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My hair is extremely dry and every time I wash my hair more breaks off! I am really trying not to have a melt down over my hair damage. I just wanted to share my experience and voice my concerns. This is a on the scalp application. I let it process about 40 min.

I have never had problems lightening my hair before and having breakage. My hair is to my butt! Every time I wash my hair more and more breaks off!!! This is even with me washing in cold water and letting my hair air dry with no heat! Olapex Represenative: I apologize about such a terrible experience you have had with your hair.

I copied this from the FAQS sheet to show the directions for on scalp lightener. Using a higher volume is done at your discretion. Did someone do your hair for you or did you do your on scalp application yourself? Was cotton applied at the line of demarcation to avoid any over lapping? As for lightener, it may also be added directly in as well. By doing so, you are actually able to rebuild bonds as they are being broken during the lightener process. It gets exponentially worse from there.

By adding Olaplex to your lightener, you are actually able to rebuild at the same time allowing you to push hair farther so there are more bonds to be broken. I can get into specifics of mixing etc if you like as well, this is just a generalized explanation.

Also if this product is a safe guard from breakage why would it matter if you over lapped product? I always slightly feather out my product so there is no line of demarcation or missed areas. Using 30v on the scalp for up to 40 min is what I have done on my own hair for years and never had this reaction.

The olaplex claims to be a safe guard for damage and allows the cosmetologist to push the hair farther are dishonest and could actually put a professional in a extremely horrible situation. If you just use products accordingly and take time to let them process there is no need for a advertised safe guard that is actually not really a safeguard. Also I must add that after consulting with a Schwartzkopf educator they do not recommend adding any additives to there products.

I also had my mid length blonde hair break of into 3 inch pieces from the use of Olaplex with bleach. I have gone from red, to honey, to dark brunette to honey all with minimal damage until my stylist used Olaplex. I firmly believe it was from this product. I too experienced horrifying results. My hair burned off in clumps and just so happened to be at the front of my hair line.

I lost everything on the left side of my hair about an nch back from the hairline. I also lost the majority of my bangs. Some ended up being a half an inch long in some areas. I am miserable looking at it and trying to figure out how to hide it every day.

It literally brings me to tears. It felt like a brillow pad after each application and has cost me hundreds in hair repair nutrients and conditioners. It makes me SICK!!!! Same old answers putting blame on the stylist or the consumers!!! This stuff fried my hair also.

I have not gone to work for 2 days. Obsessing on how to repair this damage. Condition ing but nothinges helps and my hair is getting worst. OMG this could not of happened at a worst time in my life. Stylist need to know this stuff can do this. Can I leave the product on my hair for a couple hours? It has really healed my hair. It was so fried it was literally shredding apart. I have a client who purchased it on amazon and the colour of the 1 was completly off!!!!!

It definetly was not the true product as I have in the salon!!!!! Love the way you put things together! Thank you soooo much for doing this. It is really helpful! I have a request for you. Do you know about hairprint? The same product can restore gray hair from very light brown all the way to the darkest black. Your hair will determine your color. This looks super cool! I wondered if any medications could cause a bad chemical reaction with the Olaplex?

I got the first two steps done at my very qualified salon. I took home step three and am afraid to use it again. And thx. Im not sold by Oplaplex either and im a professional distributor of hair products and own 3 pro salons. One thing i cant get to grips with is the sheer marketing prowess Olaplex have invested in, it seems they manufactured using very cheap basic packaging and invested the rest into a huge marketing campaign.

Also i can see on any forum that speaks bad or questions its legitimacy, there is an office of paid marketeers with multiple accounts jumping on to defend their product.

Or as we see above, telling us we cant buy it online and must only buy it from their representatives, that are obviously being paid to make videos all over youtube. I have tested olaplex and a few of the other similar brands, what did i notice?

Except it has been marketed for a specific niche to fix a specific problem, again clever marketing. This actually happened to me on the Rainbow Haircolour FB board. Asking if there were any unbiased, scientific peer reviewed research for this product. A truly bizarre experience. If it permanently repaired damaged hair, why would you need to continue using it between chemical services? Contradictory, isnt it? The chemical sevices keep breaking bonds. But if you keep breaking them what do you expect to get but broken bonds after broken bonds.

