Hello everyone, First i want to say Thank You to all that post in here for your valuable info and tricks of the trade. I have been reading this site for weeks and gathering as much of your knowledge as I could before venturing out on my own to do my first set of extentions.

I have been wearing the Great Lenghts for several years and have spent wayyyy tooo much money on this method and have tried keeping them in as long as I could. I had naturally curly red hair until I descided to bleach it over and over until i fried it... which is why I had GL put in to begin with... and then let her put a permanent straightner, which I had done each time I had new GL installed....which by the way is a terrible process for my coarse, curly hair... so...after all of the money and torture from the straightners and keeping the extentions in until they starting matting (which I kept from happening for the most part) Eight months at a time I've usually had them in.

So back to why I am posting to you guys... I have always said to myself that if I had the tools and know how...I could do it myself.... which I think all of you have given me tons of great info. I ordered the Lush Hair and it just arrived today. I don't have time to take the GL out... color my hair.... and do my first-timers install before I go out tonight and before Thanksgiving... so I only put one #613 in the side so I could test it out. My only concern is if these lush extentions will curl up with just scrunching and a deffuser. The LH feels and looks wonderful. I rarely straighten my hair as it is much easier to let go curly and not to mention I have been trying to let this straigtner grow out... it has ruined my once curly hair.

I'm so excited about being able to re-do my extentions every 3 months and re-use them. I paid $304.00 for the heat wand, shrinkies, remover and 260 pc of hair... BIG difference from $1,700.00  I spent in July. NOW to get my color right with these extentions. I have 100  of the # 27 and 100 of the  # 30 and 60 of the # 613... any suggestions about color would be great. I only want to blonde"  my bangs and a few chunks on top and put the auburn/strawbberry in the rest. Obviously I will have to buy from Sallys... so if anyone has any suggestions....I ready, willing and able to "Get My Extentions On!" 

Hi metalgirl,

I was looking for info on color to match my extentions....I got a perfect match on my all over color I bought but I tried to lift the color in my bangs but that just turned them a light orangy-blonde. Any suggestions on a bleach that won't completely fry my bangs? I want to blonde only the bangs and around my face.

PS.... I had to have my husband put myextentions in the back.....someone please tell me how you can get those and shrinkies in your hair and get them spaced evenly back their.

Overall, bleach is hard on the hair because of it's high ammonia content.  Of all the variety of bleaches, oil bleach is know to be more mild.

As for spacing shrinkies in the hair, you need to make clean, neat partings with tail of a rattail comb.  One thing that helped a lot was when I took the Prohair class, they had us carve out (with the comb) little squares where each side was as long as the clips they had us using. (1/2" edge of the clip).  You could pick use something like that as a guide to make partings that are uniform in size.  1/2" size works well for the heat seals or pinchbraids, but for shrink links, you'd probably want your 'square' to be 1/4" on each side.