I am a Hair Extensionaholic. Fact.

My name is Lauren and I am a Hair Extensionaholic.

There, I said it. Phew.

This is me, without extensions.

straight hair & wavy hair

I have an obscene tan in the left photo because that was about three months into a summer in California. I'm not normally like that!

My hair is horrifically fine, when my hair is in a ponytail the circumference is less than a 10p. I haaaate having fine hair, it doesn't grow, doesn't sit right and just gets me down.

I started wearing extensions when I was abooout 16. I was the only person I knew in my school to go down that route, and MAN did I feel like the bee's knees. I started with clip ins from Sally's, good ol' American Dream Extensions. They were straggly and cheap, and I LOVED them.

Don't I look aaamaaazing? LOL. I'm 18 here and yes, I used to dress like a Barbie. I also used to be skinny, sobsob. So as well as my cheap clip ins, I liked to add to the class by incorporating some pink hair into the mess. What a babe.

After a few other girls at school started wearing extensions, I decided to step up my game. I researched thoroughly and decided on HeadKandy Extensions. I was sooo excited to get them but now I can hardly remember what was so exciting about them.

They do look a bit shinier but this pic was taken the very first time I'd put them in so they were brand new. Still crazy obvious I have extensions in tho!

Clip ins are just not for me, to be honest. My hair is so fine that the clips show really easily and there's just not enough hair to blend them in. :(

Then, my 'moment' came. It was one of those moments that changed my life. You might think I'm exaggerating - I'm not. It was on a trip to London with my sister, and we were having a wee shop in Selfridges, when we saw...

The Jessica Simpson and Ken Paves HairDo Extension stall.

Omg. I still smile thinking about that moment. We both happily forked out £70 each on our synthetic hair.

They photographed really fake-shiny because they were synthetic. Lovely.

Jessica Simpson HairDo Extensions are still my favourite clip ins to date. Because most of them are synthetic you can't style them but you can get a huge variety of styles, lengths and colours and they're normally about £45 on eBay now.

The HairDo extensions are different because they are a one-piece, it's like a cap, and you lift up the top section of hair, clip the cap on with five little clips, release your own hair and TA DA! They are the thickest extensions I've ever used, blend really well and stay in with no problems.

The big, HUGE problem with these extensions is that they just do not last. I found that wearing them for two months, every day, was pretty much all I got out of them. They just got really dry and matted at the ends. So I invested the £150 on eBay (regularly £300) for the real hair version. And although I looooved it, and have now bought loads of these extensions, they still let me down on longevity.

Another negative is the cost. For about £80 you get a full head one-piece, but it's synthetic so you can't style it. If, like me, you regularly have straight and curly hair, you need to buy two sets of extensions. And the human hair version is £299. Ouch.

So pretty though...

A variety of styles and shades over the years

Curly for my Grad Ball, straight for Graduation

To find out more about Jessica Simpson & Ken Paves HairDo Extensions, go here. They cost £39-£299 depending on length and style.


So because of my problems with HairDo, I've been on the market for new extensions and I reeeeally want to try Halo Extensions. They do clip ins, which I'm not interested in because as mentioned before I just don't like individual wefts, they're just not for me. I've heard great things about them though if clip ins are your thing!
 But they also do this AMAZING thing called a 'halo'. Basically it's a wire that is attached to all the hair, so it's a one-piece like the HairDo ones. I love one-pieces because they're so quick and easy to use!

For the Halo, you place the extensions on with the wire on your crown like a hairband. It's practically invisible already, and then you pull sections of hair from underneath the weft and wire using a pin tailed comb to cover completely over it! Finished! It looks amazing, I despo want one on my Christmas list but I'm not sure if I have enough hair to cover over the seem of where all the hair starts(majorly sucks having fine hair). :(

To find out more about Halo Extensions and to watch a tutorial, go here. They cost £79.99-£89.99 depending on length. They are seriously amazing, and their customer service on Twitter is unparallelled - @halo_hair . You can also send them recent photos of yourself and they'll do a colour matching service, which takes away one of the big stresses of buying extensions online!

Right now I have glued in extensions, but I'll talk about them another time because I think I've bored you enough with my hair extension chat!!

Do you wear extensions? What's your favourite brand? Would you try HairDo or Halo?

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