Wow its so cool to find such a thorough explanation about a hair product! I will have so much reading to catch up on your other posts now, yay!! Thanks you! I was given an OlaPlex treatment at the end of July and again at the end of August to treat hair over processed with a perm and color and hilights and the results were beyond spectacular! So I informed my salon that I wanted to add OlaPlex to all my future treatments at which time I was informed that my salon would be going with a product called Continuum and would not be using OlaPlex.

To counteract my wild reaction, they offered me a Free full treatment of Continuum. Well, I hated it. It softened my thin hair to the point that it had no body, no bounce and was actually flyaway.

Any advice? I have a salon in Oregon and was pushed by a rep to use Continuum also, as a swap out. I was suggested to do the Olaplex treatment at the salon I normally go to and was sold to me as a miracle hair repair. I really hope my hair will be back to normal soon.

I wish I never had it done! I have virgin hair at 24 years old I recently had a hairdresser burn it with curling tongs! As a scientist I have to say that this molecule is my new BFF.

My hair is by no means healthy yet, but this kept my hair from turning into a ball of protein mush. I will continue to do treatments until my hair is repaired to my liking, and then I will do them regularly thereafter to retain results. I think part of the product design is that the repair is meant to be impermanent. Although people do have repeated treatments on their hair that would continually cause damage, as well as new hair growth that gets treated, a permanent solution would not require take home treatments and as frequent reapplication.

It seems pretty clever from a product development point of view, however. These are all logical, valid points and not the least bit cynical. Savvy consumerism is the intelligent way to go.

I reached out to my german audience …. Olaplex hair treatment was used on my hair by my hairdresser and unfortunately it is now in the worst condition it has ever been!

My hair was only done 1 week ago and everyday since then it feels greasy, dirty, very fine. It is also full on split ends and is snapping also in the middle of the shaft. It will not style and when you run your hand through it the hair sticks up as though it is greasy. Oh I am so upset about it, I have always looked after my hair, if I had researched it first I would not have had it used on my, but I trusted my hairdresser of 5 years!

Now I have another hairdresser trying to find a rescue remedy for me. Please let me know, did you get your hair sorted? Hair sounds the exact same as yours. Is the Olaplex permanent, will it wash out eventually? I would love to know the outcome and what worked? I had Olaplex yesterday, as part of my conditioning blowout. The first and last time, I will go anywhere near this product. The result was terrible….

It left my hair dry, dull, frizzy and damaged looking. I use Iden Bee Propolis Silkshine.. These comments blow my mind!

Was it put on your hair dry? Left in then step 2 put over step 1? I would be more than happy to speak with your stylist directly and help troubleshoot as Olaplex itself is not going to dry hair out. Feel free to email me at [email protected]. My hair has been on a colour lap of victory this last year, bleached blonde to pink, to copper to brunette and now, thanks to Olaplex back to bleach blonde. This is all down to Olaplex used in the bleach and then at home treatment used every week.

Professional Hair Dresser with strong color and texture experience. I use and endorse Olaplex whole hardily, never had such great consistent results. There is a method of use and application. But just like other services that suffer ill results at the hands of uneducated practitioners, Olaplex is not exempt.

If you are taking away from the hair, you need to put back what you take. Just a small example: Your Color retouch can be performed without Olaplex, But the shaft and ends of the hair can be treated with Olaplex to repair and hold color longer. However, if you add the history of what you might do to the hair at home, previous chemicals and cheap harsh products you may subject it too.

Then you would need to Olaplex 2 o 3 times a week. The 3 Olaplex treatment is for home maintenance. Bismaleimidoethoxyethane crosslinkers have been used in other industries for some time, and they do form stable thioether crosslinks that are not cleaved by reducing agents, and hair coloring is not a reducing process. The reaction is very specific to pH 6. Since oxidative haircoloring is performed at a pH well above pH 8.

The atomic weight seems to be about amu. Most haircolor ingredients are below amu. I question how this can penetrate into the cortex and fix the bond? Basically, the whole system works just as an intense conditioner to give you less damage when coloring and nothing more. Are the linkers in those other processes Michael acceptors, or do the thioethers form by some other mechanism? I only tried Olaplex once and will never use it again.

