#''it's so pretty long'' long hair tangles easier and requires longer hair care routines

[taylorftparamore]

lowkey it kinda annoys me how many people are still very weird about the mere idea of women cutting their hair short and go "noooo but it's soooo pretty long" like.... there's something about it that doesn't sit right in my soul

[camgirlsurvivalguide]

FAKE HAIR DON’T CARE - The what’s what of hair extensions

Come one, come all! It’s the Camgirl Survival Dummies Guide to putting someone else’s severed hair on your head and pretending it’s your own! I was asked by a few people recently to give advice on hair extensions (since I have some experience) and I decided to write up a big old post here for anyone who wants to take a peek at it. 

The best person to talk to about hair extensions is, first and foremost, your stylist. Not all hair types work with extensions. Extensions can and do damage your natural hair, depending on the method you choose, and choosing to DIY any of these methods can cause damage, to your natural hair or to the extensions you buy. Extensions are expensive, and there is almost no way around that. They’re also a fucking pain in the ass, if I’m being honest, but damn do I look and feel twelve thousand times cuter when I’ve got my great big bad hair on - so here are my tips and tricks to making the most out of using someone else’s hair as your own.

GENERAL EXTENSION ADVICE

- Be gentle. Use a soft brush and work tangles from the bottom gently up toward the weft. Remember kiddies: the hair doesn’t grow back after you rip it out, like it does on your own head. Each fucking strand probably costs you like five cents, so treat your extensions like the gold they truly are, and they’ll last you longer.

- Wash sparingly. If you use a non-permanent extension method, this is great, because you can just take them out when you shower, but if you’re using a permanent method ... dry shampoo now is your best friend. Do not scrub permanent extensions near the root/scalp. Don’t blow dry or apply heat near the bonds/near the root/scalp. Use heat tools sparingly. 

- OIL. Your natural hair produces natural oil, which is why your roots look healthy shiny and the ends of your hair look like a shitty split end desert. Your extensions can’t produce oil for themselves, so you’ll need to add oil for them. Always use heat protecting spray before styling your extensions, use a leave in conditioner when you do wash them (in the case of clip ins) or once in a while with your permanent extensions, and be sure to add an oil (like Moroccan or argan) to the length of your extensions to keep them looking natural. 

- Medium length hair woes are usually what cause us to go get extensions, but are also subsequently the worst length of hair to try to hide using extensions. Search “how to blend short hair with extensions” for tutorial ideas on how you can get your hair to look a little more convincing. 

TYPES OF EXTENSIONS 

CLIP INS PROS: Cheaper, longer-lasting, DIY-able CONS: More time consuming, cheapest looking WORKS BEST ON: already long, relatively full hair AVERAGE YEARLY COST: $300ish

Ah, clip-ins. Everyone and their dog had a set at some point in high school, and they looked just as shitty as they felt: dry, thin, and very obviously not growing out of the tops of our own heads. Clip ins can look awful, and they can look pretty damn good - it just depends on how much work you’re willing to put in.

I wear clip ins for a few reasons. First, I’m cheap and I like to do things myself, and clip ins let me experiment. I dye them myself, and (since they just ... clip ... in) I put them in and take them out whenever I want, so I’m not paying a professional their professional rate to help me with them. Second, my hair is naturally quite oily, and I go to the gym 5 days a week, which means I wash my hair a lot, and that’s not wise with more permanent types of extensions. Being able to put in clip-ins only when I want to works for my lifestyle, since I find myself not wanting full, crazy luxurious hair probably 75% of the time. Lastly, for the past year my hair has been a pastel colour, and for anyone with crazy colour hair, you know as well as I do that it fades fast. Being able to dye my natural hair and my extensions myself at my house was the cheapest and most reasonable method for me to have extensions that matched my hair. 

My advice with clip ins is to do it properly: get a good set of extensions, and when you first receive them, go to a salon to have them coloured to match your hair and cut to blend with your style. It’s good to go a little heavy in terms of weight (the fuller the better) because it’s easier to blend more hair than it is to try to blend a thinner set.

TAPE INS PROS: Mid-range price wise, absolutely beautiful, semi-DIY CONS: High maintenance, limited style options WORKS BEST ON: thin/fine hair, jaw length or longer AVERAGE YEARLY COST: $2500+

Long story short, tape in extensions fucking rock. They look amazing. They add length and volume without the clunky bulk at the root that clip ins cause, they blend seamlessly with your natural hair at most hair lengths, and they’re relatively low hassle because once they’re installed, they stay installed for 6 to 8 weeks. The hair can be used for up to 6 months (as long as you take good care of them), too, which means you’ll get 3 or so installs on any given set of hair. It’s also a relatively inexpensive method in terms of install price: my girl put them in for $100, and would remove them for $100 (putting fresh tapes on and the whole nine yards). I loved my tape ins. I really did.

