Fake it 'til you make it!

Well, the end of exams kicked my butt, I can tell you that. Getting my dissertation down was no joke, I can tell you that. But, three years...

Well, the end of exams kicked my butt, I can tell you that. Getting my dissertation down was no joke, I can tell you that. But, three years down now and three to go! I'm at the halfway point and I keep thinking not about where I will be in three years, but where my hair will be, ha.

 Here's a pinned up/quiff hairstyle I've been rocking lately

Summer has also not been kind to me thus far. My body is sweaty but my hair is dry dry dry. I'm probably going to relax it soon (at around 16 weeks) as opposed to the end of June like I was aiming for (19 weeks). Dry hair and long stretches are a recipe for brittle, broken hairs. I found shea butter in my local hair shop (as well as other fun things which I will experiment with when I've cut down on products) so I might try that soon for heavy butter mixes.



Now, over a month ago, I bought a bundle of 16" coarse yaki hair extensions from The Hair Affair on Etsy and I've just managed to get round to installing them. Here's how it went down.


The packaging is really cute and comes with care instructions for your hair. Not to mention, the bag the hair comes in can be used to store your hair. The wefting is really tight and secure and the hair is so so so smooth and soft. The coarse yaki texture is lovely, and kind of like a neat braidout that was done on relaxed hair. The hair itself is also a lot more lightweight/fluffy and therefore like my fine hair than standard extension hair. The colour is a natural black/dark brown towards the ends, ranging in colour from 1-1B-2. I didn't measure the hair but it seems to be a tad longer than 16"? Or maybe 16" is longer on me than I thought it would be!

The hair at the ends however, didn't hold the same texture as the hair further up the shaft but this is understandable as hair at the older ends of hair is generally more difficult to get a style to hold on.


The undyed hair, look at that lovely texture!

I dyed the hair using the same box colour that I originally used to dye my own hair (L'Oréal Préférence Red Ombré) as I wanted the hair to match as much as possible. I will top up the dye if needed in the future using my Colour Restore Deep Red colour rinse which is a bit lighter than the original dye colour.
Colour! You can also see how the texture dimishes towards the end.

I left the dye on for the box time of 35 mins but didn't see much colour so left it on for a further 10 mins. I shampooed the hair beforehand and the box says the hair should be dyed dry so that might have contributed to the prolonged time needed to develop. Once again, I was left with a subtle red very similar to my own hair.

During clip installation

I bought clips from the hair shop and sewed them onto cut sections of weft (which I measured against my head). It was great being able to fit the sections to my head specifically instead of a pre-cut set. The weft was definitely more hair than you need for a little volume boost! The final product (six wefts that spanned from my nape to high on my crown) was veeeeeery big!

From behind, trim will definitely be needed.

From the front! You can really see the colour in both my hair and the extensions

I'm so happy with the result! It has allowed me to reevaluate my hair goals. I thought I would need to grow my hair to 25" but maybe 16-18" will do me just fine (obviously longer for my crown compared to my nape). Additionally, I only need three of the six wefts I made to make my hair look good (as opposed to enormous).

My hair covers up the extremely textured parts (in fact, it looks a bit like stretched new growth) and the only blending I had to do was with fingercombing. No combs, brushes blowdryers or flat irons were used to blend the hair.

All in all, I'm a happy customer and the approx £65 I spent (including clips) was well worth it. So if you've been considering a length boost, definitely go for it. 

Faux it 'til you grow it!
Lam

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