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Hair extension and fashion

A half year ago the fashion required short hairstyles with ragged or jagged edges. Today, long hair is in style again. And how to follow all the canons here? However, new boom in hair extension popularity is not completely connected with real fashion requirements.It’s clear, that manufacturers of hair extension technologies and products lobby their interests in high fashion trends. And in spite of the fact, that many experts don’t recommend to use hair extension, as the extended hair strands are bad for our health, the number of people who want to use this attribute of the extravagant style increases with each new fashion season. Forbidden fruit tastes sweetest! Some say that extension damages hair; some say that it damages hair less than African Braids. And only from your own experience you can understand who is right here… Idea center Hair Extension - African Braided Style. Why we are talking about Black continent once again? Because, it has a direct bearing here. The European stylists decided to put the extension, braids and rastas in one line not only with the purpose to make this service the most popular. In reality, the first who decided to attach straightened, smoothed, shine foreign hair (or their substitutes) to the natural one were the Africans. Also, they were first who created extension technologies. Of course, the modern Europe methods of “volume and length creation” have little in common with their originated ones. But, it’s well known, that in the West the author of idea is treated with great respect. So, the Africans deserve their profits by right. African secrets Extension for people of the African race is the barest necessity. As those, who have their coarse, curly hair by nature, as a rule, should straighten them making it softer and brighter. All want to have that they have never had. The inhabitants of Africa have been straightening their hair by hook or by crook for ages. However, the hair follicle of the African race people is structured spirally: it can be untwisted but at the same time, the structure of the hair will be broken. Head of hair becomes similar to a fur hat. Such hair will never shine. As it’s known, necessity knows no law. The Africans were able to use the different length and thickness hair extension methods with ease. If you see an African with crew-cut hair with straight and shining hair, you must be sure, they used hair extension. Artful design African technologies are traditionally close to the Nature. It’s been like that till now. This extension based on African method starts with the neutralizing of natural hair. Hair is braided tightly with individual braids all around the scalp. This method of braids is similar to the French, just a little bit different, as the braids are turned inside out. All the hair of a client is involved in complicated braiding: just bangs including some more hair on the both sides from the area where the parting will be are left free. The foreign hair is attached to the braided natural. The wide hair extension strands are called “tresses”. They are attached to your head by sewing or by tying. They are affixed close to each other thus, as a result, you can’t see the extended hair under the upper hair layers. Finally, the stylists cut “new” hair shortly, dye and make complicated updos of them. Many Africans got used to such extension long since. The methods with glue, hot gum and latch hooks used by European race are seemed to be unnatural to them. But Europeans, to the contrary, are not recommended to make complicated braiding on the scalp because of their thin-skin cover. Tight braiding causes headaches and can lead to insomnia. Know-how Hair extension is very popular in Africa, America and many European countries. In the west the extension technology became popular in 1995. The first technologies were imported into Russia from France in 1996. The Italian technology “Great Lengths” has been popular for a long time. A little bit later everybody used the Austrian technology “Easy Hair”. The salons using French technology, known in the market as Pierre Balmain brand, and those using any know-how of England origin are highly competitive today. There are many technologies but they are the same thing. According to the modern extension technology “strand by strand” the foreign hair pieces are attached to the natural ones about 0.4 inch from the scalp. The attaching material as a rule is gum or special polymer glue. Nevertheless, the notorious Balman and Britain hair extension systems can differ in safety of extensions and price. In the first case, the specialist uses only finished extended hair pieces which already have gum capsules in the ends (35-50 hairs per strand). The specialist attaches such pieces to the client’s natural hair and heats the capsule with the special iron. The gum becomes viscous and coats your natural hair. The main disadvantage of the method is clear: there is a direct contact of your natural hair with a hot electric soldering iron. In the second case, the separate hairs are used. The specialist at his own discretion makes strands of them which differ in thickness. It helps to achieve the best look