The first one hundred days is an excellent milestone of reflection, which works just as well for judging the health of your hair extensions. It is a true test of durability to make it to your second six-week maintenance appointment; a point at which most mass-produced pieces will fail.
If you've purchased hair from high street shops, you'll be forgiven for thinking that hair extensions will absolutely not last more than a three-month period. They can often become dry, weak and shed excessively with time. You may have a set of hair in at this very moment that has seen its last blow dry and will need to be removed and binned.
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This is because the 'tangle-free' affordable hair is chemically treated to remove opposing cuticles and coated with silicone to give the appearance of shiny, healthy hair. Of course this is short-lived as it washes off and becomes very dull and dry. Once the hair is exposed it splits, breaks and consistently loses strands. The hair is very often from multiple sources, mixed with non-human hair and has a much denser texture towards the ends when compared with your own.
All of this happens very early on and only accelerates as the weeks draw on. If you make it past your first maintenance appointment to day 50, you can expect to have lost a significant amount of thickness and you may experience inexplicable matting, even with minimal movement.
A robust set of hair extensions will really be coming into its own at this point. Raw material hair pieces such as the Ukrainian Slavic hair will have benefitted from several washes as it will have taken shape to mould with your own hair. By your second fitting, you'll have grown to know how you like them positioned and experimented with how best to wear them.
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Most hair extensions will shed, that's common and not a cause for alarm, but using attachments such as handmade wefts are an excellent way to minimise this. The intricate nature of this method also allows for further customisation such as flatter wefts, increased volume and reduces the need for multiple pieces. This kind of weft customisation will increase the life of your hair extensions significantly and blend the pieces seamlessly with your own.
So what exactly can you expect after those one hundred days? Well, generally speaking your hair extensions will start as they mean to go on. Good hair will stand the test of time and leap effortlessly from one maintenance appointment to the next, consistently impressing you with just how well they blend. The lack of split ends will become an endless source of joy to your hairdresser and the compliments will never cease.
Assuming there is no significant colour or heat trauma, there is every chance the hair will stay in good shape for two or three years. This maybe a surprise for those whose hair doesn't make it to fitting number three but if you've always wondered why then you must question whether you really are buying the real article.
Photo Credit: Studio Seven50
Not all hair extensions brands are created equal and not many will disclose to you precisely what chemical treatments their products have endured, where their hair is from and whether it really is all human. So if your hair loses its lustre and doesn't hold strong after those one hundred days...it's time to administer one that will get the job done!