You–or more specifically, your hair–can go from bare bob to baroque bouffant in a matter of hours.
Salons are giving women chango-presto hair extensions that can radically or subtly alter one’s coiffure for a one-night-only special event or for up to six months.
Late last year, Jessica Simpson entered the game at GBS beauty supply stores with her HairDo clip-in hair, which she designed with her “mane man” Ken Paves, the latest in a long line of Tinseltown celeb stylists.
“You see these women like Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears in music videos and they have more hair on than clothes,” said Holly Millea, a contributing editor for Elle magazine. “Aside from Jennifer Aniston, no one in Hollywood has that kind of hair. I mean, Jessica Simpson has a bob one day and the next she looks like Lady Godiva.”
The celebrity aura, and an all-American “I-want-it-and-I-want-it-now” attitude is driving sales, says Jesse Briggs of Yellow Strawberry salon, which has 16 salons worldwide. About three years ago, Briggs started sending stylists from his four Florida salons to hair extension training from a supplier called Great Lengths. It paid off. Not only did Briggs get a write-up in The New York Times, but clients came in dropping $2,500 for extensions where before they would spend maybe $75 for a special occasion up-do. Immediately his salons started doing about 18 extensions per week.
“I just knew it was going to be the next big thing,” Briggs says. “Now a schoolteacher can have the same thing that a top model has.”
Some heady advice
Extensions can last up to six months as long as you take care of them, says Jesse Briggs of Yellow Strawberry in Ft. Lauderdale.
Here are some tips from the self-titled “King of Extensions”:
– Do not shampoo for two days. Always wash your hair with your head back and not tilted forward. Never dry with a scrubbing action. Instead, wrap the hair in a towel to absorb the water.
– Brush the hair three times a day … from the nape up. Buy a brush with looped bristles. Put your hair in a soft scrunchy while sleeping to avoid tangling.
– Curling irons, flat irons and hot rollers can be used, but must be kept away from the actual bond or attachment.
– Remember that sweaty exercise, steam baths and saunas may lessen the longevity of the extension.
– Chlorinated pools can break down the bonds and glues used in extensions. To minimize these effects, wet hair in shower first and apply any bond-protecting solution. After swimming, shampoo the hair, apply bond-protecting solution and then carefully blow-dry the bonds.
