Making Improvements Here!

I've been wearing extensions for over two years now. Before I choose my
extensionist and the system I would be using in my hair did A LOT of
research, I have known too many women who had dealings with unethical
stylist and gotten screwed. I found extentionists that advertised they
were using a certain method who weren't listed as a certified extensions
with that method. I found extentionists who weren't licensed
cosmetologists and those who had had their licenses yanked. When I was
on the internet I found IDENTICAL client pictures on different
extentionists' sites.

As I'm working towards my board certification, I'm back at the research.
I'm a newbie to HairTalk and while there is a lot of information here, when
I attempted to qualify the opinions and experiences of some of the
professionals here, I'm finding again that people are misrepresenting
themselves in the same manner.

If this forum is a representative sample of the profession of hair
extensions, there are going to be people whose shady behavior is going
to upset others. When those individuals are called on there behavior they
are going to be upset. Conflict is apart of life and group interactions.
From what I've seen the moderators of this forum do a good job of
keeping things from getting out of hand.

Regarding shrinktubes I joined the list after this incident hit the fan. Its
led me to do a lot of research into the history of hair extensions, the
majority done at http://www.uspto.gov/ and with extension professionals
whose credentials I've been able to verify. From what I've gathered,
issues like the one revolving around shrinktubes are nothing new. Before
there were shrinkthigies and Shrink Links (patent no. 753211, '92,
Barrington) there were Eurolocs (patent no. 5752530, '98, Traintinger)
and Hairlocs (patent no. 6938624, '05, Arroyo, et al.). Before THAT there
was Fusion (patent no. 4934387, '90, Megna). And I'm pretty confident
that my discoveries are only the tip of the iceberg. I don't think that
using code works is going to make these issues and people's feeling
regarding these and related issues go away.

When I first learned that someone had been banned, I was upset. I'm big
on freedom of speech and the right of someone to have their opinion.
After my research I've learned that there is so much going on behind the
scenes. Because of that I'm going to trust that admin did what they did
for very good reasons. Especially if a participant is given a warning
regarding a behavior, it is that person’s decision to continue that
behavior.

Karen wrote: Thank you for your eloquent post and related info. You
make some excellent points. I see this type of situation in many areas of
the hair industry, not just with hair extensions. There is the whole
product diversion situation and the braiders vs licensing issues and the
chemicals vs non-chemicals issues plus lots of other patent and copyright
and trademark events.

Your welcome... my research has landed me an ecceptional extensionist
and teacher. Thanks for creating this forum, its added to my education
as well . As for the other issues you mention... you mean to tell me
that there are more? LOL