Hi Everyone!

I'm new to the board, I've been doing my own extensions for about 15 years and up until about a year ago, I always braided them in. As in, I'd braid about a inch at the root, tie it off with a needle and thread and then sew my strand to that. It's very time consuming and leaves quite big joins at the root, but it was great when I was wearing dreads all the time and didn't cause any damage at all. Now I'm obsessed with loose hair so I've tried these methods:

Fusion (with two different kinds of glue, I used the kind that comes with the Torain kit and is removed with oil, and I used the keratin kind that is removed with acetone)

Micro links (with loose hair and with pre-tipped hair)

I hated micro links, when I did it with loose hair it all fell out in handfulls the next day, when I did it with pre-tipped hair it still slid out and when I did remove it, my hair seemed a LOT thinner that when I've removed any other kind of extension. I feel like the metal rings just broke my hair off.

When I tried fusion, it all fell out within a week, I was unimpressed. And the glue doesn't seem to melt enough with my glue gun, it doesn't get liquidy enough, I had to use the gun to dispense a blob and then put it in my straighteners to melt it enough to coat all the hairs. This was the same with both types of the fusion glue.

Anyway, I've been reading about the shrinkies and I'm interested in those, and I have some questions (not just about the shrinkies though):

1: Is it possible my fusion hair didn't stay in because I a) used conditioner beforehand b) didn't use the right shampoos/conditioners/styling products afterwards (does anyone have any suggestions for products?) c) used ordinary hair straighteners to put them instead of the tool you can buy for that purpose. The hair straighteners seemed to melt the glue to very liquid form so I'm not really sure how that could be it but...

2: When you use shrinkies and you use the heat tool to put them in, does it melt the glue on the pre-tipped hair as well? And if so, isn't it essentially just the same as using fusion by itself? I guess what I'm asking is whether the shrinkie just melts and mixes in with the fusion glue, or if it forms a seal around the glue.

3: in your experience, do they stay in better than micro links? I was very excited about using those because they're so easy to put in, but they really disappointed me with the falling out... :(

I apologise if all this has been thoroughly covered before, I did do lots of reading but couldn't find exactly the info I was looking for.

Thanks in advancefor your insight!

Hi Dunebug and Welcome to the board. You will find LOADS of info here to help you out. Id begin with this thread: http://www.hairboutique.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=30348&PN=2 - http://www.hairboutique.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=30348& amp; amp;PN=2  LOTS of reading  and great info in those links.

As far as the problems you experienced with hand fusion, thats pretty common. Hand fusion takes ALOT of practice, I for one never got very good at it and switched to wand/fusion using pre-glued tips. Although I did have much more success using a hotpot to melt the glue versus the glue gun. Its easier to get the glue penetrated throughout the strands of extension hair better by dipping the strands into the hotpot.

Shrinkies dont melt, they just shrink down small and tight around the hair. Yes you will get some glue residue from the pretips & shrinkies, but not like fusion. There isnt that much glue in the pretips, they just sort of adhere to the hair if that makes sense? And there will be a bit of glue residue left in the hair but nothing in comparison to fusion glue thats left in the hair.

I cant say to much about the microrings/extendtubes, since I dont use them much, so maybe someone else can give better insight on those.