It dried out my hair and left the ends frizzy and horrible looking. I applied tons of serum as soon as I got home, to add shine and moisture back to my hair. And snipped the ends off, because they looked so bad. I was so upset that I even canceled the date, I had planned for that evening..

Dry, frizzy and damaged looking. Not the usual sleek, shiny results achieved using a regular conditioning treatment as part of my blowout….

Enough reviews have mentioned similar results as mine. To at the very least serve as a warning… If it dries your hair, like it did mine.. My advise is to never use it again and risk even further damage.. I can only hope that applying a ton of serum has helped to halt the damage the Olaplex caused….

I had an Olaplex treatment done towards the end of last year My hair was medium-dark brown salon dyed and I wanted to lighten the ends. A little back story — I did some hair modeling up until 4 years ago, and my hair was always extremely healthy, even with the harshest bleach my hair always looked and felt very healthy.

D-day came and I went in for the treatment, the hairdresser put the Olaplex in for what felt like a very long time. After a wash and a blow dry I saw the disaster that is now my hair.

I am absolutely heartbroken and I have warned everyone I know who was planning on going for the Olaplex treatment to stay away! I now have to cut all of my damaged hair off after growing it out for years. I had the exact same result. Olaplex itself is not going to turn hair orange.

This generally means too much product was added into the lightener which hindered the lifting process. If the ends of your hair feel like straw, this would be due to some form of overprocessing. Olaplex is an amazing product however it will not make hair invincible.

Please feel free to email me and I will gladly help you and the stylist troubleshoot. If too much product hindered the bleaching process then how can her hair also be over processed? I have been getting keratin for at least four years now for my very frizzy gray hair and I love the results. But it seemed like a good option to use for weeks at the end. Perhaps even replace the expensive keratin treatments altogether. Keratin is the only treatment that actually works, and at the price of losing my beautiful waves for a few weeks.

But after that — well, people are constantly complimenting my hair. Total strangers. That never happened before keratin. I had major league bad hair. I want to let you know my experience. I bleached it with cheap blue bleach powder and 30 vol with foils. I foolishly left on for an hour.

I washed out and have left it to allow it to rest for at least a month before bleaching again to get desired pale yellow. At present its not the best colour but I can live with it as I put a toner on it after.

Prior to my olaplex application I shampooed hair with clarifying shampoo, and prior to that for a few days I was fading the toner with vitamin c treatments. After clarifying I then put step 1 on hair wrapped it in clingfilm and left for 30 mins then I used step 2 immediately ontop of step 1.

I wrapped again in clingfilm and a head wrap and went to sleep. My hair feels amazing and it is actually feeling silkier as time goes on. It is less dry and is definitely improved. I also did a strand test with olaplex added to the bleach on a strand of hair previously bleached and a strand test 2nd round of bleach on previously bleached strand without olaplex.

The bleached hair strand that was bleached second time with olaplex was in much better condition than the one without the olaplex. Additionally the one with olaplex lifted better and quicker weirdly. I used Goldwell bleach second time round. Olaplex works if used correctly. I have been using Olaplex now for over a year. I can honestly say that there are good times to use it and not so good times to use it.

Olaplex is NOT a conditioner. It is not magic. It is science. I have seen some hair actually go back to its former crappy self after stopping use. But I have also had great results when dealing with hair that is super compromised.

Hair coloring is not like painting a wall. The other properties that really are being problematic here are moisture and protein. I will continue to watch and see but I do think it is a great tool in my coloring tool box. Hi Patricia. Protein itself is an entire separate issue. If you notice the hair is gummy, this generally shows a lack of protein within the hair. If hair is dry, this shows a lack of moisture.

Olaplex deals with broken disulfide bonds. All issues within the hair must be addressed in conjunction with one another. Hi I had a simular bad experience with Olaplex using only step 3 and as stated you should be able to use alone. My hair is blonde on top and light brown color treated on the bottom. My hair was in fairly good condition.