The reasons I got them removed were cost and effort. Sure, they looked fucking fantastic, and when my full time job and only responsibility was to get cute and get on cam once a day, it was something that blended into my lifestyle pretty well. But now that I’m a student with a gym routine, the whole diva hair thing is a lot lower down on my list of priorities, and styling all that hair every day takes time. The biggest bummer with tape ins is that you can’t wear your hair up in a ponytail or a bun because of how the tapes lie. Not even that it would look bad (which it does) but it’s kind of painful if you try, in my opinion. I had to schedule hair appointments every 7 weeks like clockwork and that got expensive pretty quickly. 

Let’s do the math: $200 every 1.5 months = $1600 in installation (not including colour, cut or tipping the stylist). The hair itself cost me between $400 and $600, which I had to do twice a year at minimum, so that’s roughly another $1000 ... that’s $2600+ per year, just in hair and install (again, not including colour and cut and tip, which is a whole other ballpark). They looked amazing, and I don’t regret having them, but for me, it was a limited-timeframe sort of option.

I managed to cut costs somewhat, though. I found that I could remove the extensions myself at home using a tape extension remover I found online for cheap (which was more or less just a blend of coconut oil and rubbing alcohol), and I would usually dye my extensions and my hair from the same box dye at home, too - so when I went to the stylist, I was only asking her to install and cut to blend them. Still, tape in hair is expensive, and you run the risk of ruining them if you DIY. I know there are tons of YouTube tutorials on how to put in your own tape hair extensions but I tried like 40 fucking times and screwed them up each and every time, and so did my girlfriend who tried to help me with it, so ... yeah. Not really DIY-able all the way. 

BEADED/SEW IN WEAVE PROS: Cheap, DIY if you have a patient friend CONS: Heavy, painful, hard on your natural hair WORKS BEST ON: Very thick, full/coarse hair AVERAGE YEARLY COST: $300+ DIY, $1000+ (???) professional 

My best friend has a lion’s mane for hair: super full, crazy thick, super gorgeous. Unfortunately, she fried the living fuck out of it with bleach one day and lost almost all the length she had. Tape ins weren’t an option because in order to have enough hair, she’d have to buy like 4x what a regular person would put in, so the cost just didn’t make sense. Clip ins were fine but she wanted to be able to go to sleep and wake up and still have long hair - so, I watched a couple tutorials on YouTube about beaded weaves, ordered a lil kit off amazon, and viola! We had our own weave salon up and running in my living room.

I don’t have much advice on these, because it really was a pretty hodge-podge DIY sort of situation. We took clip-in extensions, clamped beads to her natural hair and then sewed the wefts to the little beads, which would take me 2 or 3 hours, and we’d do this once every 6 weeks or so. It’s hard to explain and you definitely couldn’t do it alone, but if you’re one of these people with short but super thick hair, it would do you good to look up this process and see if you could convince a friend to help you out. 

KERATIN BONDED EXTENSIONS PROS: Very natural looking, super style-able, practically invisible  CONS: expensive, time consuming, not DIY at all, hard on natural hair, one-time use hair only WORKS BEST ON: very fine/thinning hair  AVERAGE YEARLY COST: ??? it’s expensive as fuck I just know that

I’m pretty sure these are the extensions that Paris Hilton used to advertise. In summary, they’re fucking expensive, but they look exactly like your own hair and they work amazingly for individuals with hair so fine/thinning that tape in extensions would show through. The installation requires really special, intensive training to pull off, so stylists who offer this service usually charge through the roof for it - and you can only use the hair once, since the hair is in tiny strands with tiny bits of keratin as adhesive, that they install using tiny tweezers or something like that. A friend of mine had these and absolutely loved them, but they were very expensive and very time consuming, not to mention very delicate: she had to be super easy on her hair, particularly as the bonds got older with age. 

MICRO BEAD EXTENSIONS / “Dream Catchers” PROS: Super fucking nice. The nicest. The nicest ones you can get.  CONS: Super fucking expensive. The most expensive. The most expensive ones you can get. WORKS BEST ON: Most average hair types - fine to regular to thick, but not thinnest/thickest AVERAGE YEARLY COSTS: probably kajillions. I’ve heard horror stories.

So these are the Rolls Royce of extensions, from what I’ve been told. They essentially combine the techniques of a beaded wave and the keratin bond to create thick individual strands that can add a ton of length in a super natural looking way. I wanted these pretty bad but just couldn’t justify the price. I *think* they can be re-used, too, but I’m not totally sure - I’ve never had them myself, nor do I know anyone well enough to have asked them if they just collect the strands of hair that fall out of their heads or if they throw them out. It’s a weird, kinda personal thing to ask, if you think about it.

