Half Head Or Full Head
Photo Credit: Studio Seven50 Hair
Have you ever looked at the website of a hair extension company, looked at the term 'full head' and asked; what the hell is that? It is one of those extremely ambiguous terms that has massive differences from brand to brand. The idea of a full head is meant to mean a complete head of hair. However, like beauty, a full head is in the eye of the beholder. And it is certainly true that one person's full head is another person's half.
What Weight Do I Need?
700g Of Slavic Hair Extensions. Photo Credit: Studio Seven50
It is common for hair extensions to be measured in multiples of 100g. If you think about that amount of hair in terms of rows for a weave, that is one short and two long rows. A common full head for someone with very fine Caucasian hair. The most common weight falls into the 150-200g bracket. This will suite most medium to thick hair types. Some brands even produce packets that contain 120g or 180g to entice you to buy without having to purchase multiple bundles. They will also produce this on shorter width wefts to reduce the need for multiple layers.
For bonds and micro rings, 200g tends to be the limit for most people. Anything more than this will overload the head. Not just in terms of weight but also head space. There just isn't enough room for any more than that! Wefts of course, always give you more flexibility if you're thirsty for more volume. You can put a lot more hair on a weft and you always have the option to build. Going further than that, an intricately sewn hand-tied weft will build up even more volume. These wefts are generally much flatter and therefore don't cause the bumps and ridges that machine wefts can.
Spread The Volume
200g Of Slavic Hair Extensions. Photo Credit: Studio Seven50
Then there is the distribution of weight. As a rule; double drawn (thick ends) are preferable to single drawn (tapered ends). Having worked with hair extensions for many years. I find that single drawn doesn't tend to have as much longevity. Too much of the hair is unevenly distributed at the roots where you simply can't see it. This leads to thinner ends and bulk where you don't want it. 100g of double drawn hair will look significantly thicker than 100g of its counterpart.
One of the most important and most perplexing elements of thicker-looking hair extensions is the texture. Imagine looking at someone with very straight hair next to someone with very curly hair. Even if their hair mass is the same; the curly hair will always look thicker. When hair extensions are mass-produced (which many brands are), they take hair from multiple sources. This makes the hair you receive very dense and therefore flat and lacking volume. Hair from single sources are much lighter in density and therefore very light and fuller. Lighter yet thicker is very much a paradox but is something to consider when you care about volume.
Thicker-looking Hair Extensions
100g Of Slavic Clip-in Hair Extensions. Photo Credit: Studio Seven50
The one thing I always try to get across to my clients is the way in which they think about hair extension volume. It is rarely as simple as more grams = more thickness. There are various factors that influence the look of your hair that has much less to do with weight than you might think. Structure and distribution of your hair plays a much larger part in ultimately making your hair extensions look natural. If you need to know the right questions to ask when thinking about the volume of your hair. It's not necessarily about weight.