Both times my hair felt good right after treatment then when I shampooed it it became dry, brittle and hard to manage. I now have breakage in one area in the back interestedly not where it is blonde and have finally gotten my hair back to its original state after intensely conditioning for months. I never had this problem prior to using Olaplex. Would like to hear from a representative of theirs a better answer not just BS as to why so many have had this happen. So you actually say that you did it yourself, and only used step 3 — could it be the issue from bleaching it in the first place??

I wish you best of luck, though! I used Olaplex on my hair and it has been fantastic. My hair is softer and stronger. For those who say the texture changes, yes, I did notice that a bit. My hair feels thicker and looks thicker and more dense. I have not had stretchy or mushy hair when it is wet or breakage when it is dry. I did a lot of reading beforehand and I followed the Olaplex instructions to a t. I also know from reading and research that I cannot consider Olaplex to be a conditioner.

Because it is a little dry due to the BLEACH I used, I am doing deep conditioning treatments, and I am using moisturizing and protecting products as anyone would should if they bleached their hair. I also wash it only once or twice a week and I let it air dry; on occasion I flat iron it but not without products for heat styling. But compared to past double bleach processing, my hair is in much much better condition. I also have permanent extensions in my hair — just one row — but they even feel silky and stronger than before.

If Olaplex did nothing, do you really think people would rave about it so much?? If one more person says that Coconut Oil can do what Olaplex can do, I might flip out.

These are usually people who have never tried Olaplex who are quick to judge. I have tried both and I love coconut oil for both my body and my hair — but coconut oil is not Olaplex.

They are both helpful but they do two very different things. For me it has been fantastic. I have dyed and bleached my hair to a pulp over the years and I am trying to regain my natural healthy hair.

As it has taken years of abuse I realise this will not happen over night. The Pureology Conditioner does work a bit, but the Somaluxe Argan Oil is what made my hair looks like I am 20 years old again! I blowdried it and it felt great, shiny and looked healthy and sleek. I do recommend the Somaluxe Argan Oil as a deep conditioning treatment once or twice a week to anyone who has dyed hair. Or how to make the olaplex coating feeling go away? Thanks, Ro. Hi Rose. If your hair feels like it has a residue on it, this is generally due to some type of buildup.

Was the hair clarified or shampooed prior to application of Olaplex treatment? This is extemely important as oils, silicones and other film formers will act as a barrier. Can you recommend specific products that clarify hair properly in preparation for Olaplex? Thank you for the update that Olaplex changed, well pretty much all the basics. The upping of the developer and it seems they also changed the amount of Olaplex 1 you should add based on the amount of bleaching powder.

Have they changed their formula? OLAPLEX from the very beginning, have always respected your feedback and with your input we have decided to make adjustments to our directions of use based on your real world results. We want you to use half the previous amount of Olaplex No. This cuts your cost per application in half. In most cases, stylists are able to go well beyond the applications. If anyone is having issues or has Olaplex related questions, we would be happy to address them directly.

Olaplex has now been used more than 60 million times in over , salons worldwide. Nik Pisclovephy. David Arndt. More From Evan Husada Sidrap. Popular in Technology. Science and Tech. Rajesh Yenugula. Hari Ram. Winnie Cai.

Mehar Asif Ibrahim. Sumardi Fnu. Archit Lohokare. Rahul Sharma. Pugal Vendan. Saravanan Kannan. She led the way into a thicket behind the latrine. Twigs crackled under my bare feet, stinging the soles. A bananaquit flew to the thorny branch of a lemon tree and looked from side to side. Mami hummed softly, the yellow and orange flowers of her dress blending into the greenness: a miraculous garden with legs and arms and a melody. Her hair, choked at the nape with a rubber band, floated thick and black to her waist, and as she bent over to pick up sticks, it rained across her shoulders and down her arms, covering her face and tangling in the twigs she cradled.

A red butterfly circled her and flew close to her ear. She gasped and swatted it into a bush. Delsa and Norma toddled through the underbrush. A hen had scratched out a hollow and carpeted its walls and floor with dry grass.

Mami shuddered and rubbed her arms where tiny bumps had formed making the fine hairs stand straight up. She gave me a look, half puzzled, half angry, and drew us to her side. The dirt was orange, striped in places where crumbs had slipped through the cracks when Mami swept.

