Does anyone know how well fusion bonds with Plastikhaar?  I was thinking of putting nail tips on some, but if they wont hold well I'd just as well scrap that idea before investing in a melting pot and keratin sticks :)

~Kalika

haha good then, Im going to use up the rest of my shrinkies soon (YAY, Im puting extensions back in a month or so) but then I would like to play around with fusion again :)

~Kalika

Kalika: I've done fusion with PH. It works great. I pretip it with latex, then go over it with those mega10x sticks from Kristin. I don't use the melting pot. I use a $2.99 glue gun from target. First I make little flat tips with Proclaim (from Sally). Then after they dry I go over each side with a drop of glue from the gun, spreading it evenly with the tip of the gun.

I can't tell you how fabulously these things are holding up. They also come out like a dream, and all you have to do is get that latex out which comes out with water.

Keratin does not make the hair shed.  Improper application makes the hair shed.  If you don't get the glue saturated throughout both the natural and extension hair, and if you don't use enough glue, it will shed.   Also, hair that is very heavily coated with silicone will shed.  It's best to wash hair first if you think it has a silicone coating. 

Applied properly, fusion/keratin does not shed. 

Fina, I can't figure out a reason for pretipping with latex before doing fusion?  It kind of defeats the purpose.  Latex breaks down quickly and using it with keratin I would think would dilute the keratin and prevent a solid bond from being formed. 

Heya Bird;

Honestly the *main* reason why I do the latex thing first is that for some reason, when I try to pretip with the keratin alone, it is just really messy and hard to get a great looking bond. The latex pretip (and believe me, I put a *very small amount of it*) just makes it easier for me to have a surface to put the keratin on to. I coat both sides of it.

Once in the head, the bond has a flexible feel to it. It doesn't get hard, but it doesn't get soft either. It doesn't turn white, it doesn't really do anything but grow out with the hair.  Ya know, even with shrinkies, after 6 weeks you get those, what are they called? things where you can see the hair that has shed?

Anyway. For now, for me, the latex (extremely light) layer, followed by the keratin, is performing beautifully. and YES of course there is much room for "user error".  .  .

Okay, I'm just going to have to take your word for it.  Actually, about 8 months ago I proposed an experiment using latex and keratin together to create a longer/stronger bond than latex yet a more flexible softer bond than keratin, but everyone told me I was out of my mind and that it wouldn't work, so I didn't proceed with it.  Sounds like something I may want to consider checking out in the future though.  Latex alone doesn't stay in my hair for more than 2 days, though I know some people have a lot longer wear with it.  I don't pretip though.  I find it (for me) to be useless.  It's time consuming to make pretips, and then go back and install them.  I prefer to just take a strand of hair, apply glue, and install.  That gives me a greater ability to control what I'm doing.  As I do different areas of the head, I vary the size of the strands as necessary.  

Kalika - Absolutely. I think Kristin's sticks come in dark colors.

Bird - I would *love* to be able to "glue on the go" as you describe. But on myself. . .I just don't see it happening!! I'm still going to try some of those fusion chips though!! That may be my answer. . .

Sara - As Amm said, I don't use fusion and shrinkies together.  And YES you do have to be really careful when applying the fusion PH. 

Here are some pics of my latex-only tips. As you can see I have a *very* small amount on there; just enough to hold it together. One of the really cool things about this step is you can simply press 2 tips together, like 2 different colors. I used #27 & #8 together, and #27 & #22.

This is how they look after I go over them with the glue gun. I cut them in half when I install:

I expect 4 weeks out of them. They are a dream to remove -- no problem whatsoever. In fact yesterday I took some out that were about 4 weeks old. No problems whatsoever.

I will be installing the fusion chips w/Bohyme on a friend coming up.  I plan to just cut the hair from the weft and install, like Kristin's tutorial explains.  Anyone try these yet? 

Kalika, will you be using the chips w/the PH?