Looking for any and all experiences/advice/anecdotes.
I’m not bald or anything; I don’t even have short hair. But I’m increasingly bored and frustrated with the hair I have. It just hangs there, pin-straight. I could do all kinds of things to give it more volume, I know, but I’m not really the type to use product every day or get up and blow dry my hair with round brushes. I don’t like to fuck with it, in other words, and thus far in my life this strategy has proven effective-my hair is normal and healthy.
And yet…I need a little more oomph now. You know, I just broke up with my boyfriend and such.
What do Dopers know about white girl weaves? Are they a pain to maintain? Do they look good? How much effort is involved on a day-to-day basis?
The kind that get braided or glued in? I’m voting for don’t. Maybe if you’ve got a few thousand to spend on a hairdresser to the stars, but honestly after watching a blond-haired friend go through it – the hours of pain, the itching (I believe she was using bamboo skewers in there for a while – those braids are tight), and, yes, the few thousand dollars – I just don’t think it’s worth it. She had them taken out a few weeks later, way earlier than she had to, because they were so annoying. And she’s got a pretty high tolerance for pain.
I think the kind that get braided in. My friend is a hairdresser so I’d have her do it, which would save money. Do you think your friend’s experience is normal? Even if she does have a high tolerance for pain she may have a sensitive scalp. I’ve had cornrows when I was younger and they hurt but it wasn’t intolerable.
I have two ofToni Brattin’s headband falls. I have both the straight and the curly and I love them. When I’m running late or just having a bad hair day, I can throw on one of these and look fabulous instead of putting on a cap and looking frumpy.
My girlfriend bought her own hair and thread from Sally Beauty Supply and had a surprisingly high-quality braided weave done by a student almost ready to graduate from the local beauty school; including the hair, she spent around $300 total. She went from a short mousy brown bob to shoulder-length red hair with blond highlights in just a few hours.
Pain to maintain, though… she ended up getting it taken out a few weeks later. Fun for $300, not worth it if it had been a few thousand.
If you go this route, make sure that the fall matches your hair very, very well, since your hair is showing in front of the headband, and it gets very obvious if you’re more than a shade off. There are also 3/4 falls, in which the hair just ends in the front, rather than having a cloth strip over there (this is a bit more expensive), which lets you pull some of your own hair over it to make for a headbandless but natural-hairline look.
Those look very realistic. I’m definitely look for something that stays in my hair though.
What are these maintenance problems that so many of you speak of? What do I need to do to take care of it? I’m sorry if these seem like obvious questions but I’m pretty ignorant of it.
Look into Balmain keratin bond extensions. The hairdresser uses a tool like a glue gun to put them in.
They’re human hair and can be dyed to match anything. They’re easy to get out too. I use 2 boxes, takes about 45 min to put them in, then they’re cut and colored with the rest of my hair.
Although they say they can last 3 months I replace mine when I color about every month and a half. I pay about $300 for the extensions. Cut and color makes it about $500 total. But due to the wide range of colors you don’t have to color.