EXTENSION Q&A

Q: Where do I buy good hair extensions? A: I bought mine from a store in a mall (bad idea) and from my hair stylist (sort of good idea, sort of bad idea). I’ve heard tons of great things from online sellers like Bellami Hair, but I personally like to touch and see the hair I’m spending hundreds of dollars on in person before I buy it. Call me old fashioned, I guess. My girlfriend bought her hair from Sally’s (clip ins and beaded weave) and they looked great, too. 

Q: What about Amazon? A: If it’s cheap, it’s going to look cheap. Extensions aren’t cheap because they’re an over the top luxury sort of item, so if you’re not willing to pay the price, I argue that it’s not worth it to do them at all. This is coming from someone who literally tried to DIY fix my own tattoo one time because I didn’t want to pay someone to do it. I get it. I’m cheap, too. But extensions don’t work well cheaply done.

Q: I’m not really good with styling my hair. Are hair extensions hard to make look good? A: Yeah, they are - but they’re also an amazing way to force yourself to get good at styling. I sucked at styling my hair before I got tape ins. I didn’t know how to curl or braid, no joke - and now I can do a whole bunch of stuff, because having extensions forced me to learn how to make them look good. They do require work. It’s not like you’ll wake up every day with movie star looking hair - you’ll have enough hair to make into movie star hair, but you still have to actually style it to that point. 

[bombayhair]

Choosing a Hair Care and Styling Routine

Choosing a Hair Care and Styling Routine

  We all have different hair, which obviously means that everyone will need to take care of their hair and style it differently. Taking good care of your hair will not just keep your hair looking fabulous, but also keep your scalp healthy. And, having a healthy scalp means your hair will be healthy, too.

  With healthy hair, you can create all the hairstyles you want to try. But where to start? Well, before you even think about styling your hair, you’ll need to be in a good hair care routine.

  If you’re not sure where to start with taking care of your hair, the first step is most likely washing it regularly. Get your hair completely wet, then use a small amount of shampoo (a squirt about the size of a quarter is good) and massage it into your scalp. Once your hair feels nice and clean, rinse out the shampoo.

  If your hair is prone to looking dry, you can also use a conditioner. Be sure to only use it on your hair. Unlike shampoo, you should not use conditioner on your scalp, since it can dry out your scalp and even make it easier for your hair to quickly get oily. An easy way to condition your hair is to get a conditioning spray that you can use when you get out of the shower.

  After you’ve rinsed off your hair, gently dry it with a towel. We’d recommend using a microfiber towel or a T-shirt. Towels are usually heavy and made of rough material that can damage hair—and wet hair is especially prone to damage. T-shirts and microfiber towels are usually more lightweight and do a great job of soaking up water. When the excess water is out of your hair, carefully comb out tangles with a wide-tooth comb. Don’t use a brush until your hair has had time to dry (remember, wet hair is very easily damaged). Once you’ve combed your hair, let it air dry if there’s time.

  Obviously, washing your hair is pretty important. But how often should you do it? A recent trend has been the encouragement to only wash hair every other day or even only once a week. This is a good idea to keep in mind, as over-washing your hair can dry it out. However, the frequency with which you need to wash your hair depends more on what it’s like and what you do throughout your day. Usually, straight or thin hair gets oily very easily and needs washed more often, while curly or thick hair can go a few days between being washed. If you exercise a lot or use a lot of products in your hair, you’ll probably need to wash it more. It might take some time to figure out a good schedule for washing your hair, so have fun with it! Try new shampoos and conditioners, or test out a dry shampoo.

  In addition to washing your hair, it’s also important to protect it. You might think the sun can only damage your skin, but it actually can impact your hair, too! We recommend wearing a hat when you go outside to prevent sun damage. Hair can also be damaged by chemicals like chlorine or even hair products. Be sure to wash your hair after swimming and thoroughly wash out any products you put in. And, if you can avoid it, don’t use gobs of product in your hair.

  Some other ways to protect your hair are to use a protector spray on your hair if you use a hair dryer, curling wand, or flat iron often. And, while brushing your hair is important, it’s also possible to brush too much, causing split ends and frizziness. So, only brush until your hair has a nice shine.

  One last great way to take care of your hair is to get it trimmed regularly—every six to eight weeks. This will help keep split ends to a minimum and gives you a chance to switch up how you style your hair.

    So you’ve got some hair care strategies—now what about style?

  Like hair care, hair style depends on your type of hair and what you’re doing throughout your day. You probably don’t want an elaborate hairstyle if you’re on your way to the gym, and if you have completely straight hair, a style with tight curls just might not work. But the key is experimenting! Try a few different styles to see what fits with your “get-ready routine” or works with your style.