Mami was afraid to come into the house. There were small holes in the dirt, holes where snakes and scorpions hid. She turned around swiftly and threw herself off balance so that she skipped toward the kitchen shed. Delsa and Norma followed her skirt, but I stared at the dirt, where squiggly lines stretched from one wall to the other.

Mami waited for me. Papi stepped between us. I can use the help. When I passed carrying a wide board, Mami asked to see it. Black bugs, like ants, but bigger and blacker, crawled over it in a frenzy. I was covered with them. They swarmed inside my shirt and panties, into my hair, under my arms. But they bit ridges into my skin that itched and hurt at the same time.

Look at her. Mami pulled off my clothes and threw them on the ground. The soap in the washtub burned my skin, and Mami scrubbed me so hard her fingernails dug angry furrows into my arms and legs.

She turned me around to wash my back and I almost fell out of the tub. Mami wrapped me in a towel and lifted me out of the tub with a groan. Hundreds of black bugs floated between the bubbles. She carried me to the house pressed against her bosom, fragrant of curdled milk. Delsa and Norma ran after us, but Papi scooped them up, one on each arm, and carried them to the rope swing.

It felt good to have Mami so close, so warm, swathed by her softness, her smell of wood smoke and oregano. She rubbed circles on my back and caressed the hair from my face. She kissed me, brushed my tears with her fingertips, and dried my nose with the towel, or the hem of her dress. Mami rolled off the bed and went outside. We children slept in hammocks strung across the room, tied to the beams in sturdy knots that were done and undone daily.

A curtain separated our side of the room from the end where my parents slept in a four-poster bed veiled with mosquito netting. On the days he worked, Papi left the house before dawn and sometimes joked that he woke the roosters to sing the barrio awake. The next morning, I turned out of the hammock and ran outside as soon as the sun streaked in.

Mami and Papi sat by the kitchen shed sipping coffee. My arms and belly were pimpled with red dots. The night before, Mami had bathed me in alcoholado, which soothed my skin and cooled the hot itch. Come here, let me look. He never went anywhere without it. He delighted in stories from faraway places like Russia, Madagascar, and Istanbul. I ducked away, my scalp smarting, and scrambled into the oregano bushes.

In the fragrant shade, I fretted. But there was no arguing with Mami, who, in those days, was always right. On the radio, the newscaster talked about submarines, torpedoes, and a place called Korea, where Puerto Rican men went to die.

His voice faded as Papi carried him into the house just as Delsa and Norma came out for their oatmeal. And we all called you Negrita, and it got shortened to Negi. Norma was lighter, rust colored, and not as pale as Mami, whose skin was pink. Delsa had black eyes. We all have our official names, and then our nicknames, which are like secrets that only the people who love us use. Everyone calls me Monin. Some people call him Pablito. The day he was to put in the new floor, Papi dragged our belongings out to the yard.

A stack of new floorboards was suspended between cinder blocks near the door. We sneaked around the house to the path behind the latrine. On the way we picked up a few pebbles, just in case Mami asked what we were doing.

A brown hen sat on the nest, her wings fluffed around the eggs. As we came near, she clucked softly. The hen watched us, cackling nervously, and when we walked around the bush, her beady eyes followed us. The hen turned her head all the way around, as if her neck were not attached to her body. Delsa looked at me with a wicked grin, and without a word, we looped around the bush again then switched and went in the opposite direction.

Possessive of her eggs, the hen kept her eyes fixed on us, no matter how fast we moved. We broke into a run. What are you doing back here? Delsa giggled. I giggled. The hen buried her head into her feathers the way a turtle crawls into a shell. I wanted to slide under her wings and get away from Mami.

Delsa hid behind me. I shuffled forward, and Mami stepped back to let me by. Delsa whimpered. Mami stared at me, immobile, hands on hips. I was very small. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and walked past her.

As I did, she knuckled me hard on the head. I ran home, rubbing the bump that was forming under my hair. Behind me, Delsa screeched and ran past, covering her ear. Papi raked the dirt in the house. He looked up when we came to the door, holding our heads and crying. Delsa sat on a stump and sobbed. He heaped piles of dirt into the corners of the house and hummed a song under his breath. Mami stood at the mouth of the path, her fingers laced under her belly. She looked small against the thick green behind her.

