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Hair Extensions

Hair extensions are instantly gratifying and can be an enormous morale booster – giving immediate body to fine hair, or enabling a change in style for a special event. However, you should know the risks of using them.

When used regularly, or left in for a prolonged time, hair extensions can dramatically reduce your hairs’ volume and thickness. They also have the ability to cause extensive damage to your scalp.

THE PROBLEMS WITH HAIR EXTENSIONS

Unfortunately, after trying hair extensions, many women get used to longer and thicker hair, particularly if they have fine, limp or short hair. But keeping hair extensions in for an extended period can cause a lot of damage, and can leave you with less hair than you started with. Old-fashioned hair extensions were put in by weaving threads with hair attached between your natural hair. They were then weaved next to the scalp and knotted tightly at each end to secure them.

These extensions would rub your scalp, cause irritation and break your skin. This method is still used to an extent, but more often hair swatches are glue-heated onto your natural hairs. Even so, this modern method of applying hair extensions can still be uncomfortable and result in similar problems. The biggest potential problem with hair extensions is traction hair loss and breakage caused by the constant pulling and weight of the extensions on your natural hair.

Hairs often snap off, but with consistent use your hairs can actually be pulled out from the follicle, and if this is done repeatedly, your follicles can become permanently damaged and your hair stops growing back. Unfortunately, the more breakage and loss that occurs, the more hair extensions are put in to compensate.

This can become a vicious cycle and leads to further volume reduction and damage. Frequent shampooing is also made difficult without tangling your weaved hair into your natural hair. This can lead to poor scalp and hair hygiene and also the build-up of flakes or dandruff.