Extreme Shampoo and Daily Conditioner, works miracles on my super damaged hair. A one inch trim, combined with a Redken-based in-salon fortifying treatment, and 2 runs with these 3 products, and I have yet to see a split end. Normally my hair starts splitting after the next time I shower. But not this time. My hair's now strong, and soft, and silky, but not oily, overly shiny, or weighted down. I have nothing to attribute my hair's new condition and strength to but the use of these 3 Redken products and the trim. I believe with continued use my hair will be gradually restored. I feel it happening already.

I've also discovered, by reading the back of the bottle for CAT that it ought to be left in for 5 to 10 minutes MAX on DAMP, ie. lightly towel-dried hair. That's solved my complaint about the unwieldy bottle design, since by the time I dab the excess water from my freshly shampooed hair my hands are usually dry, and then I have no trouble gripping the bottle and spraying it properly.

I also like to use the Anti-Snap Leave-In Conditioner when I'm all done.

Again, these things seem to be working wonders. My hair's never felt this wonderful after a trim in my whole life. The products from this line are definitely best when used together. I'm not going to mix and match anymore, and I will follow the directions to a T for continued results. At first I hated this stuff, but now I'm a convert.

The four products I use, including the Extreme Shampoo, Extreme Daily Conditioner, Extreme CAT Protein treatment, and Anti-Snap leave in are about $15 USD each. I was hesitant to spend such money in one stop on nothing but a recommendation, but now I'm glad I did, since all of the products, with the exception perhaps of the CAT, seem to go a long way. And hey, if it continues to work as it has these last few days, then it's worth it.

I will update again if anything changes.

Bottom line: Redken Extreme CAT Protein Therapy Treatment works best when used with the rest of the line. Of course, your experience my vary. I'm glad I broke down and got a trim and discovered such a wonder line of haircare. Again, I will update if anything changes and I begin to have objections. But for now, I'm all but ready to declare this line my HG.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

*TOP REVIEWER* xxxstrzxx on 4/13/2011 6:06:00 PM more reviews by xxxstrzxx

Age: 19-24   Skin: Combination, Medium, Warm   Hair: Black, Straight, Medium   Eyes: Blue    

I use this on my bleached hair once a week with a hot towel and leave it on for 15 minutes. The protein deposits well and strengthens my hair. I have noticed after I use this my hair is not as gummy, but it is a bit dry.

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heavenlyxox on 3/24/2011 4:30:00 AM more reviews by heavenlyxox

Age: 19-24   Skin: Normal, Fair, Cool   Hair: Blond, Wavy, Fine   Eyes: Blue    

I used this product about a year ago and liked it, make my hair feel silky while wet and shinier than normal when dry. Used again last week and had a totally different experience, my hair felt tangly and yuck. Would not use or buy this again. Joico Kpak protein treatment is 100x better. Cant comment on the strengething factor of the product, i didnt notice much of one, and was too expensive for what it was.

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