  We prove Khintchine type inequalities for words of a fixed length in a
reduced free product of $C^*$-algebras (or von Neumann algebras). These
inequalities imply that the natural projection from a reduced free product onto
the subspace generated by the words of a fixed length $d$ is completely bounded
with norm depending linearly on $d$. We then apply these results to various
approximation properties on reduced free products. As a first application, we
give a quick proof of Dykema's theorem on the stability of exactness under the
reduced free product for $C^*$-algebras. We next study the stability of the
completely contractive approximation property (CCAP) under reduced free
product. Our first result in this direction is that a reduced free product of
finite dimensional $C^*$-algebras has the CCAP. The second one asserts that a
von Neumann reduced free product of injective von Neumann algebras has the
weak-$*$ CCAP. In the case of group $C^*$-algebras, we show that a free product
of weakly amenable groups with constant 1 is weakly amenable.
