Once you’ve decided that hair extensions are right for you, how do you avoid a bad application? We’ve all seen terrible examples of tatty rats’ tails, even A list celebs with their amazing contacts and enormous bank balances can fall prey to bad hair extensions, so how do you make sure you don’t? When looking for a reputable hair extension salon one of the first things you should do is check out their before and after photo’s, but what should you be looking for?
It’s not always easy to identify what separates a good set of hair extensions from a bad set, so we’ve put together this simple 5 step guide to help you avoid a mistake which might not only be expensive and disappointing, but potentially damaging to your natural hair and confidence.
1. Blend
This is where the shortest layer of your natural hair sits on top of the hair extensions. Blending is easy if the client’s natural hair is longer than shoulder length, and/or fine/thin but successfully blending shorter layers and thicker hair requires experience and skill. When looking at before and after photos, pay attention to how well the shortest layer blends with the finished style.
This lady has be a severe “lid” at the top of her head, one of the most obvious and unattractive hair extensions giveaways. Not all examples of bad blending will be this obvious, make a point of looking in the crown and side areas when assessing blending skills.
I wrote earlier that long, finer hair was easy to blend but this customer has be an obvious line running all the way around her head, not a good look! An experienced extensionist would have blurred the ends of the natural hair, giving the client a better result.
2. Colour
Selecting the right combination and quantity of colours is crucial for hair extensions to look natural. Natural hair usually contains many colours and shades, even when applying black hair, we might blend two or three different tones. Alternatively, you might want to add some highlights, this doesn’t mean your hair extensions should stand out from your natural hair.
As with blending, try to identify where the client’s natural hair stops. Is it obvious? Can you spot a change in shade or tone? If you can, either the technician has poor matching skills, or they don’t have access to a good colour range. Are they using pre bonded hair? This limits what they can match as they’ll only be able to choose from shades on their supplier’s colour ring. Extensionists using loose hair will identify all the different tones and shades in your hair and hand mix them perfectly. They can add high and low lights, and adapt the colour during the application, adding lightness and depth where needed.
This poor colour match makes it obvious where the clients own hair finishes, a really good example of why it’s important to select several colours and tones to create the perfect match
3. Density
One of the most horrible mistakes a technician can make is not using enough hair, resulting in thin, stringy locks that look like rats tails. That said, some clients might want length but if their own hair is very fine or thin, or if they prefer a very tapered look adding too much hair can look false. If you’re looking for hair extensions to add length, bear in mind that having hair extensions shouldn’t only be about long hair, it should look stylish and natural too.
Even though this ladys hair extensions have been waved, her hair still looks thin and stringy. I doubt this is the look she had in mind.
4. Cutting
Cutting hair extensions is a totally different discipline from cutting natural hair, even the most experienced and skilled hair stylists can come unstuck when attempting to cut hair extensions. The best way to avoid the need to cut hair extensions, therefore leaving the tapered tip intact, is to adjust each extension to the required length prior to applying.
This technique results in a much more natural result, allowing the extensionist to build weight into the length line and to add layers without the need for heavy cutting afterwards.
The ends of these hair extensions have been cut after application resulting in a very unnatural, blunt, choppy and disjointed look, an obvious sign that this lady is wearing a set of poor quality hair extensions.
5. Curls
If all but the most simple (mid length, fine/thin hair) examples in a technicians portfolio are curled you need to ask yourself, why? We at NuTress love curls as much as anyone else but some sneaky techs use them to disguise a multitude of poor application sins including poor blending, blunt cuts and a lack of density.
Curling these hair extensions has disguised a poor blend, bad colour match and blunt cut.
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