of your hairstyle finally. Finished strands are attached to natural. Then the specialist applies the drop of gum with the help of a special pistol directly to the place of the attachment and then he rolls this drop in tiny capsule (2-3 mm in diameter). It may seem that the first technology because of its less laboriousness should be cheaper. But it’s not that. The price of materials is much higher than the specialist work. The manufacturer’s cost of each strand with the gum capsule is 2$. The amount of extended hairs is about 150. Also, add the extra charge of the salon and you will understand that Balman technology is highly expensive. By the way, 150 hairs are not enough according to modern measures. The second technology requires more work and skills of a specialist and it allows extending from 300 to 400 strands of different thickness. Foreign hair You should choose not only technology, but extension material as well. You are offered to use the processed natural donor hair or synthetic one – kanekalon hair. Hair of long braided European beauties will be hardly used for extension as it is a real rarity. The extension market is rich, as a rule, in products of Asian origin. However, you should not imagine yourself to be like a beautiful Korean or Cambodian woman – previous owner of the hair. The company making hair extensions grade hair to length and type. As a result, hair pieces taken from different people will be packed in one box. Hot treatment of the material is made not only for disinfection and cleaning but also make the scales lie down flat as the natural hair scales usually are jugged a little bit. Thanks to such forced smoothing, hair becomes both shining and sleek. As a result, extended hair will not become tangled. The natural strands last for 4-5 months. After that, the flat and smoothed scales become jugged again, hair tangles and looses its form and look. During processing hair looses its natural pigment and becomes almost completely transparent. After that, they are dyed in different colors. Synthetic hair The worshippers of the technical progress pay much attention to the question about energetic information carried by natural hair. It can be not only positive they say. Besides the psychological factor the kanekalon gains here because of its small weight. The point is that the heaviness of extended strands highly influences your natural ones and can damage them. In its turn, kanekalon is 80 times lighter than natural material. But again, the vexed question is what more harmful large weight of natural hair or their constant rubbing against kanekalon hair. During long-term wearing the synthetic hair starts to scuff the surface layers of your natural hair as emery. By the way, it is not comfortable to sleep on extended strands. They are unpleasant to the touch, and it’s difficult to wash or blow-dry them. It is strongly recommended not to use the curling tongs and thermo curlers (there are some salons offering the special curlers for synthetic hair). Inside and outside The gum capsules with the help of which the extended hair is attached aren’t visible. You can feel them just when touching hair. Super capsules live long but not always. In three or four months they become soft. The foreign hair starts to fall out. If your hair starts to fall out, don’t be afraid, you won’t become bald-headed. If you loose about 10% of foreign material for four months it is normal. It is recommended to wear hair extension just for four months. Besides the problem of dissolving and removing of glue or gum capsule in natural way, you can see that as your natural hair will grow as the growing capsules will tangle hair. Also, it is strongly recommended to care for separate tangled extended strands, you should untangle them regularly to avoid plica at the ends. The specialists advise to go to salon to get professional tangling. Removing Thus, about in four months the extension should be removed. It is a very harmful stage in hair extension. Though the removal process requires 2 hours to remove the extension in contrast to the extension process, which lasts for about eight hours. The foreign strands are removed with the help of the special liquid solution that dissolves capsules. First, the specialist applies the solution to each capsule and then crushes it with special pliers. Keep in mind, removing solution includes acetone. However, the manufacturers try to dilute it with special emollient oils but nevertheless the acetone isn’t useful for hair. But, those who use hair extension say that we use acetone as a nail varnish remover and our nails stay undamaged. They insist hair can’t be damaged strongly. Extension is popular today but it isn’t connected exactly with the fact that the classical look of a hairdo made of long foreign or synthetic strands are back in fashion. The point is that you should be able to change your image and style as fast as the fashion changes. You should try to surprise people and be a bright person. But, don’t forget, that hair extension is not similar to the extreme look of braids and rastras. First of all, it’s a rich classical hairstyle!
Written by Lily Mollison
Submitted by Lily Mollison

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