Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.
UPDATE: Hey there! Me, again. If you enjoyed this post, head to this post next for four effortless, heatless hairstyles I did with these extensions. Okay! That's all. Enjoy the post.
I am known to be... well... impatient. It's a thing, I know it is, and working on said patience is a New Year's resolution of mine. However, there come moments when I just can't contain myself and my personality flaws get the best of me. I have just under collarbone length hair and I want long hair... so...
Enter DIY hair extensions – stage right!!
In my defense, I did these extensions on myself before New Year, so I can still claim my New Year's resolutions are ago.
Why I installed my own tape-in hair extensions
Here's a little back story. I've been trying to get hair extensions for about a month now. I've been to two different salons and, for multiple reasons, they just didn't seem to work out. I wasn't going to be able to get the mane of my dreams without spending $800-$1,000 dollars in hair, installation, hair coloring, and blending the hair with my own, and I was going to have to wait until mid-January or February.
This just wasn't gonna fly with my inner demons aka impatience.
Now, listen, I was a wedding photographer for a while and I know what it feels like to have clients say that I charge too much. The reality is, the $800-$1000 it just what it costs to get a certain caliber of service. You want something done right? It's going to cost money.
In this case, with a baby on the way, money being tight and knowing my own capabilities, I went for a DIY approach. I've been doing my own hair - cut, color, etc. since elementary school. I've been to one hairstylist in the last 13 years (holla at my girl, Kira, she's amazing) and other than that, I've always done it myself. I figured... what the hell. If I ruin my hair I have no one else but myself to blame. So it was on!
How I installed my own tape-in hair extensions
As I said, I am self-taught. I don't recommend winging it if you're not used to doing your own hair.
First I did a bit of research on the dos and don'ts of extensions. I looked up different types of extensions and watched countless youtube videos of people doing their own, and settled on tape-ins due to ease of application and cost of the overall equipment and maintenance.
In a few of the videos I watched, people were recommending hair they found on Amazon. At first, I was like... girl, no. Why. That's dumb. Buuuuuut then I started reading the reviews on some of this hair and I started to get convinced. Lots of reviews mentioned taking the hair to salons to have them installed by a professional, and the stylists were all surprised at the quality! I was on the Amazon train at this point and there was no slowing me down.
What I used
Full list of items at the bottom of this post.
After reading a ton of reviews, I chose this hair in colors #8 and #6. I knew I was going to have a difficult time finding red hair to match my own because the salons I went to couldn't match my hair color. So I found two browns I thought would dye well. For the look I wanted I needed 150-200 grams of hair (3-4 boxes of hair), so I got 3 boxes putting me at $120 and I got the 20-inch extensions.
First impressions of the hair – it's soft. Really really soft! Felt lovely and I was really excited.
And I used Overtone hair color in Extreme Orange to get the extensions to match my current color – I had this on hand already.
The process
First I colored the extensions to match my hair. This is the nerve-wracking part because once you alter the hair you can't send it back. I was in it to win it now. Once I dyed the hair, I washed and dried them.
The color looked to be a decent match, a little lighter than my own hair, but I was excited and felt it was good to move forward.
Once the hair was completely dried, I began sectioning off my hair and, row by row, applying the hair to my own.
Tape-in hair extensions work by creating "sandwiches" of extensions over your own hair. You remove the paper backing of the tape on one strip of hair, place it on a thin section of your own hair, and then place another strip of hair on top of the other – sandwiching the hair.
To blend the hair into mine, I tried to follow these charts as best as I could, to help me know where to place the strips.
I worked my way around my head and strip by strip, I got better. I knew this was going to be a tough job on my own, and it was, but after a while, I got the hang of things and was able to speed up. The entire process of placing the hair and blending took me about 2 hours.
After all of the strips were placed, I cut off about 1 1/2 inches and did some slide cutting on the ends to blend them a bit more. To style this first time, I used this 1 1/4 inch curling iron and curled small sections (I did a rope curl) and then brushed out my hair. And this was the final result! Personally, I'm obsessed.
For New Year's Eve, I wanted a little bit of a tighter curl and I wanted to provide a little more protection to the hair itself so I got this 1-inch curling wand and this heat protectant.
I curled my hair in 1-inch sections and brushed the curls after they cooled. The results are similar but tighter curls. I love both.
Ultimately I am wildly impressed with the end results. I don't wanna toot my own horn but daaaaaamn, girl. I did great.
I'm writing this post three days later and by the time I post, it will have been about 4-5 days. I know that's not a significant amount of time to have a solid opinion, but I'm just really loving my new hurr. I feel like a gaad damn queen. Even without doing my hair, the curls have held well and this was my hair after sleeping with it in braids and not doing anything to it.
I plan on posting a follow-up review once I give the hair enough time to either be ruined or, blow my mind and stay holding up well! I'll let you all know soon, but in the meantime, Imma be over here LIV.ING. for hair that I did myself... using hair from Amazon!
Comments