Your hair style says a lot about you. Conversely, women have used hairstyling as a way of communicating with the world, expressing their personality, outlook and attitude. The average woman goes through 104 hairstyles through her lifetime. With hair extensions, weaves, wigs and dyes, you can express your feelings and your self, or even just adopt a look for a brief time. Styles can be trendy, vulnerable, classic, kickass, and everything in between. Most of all, women want their hairstyle to say to the world: “Watch out! Here comes a winner!”
Why choose hair extensions?
Hair extensions are exactly what the name suggests: they extend the beauty and fullness of your hair. They allow you to vary style, color and length, to dress your hair as you’ve always wanted to; they add body to hair; they compensate for natural processes of hair loss due to age or illness. With stars like Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez and Zendaya sporting extensions, hair extensions have become a fashion statement.
For some people, hair extensions make up for hair loss due to age, which sets in for women around the age of 40 years. The American Academy of Dermatology reports that by this age, 40% of all women experience female pattern hair loss. This can be caused by genetics, hormonal changes, poor nutrition or extreme diets, medical conditions or even by taking certain medications.
The growing popularity of hair extensions
Hair extensions and weaves allow women to play around with fashions and hairstyles. Why should celebrities have all the fun? A revealing study of women’s motivations polled 3,000 women to ask why they changed their hair style or color. As many as 44% answered that they did so because they were bored. It’s not clear of they were bored with their old hairstyle or their lives. And 61% of the women in the survey said they changed their hairstyles because they ‘just wanted a change.’
Changing hairstyles seems to express a wish to change a lifestyle: another survey found that about one third of women changed their styles or dyed their hair to recover from a relationship break-up or divorce. A new hairstyle is a way of putting an unpleasant past behind you and looking ahead to a happier future. Only 17% changed their hairstyles or dyed their hair for the practical purpose of concealing gray hairs.
How to choose the right hair salon
The number of hair salons across the country providing hair extensions has grown rapidly. The Professional Beauty Association reports a 28.5% increase in the number of salons offering hair extensions in the U.S. in the past two years. Finding a good salon is important, because hair extensions are a complicated process, and it takes an expert to correctly match the extensions to your hair.
Hair extensions are not cheap, and costs range from $300 to $10,000, depending on where you live. The price is worth it, because you’re paying for a great-looking head of hair. Prices also depend on the types of extensions used, with untreated human hair being the best quality and the most expensive. Synthetic hair extensions and weaves are available, but they don’t stand up to heat during styling all that well.
If you’ve been wanting to change your hairstyle, or to get longer hair that you can style, go ahead and get that hair extension. One word of warning: it’s important that the extensions are not too heavy for your natural hair, so that they don’t cause breakages and other damages. And above all, enjoy yourself!