I pushed her off the stump, sending her small body sprawling on the dirt. I rolled out of my hammock and crossed to the other side of the curtain. Papi was gone, and Mami lay on her side, a wet rag on her forehead. She was sweaty, her hair stuck to her cheeks and down her neck. She pulled on the rails of the bedstead, as if she were stretching, but her knees were folded up to her belly. She was never sick, but now she was suffering. Her face softened then darkened again, as if seeing me had made her forget her pain, but not for long.

Tiny bubbles of sweat popped on her upper lip. The women grinned. Delsa and Norma scuffed in, rubbing their eyes. Norma ran back into the house and threw herself at Mami. Until then, that was just the way she looked: black hair, pale skin, big belly, long legs.

Mist hung just above the trees, burning off in patches where bright sun dulled the intensity of red hibiscus blossoms, yellow morning glories, the purple centers of passion fruit flowers. He falls in love even with broomsticks. My parents probably argued before Hector was born. Mami was not one to hold her tongue when she was treated unfairly.

And while Papi was easygoing and cheerful most of the time, his voice had been known to rise every so often, sending my sisters and me scurrying for cover behind the annatto bushes or under the bed. But the year that Hector was born their fights grew more frequent and sputtered into our lives like water on a hot skillet.

I asked you a simple question. Papi brushed his leather shoes and stuffed them inside a plaid zippered duffel bag. He put on canvas loafers that had once been white but had yellowed with the dirt of the road.

He unhooked his straw hat from the nail by the door and left without kissing us goodbye. I went looking for Mami behind the house. She sat on a stump under the breadfruit tree, her back to me.

I walked to her, tears stinging the rims of my eyes. She turned around with an angry face. Get away from me. She seemed so far away, yet I sensed the heat from her body, smelled the rosemary oil she rubbed on her hair. Every so often she looked over her shoulder, and I turned my eyes to the front yard, where Delsa and Norma chased one another, a cloud of dust painting their legs up to their droopy panties.

I slung Hector over my shoulder, his baby body yielding onto mine. Mami raked her fingers through my hair with a sad smile then walked away, the hem of her dress swinging in rhythm to her rounded hips. Then one night he appeared, kissed us hello, put on his work clothes, and began hammering on the walls. She banged a plateful of rice and beans in front of him, a fork, a glass of water. While he ate, Mami told us to get ready for bed, and Delsa, Norma, and I scrambled into our hammocks.

She nursed Hector and put him to sleep. I drifted into a dream in which I climbed a tall tree whose lower branches disappeared the moment I scaled the higher ones. I woke up sweating, my arms stretched over my head and gripping the rope of my hammock.

Mami and Papi lay in bed talking. And one of the men that works with me had an emergency. I gave him an advance. From my hammock on the other side of the curtain I envisioned her face: eyes round, pupils large, her eyebrows arched to the hairline. I could have told him that was a mistake. An advance?? I need to sleep. When Mami was angry, she argued in a loud voice that reached higher pitches the more nervous she became.

When Papi argued, he put all his energy into holding himself erect, maintaining a steady calm that was chilling to us children but had the opposite effect on Mami. Papi knew this. It was a clue to how upset she was. He calmly got up and walked to the curtain separating our rooms. I ducked my head back inside my hammock. Do they know your children go barefoot and hungry while you spend the misery you earn on them?

Delsa and Norma whimpered from their side of the room. Papi stood at the window, looking at where a view would have been if the window were open. Mami lifted Hector to her shoulder and paced, bouncing him up and down to get him to go to sleep. And weekends, instead of working on this hovel you call a house, you take off with one excuse or another.

You have no shame! Do you think I like hearing you complain all the time? But I thought he was leaving us. Please, Papi, stay! Then she bolted the door, took Hector out of his cradle, and sat on her rocking chair, nursing him.

Tears streamed down her cheeks into the grooves at the corners of her lips. None of us dared get out of our hammocks. We hunkered into them, stifling our sobs.

