I Lit My Hair On Fire For perfect curls

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A year before my wedding, I decided to give my hair the model treatment.

I headed to Brazil where one salon has become the favorite of many a Victoria's Secret model. Their specialty?

Velaterapia, otherwise known as candle cutting, where a professional — I repeat, a professional — burns off all your split ends.

That's right. Literal fire is involved.

“My mom learned this technique from my grandfather who came to Brazil in 1920 from Spain,” Cris Dios, the CEO of salon Laces, explains to me.

The goal is to get rid of dry, dead ends without losing any length.

Dios, who does the hair-burning herself, shows me the way she twists one-inch sections of hair so the split ends stick out

She then effectively cauterizes them with a candle flame.

Velaterapia remains largely under-researched

“Alessandra does it. Candice does it," Dios says. "But it’s a dangerous technique. It’s fire! You have to do it with a professional who has experience, not alone.”

But my experience at Laces was so much more than hair burning.

There was hair dusting...

A heavenly hair mask and massage...

An electrical suction device meant to “stimulate the follicles."

The entire process took 5.5 hours!

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