  Here are a few ideas:

  If you want to add volume to straight, thin hair:

Try beach waves! There are a few simple ways you can do this. The first is to throw your hair in a ponytail. Then, divide your hair into sections and gently wrap each section around a curling wand. Once you’ve gotten to every section, carefully remove the ponytail.

  Another way to quickly get beach waves is to first, use a sea salt spray on your hair. Next, divide half of your hair into two sections. Twist both of these sections, then, twist them together. Grab a hair straightener and, starting at the top of the twist, clamp down for about two seconds as you move down to the bottom of your hair. Do the same thing with the other half of your hair. Let your hair cool down completely before un-twisting it.

  If you want to straighten thick, curly hair:

First, grab your favorite hair protecting product and apply it to your hair. Take the top half of your hair (maybe the top two thirds if you have very thick hair) and put it up in a clip or scrunchie so it’s out of the way. Then, use a flat iron to straighten out each curl on the underside of your hair. Once you’ve finished straightening the bottom half of your hair, take out the clip or scrunchie and work through the top half.

  If you want to add length and volume:

Unfortunately, there’s no way to magically make your hair grow longer or thicker, but you can try a hair extension. You’ll be able to choose from a great range of colors and lengths.

  You can also get a few different kinds of hair extensions—some you can put in yourself, and some require a visit to a hairstylist who can install them for you.

Clip-in extensions are easy to put in on your own. Just clip up the top half of your hair and slide the clips into the bottom part of your hair. Most clip-in extensions come in sets, so after putting in the first extension, you’ll let a bit of your hair down and put the remaining ones in wherever you feel your hair could use the volume.

  Some important things to remember about clip-in hair extensions:

Once they are in, you can style them just like you would with your own hair!

You should take care of them the same way you’d take care of your own hair

Remember to brush them before and after each use with a soft bristle brush. This will ensure the hair is smooth and tangle free

You should wash the extensions every 15-20 wears, or when the hair feels like product has started to build up. Use a gentle shampoo and lots of conditioner, being sure to rinse thoroughly and lay flat to dry

Deep condition the extensions every week or every other week

Store extensions flat in a safe, dry area

  Tape-in extensions and weave-in extensions are considered semi-permanent, and you’ll need to go to a stylist to get them installed. Tape-in extensions take 45 minutes to an hour to install and are pretty easy to maintain, though you may need to be careful with using conditioners as they can loosen the tape. Usually, people with very thick hair use weave-in extensions. They can take a few hours to install because they are literally woven into your hair. If you aren’t used to thick hair, the weight of weave-in extensions can feel heavy and uncomfortable. However, this type of extension is the most long-lasting and you won’t have to worry about it sliding out.

  Some important things to remember about semi-permanent extensions:

Take care of them the same way you’d take care of your own hair

Like clip-in extensions, you can also style semi-permanent extensions just like you would your own hair!

    Regardless of how you decide to style your hair, you’ll probably need a tool (or two, or three) to get the hairdo you want.

  One of the most important things is a good hair brush. They usually are curved with rounded plastic bristles and are great for flipping hair under or out. For example, if you have bangs, you would wrap damp hair around the brush and use a hair dryer to blow it dry. If you get extensions, you might want to get a hair brush specifically designed to reduce frizz and gently tug out tangles.

  You’ll also need a good heat protecting spray. This is another very important thing to have because it’s kind of like sunscreen for your hair—it will keep your hair from getting damaged by hot air from a hair dryer or by straighteners or curling tools.

  The first tool everyone should have is a great hair dryer. If you are in a rush and don’t have time to break out a straightener or curler, a hair dryer is great for adding some extra volume. A good dryer will have different heat and speed options, and should also come with a concentrator (to streamline the airflow) and a diffuser (to spread out the airflow—the diffuser is great if you have curly hair).

  If you are primarily looking for a way to straighten your hair, you might need a flat iron. We recommend hair straighteners made with titanium plates as they are lightweight, durable, and glide smoothly over your hair. The great thing about flat irons is that they can be used to curl hair, too, so you get a very versatile hairstyling tool.

  If you have very straight hair and no need for a straightener, you’re probably looking for a curling wand or curling iron. What’s the difference? Curling irons have clamps that will hold your hair in place after it’s wrapped around the wand, creating tighter curls. Curling wands don’t have clamps and are usually used to create looser curls. Both curling wands and curling irons come in different widths. Wider wands create bigger, looser curls, while thinner wands create more corkscrew-type curls. Some curling wands feature “bubbles”along the length—these types are perfect for creating those beach curls we talked about earlier. You can even get a curling tool with several interchangeable options, so you don’t have to style your hair with the same types of curls every day.

    Your hair care and styling routine will be as unique as you are, but we hope this helps you get started on developing that routine! 

from Bombay Hair https://bombayhair.com/blogs/hair/choosing-a-hair-care-and-styling-routine