For a long time I listened for Papi. For his voice asking Mami to forgive him, or for his footsteps outside the house. They were damp, stained with the muddy tracks of toads and iguanas. As she waited for the coffee water to boil, Mami picked them up and took them to the tub under the avocado tree. Another day they were arguing, and I heard Mami accuse Papi, as she often did, of seeing another woman behind her back when he said he was going to see Abuela.

You know I have no interest in Provi. But how can you object to my wanting to see Margie? My heart shrank. Having to share my father with Delsa, Norma, and Hector was bad enough. He sat on a stump and stared at his hands, calloused where the hammer and saw handles rubbed against his skin.

He looked so sad, it made me want to cry. I sat next to him. Can you help me mix concrete? At night I tried to imagine what Margie looked like. Her hair kinky like his, not lanky like mine. I imagined her voice to be musical, lilting, the way his was when he read poetry to us. What times we could have if we were together! We could play hide-and-seek in the jungled back yard. I swayed in my hammock dreaming about Margie, determined to talk my mother into asking Papi to bring her to live with us.

The next day I stood on a stool while Mami pinned the hem on my school uniform. Papi dipped his trowel into the cement mud in the wheelbarrow by his side and slapped the mud onto a foundation block. He tipped the brim up and pointed to the pyramid of cinder blocks by the front gate.

She stared at Papi, not at me, her needle suspended above green fabric. It was heavy and slipped from my fingers, almost crushing my toe. The rough edges scraped against my legs and belly.

It was heavy and awkward, but I managed to carry it over next to the wheelbarrow and drop it. They smarted from the weight and the grooves that the block had dug into my skin. Mami watched him for a while then took her sewing inside the house. He turned sad eyes on me, kneeled, and hugged me. Their arguments accomplished nothing, as far as I could see, except to make everyone miserable.

After they fought, Mami was sullen and irritable, and Papi disappeared into himself like a snail into a shell. We children tiptoed around them or else played in the farthest reaches of the yard, our voices dulled lest they incite our parents. To make things more confusing, it was clear that there were moments of tenderness between them. Sometimes I came upon them standing close, arms encircling waists, heads close, as if they shared secrets that transcended the hurt and resentments, the name-calling and deceit.

Chief among the sins of men was the other woman, who was always a puta, a whore. Putas wore lots of perfume, jewelry, dresses cut low to show off their breasts, high heels to pump up their calves, and hair spray. All this was paid for with money that should have gone into repairing the roof or replacing the dry palm fronds enclosing the latrine with corrugated steel sheets.

I wanted to see a puta close up, to understand the power she held over men, to understand the sweet-smelling spell she wove around the husbands, brothers, and sons of the women whose voices cracked with pain, defeat, and simmering anger.

Dignidad was something you conferred on other people, and they, in turn, gave back to you. It meant, if you were a child, you did not speak until spoken to, did not look an adult in the eye, did not raise your voice nor enter or leave a room without permission.

It meant adults were always right, especially if they were old. All these rules entered our household the minute I was allowed to leave home for the long walk to and from school.

Mami and Papi had passed on to me what they knew of buenos modales, good manners. But these rules had little to do with the way we lived at home. We children spoke whenever we felt like it, interrupted our parents all the time, and argued with them until Mami finally reminded us that we had stepped over the line of what was considered respectful behavior toward parents. I walked home from school full of importance in my green and yellow uniform.

It was my most prized possession, the only thing in our house that belonged to me alone, because neither Delsa nor Norma were old enough to go to school.

But school was also where I compared my family to others in the barrio. I met children whose mothers walked the distance from their house to church on their knees in gratitude for prayers answered. Children whose fathers came home every day and played catch in the dusty front yard.

Girls whose sisters taught them to embroider flowers on linen handkerchiefs. There were families in the barrio with running water inside their houses, electric bulbs shining down from every room, curtains on the windows, and printed linoleum on the floors.

Children fought in school in a way unknown to me at home. Delsa, Norma, and I often tied ourselves into punching, biting, kicking knots that only Mami with her switch was able to untangle. But fighting with other kids was different. But in school the fights were about something else entirely. If you looked at someone the wrong way they might beat you up. If you rubbed shoulders with the wrong kids you would get beat up.

