As a massively growing trend, I wanted to share my personal experience on Micro Ring hair extensions. They are a fairly recent innovation and have surged in popularity over recent months. Having never heard of them and having always wanted long, thick beautiful hair, I was intrigued when I saw a couple of friends putting up pictures on Facebook of their new 'Micro Rings' and having instant length, thickness and volume.
I'm fairly new to the world of extensions; I have dabbled in clip-in extensions through my teens (which were poorly matched and quite poor quality) but after chopping off my fairly lengthy hair at around aged 15, I stuck to a shoulder length style for a good few years. My hair is quite fine and grows around 0.5 inches per month - it is a slow rate of growth, and even at a decent length it is quite lacklustre and tends to look straggly. So hair extensions seemed to be a perfect solution. I did lots of research - I did not stumble across the first hairdresser I could find and just get them. I asked friends who had them, I asked my own hairdresser (a previous Toni and Guy senior stylist and colourist - she is amazing, but unfortunately doesn't do hair extensions) and did lots of online research. I eventually narrowed my choice down to 2 hairdressers - at the time I had my extensions fitted (March 2014) they seemed to be fairly revolutionary and I couldn't seem to find a lot of hairdressers that specialised in Micro Rings. After some more research and looking through galleries I eventually settled on a stylist and arranged a consultation appointment.
Consultation day:
I turned up for my appointment. She's a mobile hairdresser but informed me that she found it easier to work from her own home as she had everything she needed there.. fair enough. So I turned up and honestly… It was very brief. I had expected to be there for a while but I was in and out within about ten minutes. She told me how much it would be, colour matched me and I was on my way.
On the day:
Again, turned up, fresh hair not styled. And she went to work. It..was.. PAINFUL. I was taken aback by it. The method of Micro Rings involves combining strands of extension hair with your natural hair using a copper ring through a plastic loop, and using special pliers to tighten it. It was very tight, very uncomfortable but I believed it would be worth the pain - us girls know beauty comes at a price! She ordered 5 bags of hair each containing 25 strands (125 strands in total) but they had come in different lengths as the lighter colour was only available in 22inch whilst the darker tone had been 18inch. So after all the extensions had been applied (with the exception of about ten, which were given to me to keep as 'spares') they were trimmed and cut into to make them blend in naturally with my own hair. She then curled them using a brush and hairdryer. The whole process took just under 3 hours and this was the result:
So, there's some definite length added! But I must confess, this style was NOT for me, I absolutely hated these on the first day. I went home and (nearly) cried to my boyfriend terrified that I had just wasted my money. They did however settle down after the first day and once I'd straightened them they looked much more to my liking. And I must say, I started to fall in love with them! For about a month I loved my new long hair. But then.. they started falling out. I was informed anywhere from 1-10 extensions was a normal rate of falling out - I had about 25 come out. I was furious. But she put them back in for free so I went off happy to give them another chance. Pfft. Another 40 come out and I was furious times a million. Not only did I have to put up with the fallout which made my hair look horribly thin, I had to wait a good few weeks to get them sorted at a 3.5 month maintenance appointment. I had them up until about 2 weeks ago when I finally had them removed. I got in touch with another lovely woman named Dawn who has the cutest little home salon and specialises in hair extensions and she was pretty appalled at the state of my extensions.
I am planning to get new extensions when I have the money (very soon!) and booked a consultation. It lasted about an hour and a half - we discussed everything! Dawn goes into so much detail about matching extensions to your exact colour and texture, she showed me lots of samples of different types of hair and even different types of micro rings that are suitable for different types of hair. Before I had my extensions removed, Dawn added three of her own extension strands using three different ring types to see which best suited my hair. I was so taken aback by how much detail went into this consultation, Dawn put me at such ease and I just knew these extensions were going to look amazing.
Ladies, let me give you a piece of advice if you are looking to get extensions - if a price seems to good to be true or a 'bargain' DO NOT DO IT. I paid £215 for my original extensions and having never paid for extensions before I thought this was reasonable, but you pay for what you get - and if you're paying anything under £300 at least, it is probably too good to be true. My new set of extensions will cost me £330 but this is a price I am more than willing to pay for the results I know I'll get. I know this has been a super long post but I know I'd have loved information like this before getting mine done.
Has anyone else had any positive/negative experiences with Micro Ring extensions?
If you have any questions please feel free to ask :)
Kelly xo
