Blending

Animelover wrote: I wanted to ask about blending. I was looking on hairshop.com and love thier gallery page and all the girls with the colors in thier heads. I wanted to ask Cali-K,  because she was a stylist as well but I guess she is busy (I don't mind). So I wanted to ask here,  I was wondering how I would I blend blonde bohyme and my own hair with black boyhme hair. I going for a look where my hair is blonde but the black boyhme is blending with my own hair being left out on my top and my  sides. Kinda like girls with blonde hair dyed and thier roots coming in.

Will you be doing your own hair?? If not you may want to seek the advice of a professional stylist. Honestly, I'm not sure how you are going to achive this look without coloring some of the extensions hair in order to get the dark roots you are talking about. IMO, using a combo of black hair and blonde hair alone will not do this for you..

For example you could use the black hair for the tracks in the back and the blonde hair for the upper tracks and leave your own hair out to cover the blonde, but if your own natural hair is long (longer than 5 inches) you will not end up with the look of dark roots. You will instead end up with the look of black hair over blonde hair.

If your own natural hair is shorter, you might end up with the look of darker roots. For example, let's assume your natural hair is 3-5 inches in length. You might have the look of a blonde who is BADLY in need of a root re-touch..

Of course for this to work using your own hair, your hair texture must blend FLAWLESSLY with the extensions hair. This means using a texture which is an exact match to your own texture or be prepared to get out an arsenal of products in order to make your natural hair blend with the extensions hair.

I personally do not like working with hair which does not blend seemlessly into my own natural hair. There is too much of a risk that I may damage my own hair in the process.

Animelover wrote: I use  the sew-in method as opposed to the fusion method that the girls on the gallery page used. Could anyone give advice on how I could achieve this look?

Animelover wrote: Would I have to order a closure piece to cover my own hair with the bang?  Diva said I would have to. (I don't want to color my own hair and fearing my hair will fall out)

If you are using a sew in method and will NOT be leaving ANY of your own natural hair out, you will need to either use a closure piece or one of the many full sew-in closure techniques to finish off the top of the weave. Again if you are not doing your own hair you should talk to your stylist about what closure techniques she will be using to do a full sew-in weave.

A closure piece gives you the advantage of acheiving a more natural finished look and gives you some styling flexibility as you will be able to part the hair using a closure piece. This is why I suggested this method.

Other closure techniques for full sew-ins include using the reverse weft method or various circular patterns/techniques to close off the top. These closure methods (if done properly) will look very nice, but they will never look completely natural as there is no parting options with these closure methods.

If you want specific information on how to do a full sew in closure yourself, I would suggest that you pop on over to Black Hair Media's weave/extensions forum and search the forum and the archives for the words "weave closure".  There lots of info and pictures on weave closure methods over there.

(BHM forum tip: You'll wanna do a search there first to get your information as opposed to simply popping in and asking questions which have already been asked and answered there a coupla hundred times..)

Animelover wrote: So what is a press?

A hot comb (AKA pressing comb) is a metal comb that is heated, then combed through extremely curly hair to straighten it. If you want details on how to press hair you can check here.. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061016121841AAsrLEA

Edited by Divavocals - November 14 2006 at 9:27am

Animelover wrote: So, after reading I came up with some options. Thanks. With one of the options though, I never did a completely sew-in weave because I don't want my roots damaged or to pull or brake off.  Have you done a full weave before?

My first weaves were full sew ins with no hair out.. and while they looked NICE, without a natural part they will never look NATURAL. Also a full weave is not going to be more damaging to your roots than a partial weave or a full weave with some hair left out for blending.. What will damage your hair from a sew in weave is having a stylist who braids your braid foundation too tight causing pulling and breakage.

Nope still wearing the Extensions Plus relaxed texture hair.. I'm not sure when I'll be installing the Egyptian Wave yet.. It might be my next install.. Not sure yet.. I look forward to hearind what you and your stylist come up with. Please post pics so we can see the outcome..