Hair extensions are a great way to give yourself a few more options when it comes to your wedding ‘do. They can add volume, length and even offer a way to temporarily adjust your colour. So if you’ve got a hairstyle in mind, but you don’t have the hair to make it happen, don’t fret! We’ve got a solution for you. One of my favourite jobs is finding awesome new hair and beauty ideas and products for brides. To be honest, I don’t really mind being a bit of a guinea pig! So when I heard about Great Lengths Hair Extensions new GL Apps tape hair extensions, I was happy to volunteer my hair for a trial run. I’ve previously tried Great Lengths single strand hair extensions, and absolutely loved them. And the new GL Apps tape extensions offer the same quality of hair, and the same care-for-your-hair bonds with a new, faster approach to application.
Meet me. Hi! I’m a pretty normal twenty-to-thirty-something professional woman. I colour my hair, I heat-style it and oh, what I wouldn’t give to have a bit more of it! As you can see from my before photos, my hair is quite long, but it’s a little bit fine. And as it gets towards the ends it thins out quite a bit.
What really drew me to Great Lengths was a couple of things: they only use 100% human remi hair, ethically sourced from Indian temples. The hair is in its virgin state, meaning it’s never been coloured, bleached or chemically treated. The word ‘Remi’ is derived from the latin word for ‘root’. In the context of hair extensions, this means that the roots of the hair are all on one end, which also means the cuticles are all facing the same way, making the hair much smoother and less likely to tangle or frizz. All Great Lengths hair is also ‘double drawn’. Drawing is a labour-intensive manual process which removes all the unwanted short hairs, meaning the hair that’s left has a consistent length and volume. The process is done twice, hence the term ‘double drawn’. They also use a patented keratin bond, which mimics the structure of real hair, and the way it reacts to heat or cold, meaning it expands and contracts with your hair, significantly reducing breakage and hair loss as a result.
When I made my appointment to have the extensions put in, I was told to allow around an hour and a half. I’ve had hair extensions before, and they’ve always taken longer than that, so I skeptically wrote “allow two and a half hours” in my diary. When I arrived at Bauhaus Hair in Sydney’s Waterloo, I was treated to a cup of herbal tea, a divine La Biosthetique aromatherapy head massage, plus a shampoo and blowdry. Relaxed and content, I eased back into my chair and got comfy. The team chose a combination of dark brown and medium warm brown extensions to match my almost-black-fading-to-sort-of-sandy-brown-ombré locks.
As you can see, the application process for the GL Apps tape extensions is quite different to some other tape extensions: rather than sandwiching the hair in between two extension tapes, the opposite is done. The invisible tape is double-sided, meaning it’s placed onto the your own hair, and then after the top-side tape protector is removed, your own hair is smoothed down over the top of the extension. This technique makes the extensions much harder to detect – they’re almost invisible – and it also means they lie much flatter on the scalp. Voila!
My stylist Joel managed to fit one hundred extensions into my messy little mop, and all in under an hour and a half (that’s including aforementioned massage, tea, shampoo and blowdry!) I was floored! And the results have blown me away. I’ve got so much more hair! The colours match perfectly, and the hair is so silky and soft, and I can’t tell what’s mine and what’s not. The extensions are 40cm long – only a couple of centimetres longer than my own hair, but because my hair was lacking volume and was so fine, it didn’t look really long and luscious. But now it does!
Now I’ve got lots more hair to play with, meaning I’m not restricted with which hairstyles I can try. Braid? Done! Ponytail? Yep. Fishtail? Easy! Complex curled and braided upstyle? No problem!
If you’re intrigued and you’d like to know how to get some luscious locks of your very own (so you can choose whatever wedding hairstyle your heart desires) then check out Great Lengths online and stop by their Facebook page for some divine daily inspiration.
Have a wedding hairstyle idea to share? Please comment below, or stop by Facebook. If you’re as addicted to Pinterest as we are, please come pin with us and don’t forget to check out our favourite hair and beauty boards while you’re at it 🙂
Keep smiling + Thanks For Reading!
Rosemary x