Nowadays, there's a trend of purchasing hair online, but people get scammed by purchasing low-quality hair extensions that are labeled as high-quality. To avoid this and to get quality products for our hard-earned money, we have figured out some authentic ways to test hair extensions' quality and listed them here so that you cannot get scammed again. If you see this post before purchasing hair extensions for the first time, congratulations, you've saved a lot of money from wasting.
So, let's read this informative and interesting article to ensure you will get real hair.
What Are High-quality Hair Extensions?
When you search for hair extensions made of high-quality, there are various factors to consider- human vs synthetic, remy or nonrenmy, and the hair origin.
High-quality hair extensions are what is made of cuticle aligned remy human hair. Depending on your nationality, the hair origin is more of a preference.
But the question is, how do you know if you have high-quality hair extensions. Please scroll below to know how to test hair extensions quality.
How Do You Know If You Have High-Quality Hair Extensions?
Here are 13 methods explained to test the hair extensions quality. We recommend you ask the supplier if they can send the sample bundle so you can experiment with these tests. Otherwise, you can order a single bundle for that.
1. Are the ends Tapered ?
In low-quality hair extensions, smaller hair strands are not removed from bundles, resulting in severely tapered ends. It is essential to consider because when you install hair extensions that have severely tapered ends, it feels like you need a haircut. As a result, you will not get the desired length you had ordered for, or you will have stringy ends.
It means high-quality hair extensions do not have extremely thin ends, so be sure to check this before ordering.
2. How It Feels to Touch?
Next, you need to determine whether hair feels cool or hot to touch.
For this, pick up a section of hair; it will feel cool to touch if the hair retains moisture. Because of moisture, it will wick or absorb the heat from your hand, resulting in cooler touch. In comparison, the hair that does not retain its moisture feels warmer to the touch like an insulator.
High-quality hair extensions feel cool to touch means retaining moisture. It's a general rule that the cooler the hair feels, the higher the quality is.
3. Strand Test:
This strand test informs you if the hair extensions retain their cuticles or not.
For this, pick up a strand or two. Move your hand down (from the top towards ends) with a light pinch grip; you will feel hair strands smooth. Now, move your pinch grip upward (from ends towards the top); if you feel resistance this time, it means cuticles are intact.
High-quality hair extensions have retained cuticles because hair is unprocessed.
It is the subtle test for feeling and takes practice to feel the difference.
4. Fire Test:
Recently, there is extremely good synthetic hair on the market that you can't even tell if it's human hair or synthetic hair. Putting a few hair strands on fire can inform you whether it is human or synthetic hair.
For this, snip a few strands from bundles and light those on fire. It is synthetic hair if they light up and get melted or get charred and smell like burnt plastic or burnt wrapper.
While on the other hand, human hair ignites, and you need to blow out, and it will turn to ash. In this way, you can know if you have got high-quality hair extensions.
5. Contains Short Pieces of Hair or Not:
A clever way to test the quality of hair extensions is to determine the percentage of hair of the same length. If you see a lot of short hair strands in the bundle, it means the hair for this bundle is collected from fallen hair on the ground and not from a single donor. It will result in unaligned cuticles that cause more tangles and more shedding.
It means in high-quality hair extensions percentage of the same length of hair is high.
6. Run Your Fingers Through:
When you run your fingers through the hair extensions, if you feel it frizzy and notice a lot of broken, shedding hair, it's a low-quality hair extension.
7. Wash Test:
When you co-wash or wash hair with shampoo and conditioner, try using white-color shampoo to do this test. When washing, there should be no pink suds. Furthermore, if you notice a lot of hair dye coming out of hair when washing or after wash, it's proof that hair is chemically processed, so it is of low quality.
The second wash test is, in whatever shape is hair styled with heated styling tools (e.g., from body wave to straight), it reverts to its original state after washing.
8. Smell Test:
If the hair smells like corn chips, Fritos, Cheetos, or any weird stink or harsh chemical, it means you have processed hair extensions. If the hair smells like almost nothing, then you have good-quality hair.
9. Check Its Luster:
Notice if the hair extension you received has extreme luster or is very shiny; chances are it is silicon processed hair that removes the cuticles that result in frizzy, rough hair after a few washes.
10. Are There Any Fillers?
If you see random strings and pieces of plastic (synthetic pieces) throughout the hair extension, it's an indication hair extension is not of high quality, and fillers have been used to make it appear thick. ( Be careful not to confuse the end string on hand tied extensions with this though)
11. See If You Can Style It with Heat:
If you have a high-quality hair extension, you can style it in any way with heated styling tools, just like natural hair on your head.
12. The water test- Put hair in the water and stretch a few strands. High quality hair should be hard to stretch out because it's strong. Poor quality hair will easily break or stretch like elastic.
Where Can You Get the High-Quality Hair Extensions?
Now, the concern is where to get the hair extensions that meet all the quality standards! No need to worry; we, KmXtend, are here for that. We have a broad range of hair extensions; to choose your favorite among them, click here.