I hate telling my clients no and rarely have I ever. I had a two hour in depth conversation with a hair extension guest recently; while I gave her a beautiful shampoo, blowout and flat iron style, literally bringing her back to life! At the beginning of the appointment she was bored, less confident and seeking guidance on if a hair change was the right move for her.
Typically I would say, "Let's do it!" This day, with all the past experience I've earned, I had to speak slow. Really make sure I was being honest from a positive space and keeping healthy hair with hair extensions top of mind. If you know me IRL, I talk fast and I talk loud, I'm working on it.
When I met her, her goal was to wear hair extensions while her hair healed from surgery, nutrition imbalance and probably some hormone fluctuations. She understood the assignment and knew it was a waiting game. For about nine months, we have been maintaining her hand tied weft hair extensions through a couple of color changes, including lightener. I have watched her regrowth come in thicker and stronger, just waiting for the day she decides she no longer needs to wear hair extensions. Knowing longer hair was her goal, I slowly approached color corrections with the right color products and aftercare. It has gone so beautifully.
When she came in asking my advice on perming her hair, I had to break down the cost, both in curly hair extensions and the integrity of her hair. Texture is a huge obstacle in choosing the best extensions for you, and for so long, most major brands did not have a curly hair option. We just advised our extension clients to style after shampooing. If you were naturally curly and wanted 24"s you had to flat iron, and sacrifice your ends to the hair Gods (creating a cycle of extension wear). Now, there are companies out there with curly options in a range of colors, and I would venture to say, without having to give yourself a whole blowout every week, that new hair is going to last twice as long. I do recommend making sure the hair closest to your scalp is dried thoroughly. Trapped moisture while sleeping can create chaos.
Her proposed end goal was to eliminate bold colors, move back closer to her natural color and perm her hair for uniformity of texture. I told her, to make a long story short, if we color your hair dark, it's game over. Then perming on top of that will make it impossible to use bleach without also wearing a chin length bob. Those are beautiful haircuts, but not so much if you want longer hair.
She rescheduled for this week and we are either going to complete her perming and color idea or readjust her extensions, tightening the gap that happens between maintenance visits. I'm excited either way because she's going to leave feeling confident in whatever she decides.
That's the beauty of honest conversations, clients are equipped with the tools to make the best choice for them.