Any number of subtle transgressions, from not saying hello when someone greeted you to saying hello to the wrong person, meant a beating. When I explained to Mami why I came home with a torn uniform and bruises, she made it clear that I was forbidden to fight in school.

This made no sense to me at all. We knew better than to ask where Papi was or when he might be coming back. With Hector on her hip, she led us up the road, dragging the suitcase with her free hand, while Delsa, Norma, and I struggled with the pillowcases full of clothes. Delsa, Norma, and I knew not to whine or complain, not to huff too loudly against the strain of the cumbersome pillowcases, not to ask for water or mention food, not to need a bathroom, not to stop to rest or tie our shoelaces or brush the hair from our eyes.

We followed Mami in the same bubble of silence in which she walked, her gaze forward, never looking back or sideways at the neighbors who poked one another in the ribs and smirked, who let their eyes fall to the ground and pretended not to see us rather than offer to help us on our way.

Life will be better there. Erase and start over. It was a commercial center, with distinctly drawn neighborhoods that separated the rich from the poor. Hospitals, schools, private homes, banks, office buildings, restaurants, and movie theaters butted one against the other in a jumble of color and pattern and noise.

Softly rounded rectangular buses chugged up and down the streets, trailing a stream of black smoke that made your eyes water. Our new home, in La Parada 26, Stop 26, a barrio named for an old trolley station, was a one-room wooden house perched high on stilts over sticky black mud that we were forbidden to touch.

Alongside our house ran a trench that filled with sewage when it rained. We shared a bathroom with another family. It was a square cement building with a shower at one end and a hole on the floor so the water could drain into the open sewer.

But there were too many things to see in Santurce. I learned to walk down those rich streets, eyes humbly cast down, with no sense of what lay ten feet in front of me, but with an exquisite awareness of what was on either side.

The way to school took me over muddy sidewalks strewn with garbage, across narrow streets teeming with traffic, people, and stray dogs, and past bars with open doorways and loud jukeboxes that always played boleros about liquor and women. Bright dresses and guayaberas in front of a dry-goods store swayed in the breeze like ghosts in daylight. In between the buildings, hiding in the shadows of alleys leading to the barrios, there were stands for passion-fruit juice and pineapple ices.

Carts carried coconut candy, sticks of sugarcane, molasses toffee, and dried papaya slices. I was fascinated by the dark doorways of private homes crushed between shops and restaurants. They were barred with ornate wrought iron fences and gates, and inside, women in flowered shifts dusted plastic covered furniture or sat on shaded balconies looking out over the commotion below.

Sometimes, if I walked fast, I caught a glimpse of the Catholic schoolchildren lined up in twos, being led into the chapel by black-clad nuns whose faces were milky white and waxy.

The students wore navy blue uniforms with pale blue shirts, navy knee socks, and blue loafers. I wondered what their lives were like, how many sisters and brothers they had, if they slept in their own beds or had to share, if they ate rice and beans and salted codfish with onions. I knew they were different, or rather, I was different. I let that girl walk home while I took in the sights of the city, the noise and colors, the music, the pungent smells of restaurants and car exhaust.

As Christmas neared, the walk to school took on a different tune. The songs floating out of jukeboxes were still about women and liquor, but they had a Christmas twist. A man sang that he would never forgive the ungrateful woman he once loved because she had abandoned him at what was supposed to be the happiest time of year.

A woman sang that the man she loved had betrayed her, so she would spend the holidays dreaming of what might have been. And a group of men sang about what a sad Christmas it would be now that their love was away.

I felt sorry for the people in those bars. At home we listened to aguinaldos, songs about the birth of Jesus and the joys of spending Christmas surrounded by family and friends. From the beginning of December, Mami spent most of her time in the kitchen. For weeks the house smelled of crushed onions, fresh oregano, and cilantro.

After dinner they drank anisette and I was given the crunchy diamonds that formed in the sugarcane strings inside the bottles. Aunts and uncles came up the alley trailed by girls in white patent-leather shoes and flouncy dresses, their hair rolled into finger curls. The boys hung back, their pomaded hair and scrubbed faces serious, their pressed pants making them look as stiff as paper dolls.