All hair types (natural, curly, fine, straight, etc.) derive most of their integrity from healthy, properly paired, disulfide bonds. Bonds break when exposed to chemicals, thermal, mechanical and environmental forces, resulting in single sulfur hydrogen bonds.

OLAPLEX works by finding single sulfur hydrogen bonds and cross linking them back together to form disulfide bonds before, during and after services.

In the case of chemical services, OLAPLEX works by pairing with the single sulfur hydrogen bond faster than the three oxygen molecules can.​