Why 95% of Hair Extensions Are Not Safe
When adding hair to enhance your look, your first concern should be your hair's safety. It's great to look and feel fantastic as long as you don't decrease your own hair in the process.
Hair extensions have become so acceptable and popular that most people are no longer concerned with the safety of their own hair-and if they are, they don't know how to evaluate the safety of different techniques. Understanding these hair safety issues will help you choose the safest hair extension process available.
There are two important issues to consider when adding hair:
- What are you adding? This can be a track (weft), a base, small groups or bundles of hair, etc.
- How are you attaching the hair? Available processes include sewing a track, metal beads, micro cylinders, fusing, bonding, etc.
Let's start with "What are you adding?" When choosing a hair extension or hair system, you want to see what is being added. Don't let a salesperson skip this issue. You need to see what is being added along with how it will be attached to your hair. The rule of thumb is that the lighter, more transparent and invisible the process, the better it is. Conversely, the heavier, more solid (not open), and thicker the addition, the less safe it will be. For example, if you're shopping for a hair extension and somebody shows you a base that feels fine but a bit bulky, you'll feel that same bulk when it's on your head.
Consider that weight and feel are subjective measures. Everybody has their own personal preferences. One person might feel something is light when another person would feel the same product is heavy. You should pick the process that you feel is best for you. If you feel something is uncomfortable or heavy, you're right-even if ten other people feel it is extremely light. So remember to see what is going on your head before it is attached and select the process that's right for YOU.
Next, let's evaluate #2 – "How are you attaching the hair?" The most common and popular method of attachment is bonding. Be aware that many people use different words for this method in an attempt to make it sound less like glue. For example, it might be called fusion, fuse, sealer, etc. But keep in mind that any liquid that hardens is a glue-and any hard substance that softens when heated and then re-hardens when dried is a glue.
Here is the concerning part: regardless of what they are called, all glues are very risky. They all tend to break or remove your hair. The good news is that glues or bonds hold the added hair very well-but the tradeoff of losing some of your own hair is not worth it.
When shopping for hair extensions, you may also run across links or micro-links (or newfangled names that boil down to the same process). These attachments need to be bent or crushed when applied to your hair. These attachments are made of metal and require a special tool to attach the link. Crushing metal on your hair-regardless how small the link-will break your hair when crimped on and will then pinch your hair when removed. The result is more loss of hair.
Another popular hair extension technique involves sewing additional hair to your hair shafts. Be sure to see how thick or thin the process will be once your hair is being sewn down. (The thinner the better.) You should also concern yourself with the feel of the process. If it's a little snug, that's okay. But if it hurts or is uncomfortable, then it's unsafe. Consider that pain is a warning sign. If you put your hand on a hot stove, you'd pull it away. Think about this, we as humans have physical feelings to protect us from damage. The same goes for hair. If a hair extension hurts, remove it immediately.
Sequencing® (also known as Sequence® Hair) is a unique concept that encompasses both elements in the safest manner, although it also comes with some concerns. Sequencing® is a hair extension and a hair restoration system in one. Men and women can add hair length to their own hair or add hairs in between their hair-while leaving their own hair alone. This adds fullness and body. With Sequencing®, any degree of hair loss can be filled in successfully.
Sequencing® or Sequence® Hair can be evaluated using the two criteria mentioned above.
"What are you adding?"
Sequencing® adds a proprietary Blending Strand®. When looking at this Blending Strand® it appears to be no different than a net. In fact, some people say it's just like a net weave or other hair systems that have a net base. But the Blending Strand® used with Sequencing® is different than those nets. Here's why:
- This Blending Strand® is transparent-this is true not only for the openings but for the fiber. This fiber (or filament, or thread) is a translucent flesh tone. So if you took just one thread or strand of this fiber and place it onto your skin (no matter what color tone your skin is) it seems to disappear against your skin or fade away into the skin. So the completed Blending Strand® may look like a net to some people but it actually is as transparent as a spider web. It's the most advanced in the industry.
- Other net extensions need a stiff, bulky border to hold it together. For those processes, the border creates a blunt starting point for the hair. The Blending Strand® has no border and doesn't appear to have a starting point-making it very difficult to see, feel or find where the added hair begins.
- The degree of thinness or thickness of typical net extensions is about 5 to 10 times thicker then the Blending Strand® invention. As a result, those processes are more noticeable-to the touch and to the eye. Also, when adding hair onto those conventional, thicker threads or nets, the results are quite bulky.
- Typical net extensions add many hairs at once to the net. In fact, the finest of these processes adds about five hairs at a time. (Adding more hairs at once makes the process faster to complete, but easier to notice.) Sequencing® adds one, single strand of human hairs onto the transparent Blending Strand® at a time. This doesn't only make it difficult to detect, it more closely mirrors the way hair naturally grows out of the head.
So what are you adding? In the case of Sequencing®, you are adding the Blending Strand®-an open, transparent filament that's unlike anything other that exists. Plus, Sequencing adds only one human hair at a time to the Blending Strand®. Hold the Blending Strand® up to the light, and you won't see the Blending Strand®, you'll only see single human hairs that appear to be floating in the air. There is truly no comparison to other systems.
Next, "How are you attaching the hair"?
Sequencing® or Sequence® Hair uses a very unusual attachment procedure called Strand-Locking. Strand-Locking uses one single thread of the Blending Strand®. (Remember, the Blending Strand® is as fine as one human hair. In fact, it looks and feels like one real human hair.) Then an anchor is created onto about 6-8 of the client's hairs, next to the scalp. Here's what's unique: If you look at this anchor with a microscope, it's nothing by a ponytail on about 8 hairs. The Strand-Locking attachment technique is known to be the finest attachment in the industry.
When evaluating the safety level of the Strand-Locking attachment, remember that any form of attachment has some safety risk. The Strand-Locking method minimizes these risks by creating anchors that are nothing more than miniaturized pony tales.
Here are the risks associated with the Strand-Locking technique-along with methods to avoid the risks:
If the anchor is locked too close to the scalp it can cause pressure on your hair-but if space is left between your scalp and the anchor then the risk is eliminated. How are you guaranteed to have your anchors positioned properly? Human feel. (Again, the pain theory mentioned above becomes important.) If you feel any discomfort on any given anchor, then the anchor should be adjusted to minimize the risk of damaging your hair.
When comparing the alternative techniques, the Strand-Locking technique is the safest extension technique-and the finest most undetectable attachment in the industry.
So when evaluating hair extension techniques by asking, "What are you adding?" and "How you are attaching the hair?" It seems that Sequencing® (or Sequence® Hair) is the safest method available. It is the most advanced technique in the hair extension and/or hair restoration industries because of the Blending Strand®, its commitment to adding one human hair at a time, and the advanced technology of Strand-Locking attachment.
Compare and see for yourself.
Written by Dino Dondiego