extensions

Nope. I've never been asked that before.  (Strangely enough!) because most East Asians don't have braid-wavy hair.

I think one of the big issues with extensions is that they're hard to care for. It's like caring for two different hair types, if you have some of your own hair, plus another person's hair (assuming it's human hair they're putting in).

So...my salute goes to people who put the money, time and effort to extensions but they're not for me personally.

Anais

Basically, its a cheat, but it's kind of cool too.

I like to pop over to the extensions forums to see what some people come up with styles.  And some of them do amazingly naturalistic looking styles - seemlessly blending real hair with the add-ons.  I am impressed by these stylists' talents.

But its disappointing to, say when you see some person, possibly an actress or model with this fabulous hair and you think, 'wow!'  Then you find out that they are extensions and it suddenly becomes 'meh'.

There is something slightly exotic about naturally longer hair.  I suppose it is because the rarity.  Do any of us think that Anna Kournakova would have been nearly the beauty sensation she turned into if it came out that her amazing mane of hair was nothig but extensions?

There is not a dominating short hair trend right now (like what was seen in the early 1950s) or anything,  but not a whole lot of people cultivate lush hair.  It gets perms, chopped, styled, damaged, subject to the winds of style, and hair stylists rarely let hair get longer than BSL. 

What surprises me the most over the extension phenomena is not that they are popular, but that so many people get them for ordinary looking hair styles and more surprisingly, ordinary lengths.  I could see someone paying $2000 to get that Kim Basinger, thick, waist-length blond mane she used to sport.  That kind of hair IS understandably difficult and time-consuming to achieve naturally.  And many of us have slow-growing hair.  My own hair is to my waist in the back, but it has taken a number of YEARS to get there for me.  Not a lot of people have that kind of patience.

But to get a moderate langth of just below the shoulders - something fairly easy to achive seems a bit needless.

I do think the extensions trend is here to stay.