How To: Wash, Style, Maintain Hair Extensions

Now that you've made your investment in the hand-tied extensions, i'm here to show you how to keep them looking just as good as the day we put them in so there's plenty of ways that you can unintentionally damage your new hair. So i'm here to walk you through step by step on how to wash dry and style your extensions, so your investment is completely protected and this hair lasts you as long as it possibly can for the maintenance of your hair extensions. It is extremely important that you are only washing your hair once a week or once every 10 days, so each step to washing your hair is extremely important. The reason we suggest only washing your hair once a week or once every 10 days is to prolong the longevity of your extensions and of your natural hair. If you're washing your hair, two three or more times a week, you are going to really dry out your hair and you're gon na find that it's a lot more damaged, cracking off and just overall brittle and then washing the extension hair too much. You will see that it will tangle a lot, it'll get really dried out and we just want to protect your investment and protect your natural hair. So, first you want to start with clarifying shampoo and you want to get it all on your hands because you are going to want to evenly distribute this shampoo you're going to want to put it on the crown at your temples on the occipital bone. Underneath these wefts after you have evenly distributed the shampoo in the areas that you need, you want to lean your head back, obviously, in the shower and just kind of wet these areas a little bit once you wet the hair you're going to want to use the Pads of your fingertips to really get in there and shampoo, if you feel you need more water, lean your head back in your shower and add a little bit more water. You want to really really be going in circular motions and really cleaning that scalp. So, as you can see, her extension weft is right here you want to make sure that you are getting right on those wefts and putting the shampoo and really scrubbing right around them. I keep my fingers flat like this to avoid any pulling once you wash above them, you want to take the weft and you want to wash underneath it as well again, adding more shampoo as needed. Another tip on keeping your hair super healthy is just shampooing the root and the scalp, and just letting the shampoo rinse over the ends of your hair. You want to be using a hydrating shampoo. Next, this shampoo is my favorite. I am using pai shao's hair replenishing cleanser again distributing your shampoo at the crown, the temples the occipital bone, underneath at the nape and again i like to additionally get more shampoo and go above and underneath the wefts. My client does only have one row, but if you had two, you would want to make sure that you are sectioning them out in the shower and getting above and beneath once. You have distributed the shampoo evenly again you're going to put a little water on it. Using the pads of your fingertips, you want to do circular motions firmly against the scalp. I am only shampooing the scalp. I am not going to shampoo the ends of the hair. We are just going to let the water rinse the shampoo over them. This helps to keep the hair healthy and not make it dry. My last shampoo is going to be a purple toning shampoo to eliminate any yellow or unwanted brassy tones. So i don't exactly use this as a shampoo, but rather than to specifically tone. If you do not need to tone your hair, then you would just follow on with the clarifying shampoo in the hydrating shampoo, but most blondes or some brunettes want to use a blue or purple shampoo. So, as you can see, i am just trying to paint on the purple shampoo, where i need toning, i'm not trying to lather it up. I mean obviously it's going to lather a little bit, but a few things to keep in mind with purple shampoo is that most purple shampoos do tend to dry out the hair. So as much as we encourage only washing your hair once a week, if you are washing it more than once a week, we suggest that you refrain from using purple shampoo more than once a week. Another thing to avoid with purple shampoo is using it too frequently, because purple shampoo can build up and give the hair an overall dingy appearance. And lastly, with your purple shampoo, you just want to let that sit and tone the hair for about five minutes. Before you apply your mask, you want to make sure in the shower that you are squeezing out as much water as you possibly can when applying the mask, i like to start at the ends and work. My way up to the top. Obviously, mid shaft ends needs the most hydration if you are an overall platinum, it's okay, to put it on the scalp. But if you just have highlights you, don't really want to put the mask right on the scalp. You just want to get as far up and as close as you can to your scalp, because you don't want the hair getting any more greasy than it needs to. You really want to make sure that you're massaging in your mask, so it's really getting into the cuticle you're going to want this mask to stay on your hair for at least 10 minutes in the shower. So while i'm waiting, i like to shave my legs and wash my body as our last and final step, you want to seal with a regular conditioner. I also love to use pie showers, replenishing cream conditioner, which goes hand in hand with their hair cleanser, with the conditioner similar to the mask. You just want to apply mids to ends another important part about washing your hair. Is you never want to be using hot water? You want to be using lukewarm water and then on your final rinse. You want to use ice cold water to seal the cuticle down. Now that you have washed your hair, you want to get out as much water as you possibly can for whatever reason extension hair just loves to hold on to so much water, so really squeeze out all that extra water, then you're going to want to take your Towel get it as dried as you can, and then we suggest you know walking around your house, letting it air dry 80 to 90 percent all right, so you just got out of the shower, and now you have wet hair. It'S super important that you do not brush your hair while it's wet, because hair is in its most vulnerable state when it's wet and it's really easy to stretch it and rip it. So when getting out of the shower, it's so important that you spray a leave-in conditioner. So i'm going to spray that on mids to ends and then i am going to use some moroccan oil and i'm going to be using the light, which doesn't mean lightweight it. Just means light in color for blondes and i'm going to apply that mids to ends. Now that you have your products in your hair, you want to make sure that your hair air dries to 80 to 90 percent dry before you put a brush to it. So, starting off, you want to section your hair, taking out the bottom hair at the nape, we're going to clip up the rest of the hair you're going to use a round brush and your blow dryer to blow out section by section. Next, you want to drop down your next section. This section happens to be the extension row you want, you can start with your detangle brush and hold the very ends and comb them and then just work your way up with using your round brush. You want to grasp the ends of your hair and blow dry at the bottom working your way up. You never want to take your round brush and put it up against the weft and then pull on it by starting at the bottom of the weft and blow drying. Your way up, you are not putting a lot of tension on those wefts and it makes for an easier blowout again. You want to make sure you're not pulling too much on the extensions, and you want to make sure that the top of the weft is dry when blow drying your hair. We suggest using medium heat and no more than once a week as you can see. My client only has one row so now i can just continue on with my blow dry. If you have two rows, you want to make sure that you are fully drying the first row dropping any hair that would be in between the first and second row blow drying that then again dropping your weft and blow drying that separately. So when heat styling, your hair, you do not want to exceed 350 degrees, while you're in between washes what is going to get you to day, 7 or 10 without washing your hair is going to be these products right here. So, first and foremost you're going to have to determine whether or not you are blonde or your brunette right now i have a blonde here, so i am using the moroccan oil dry shampoo for light tones. I love this dry shampoo because light you don't feel like you have all this gunk in your hair and it actually sprays a little bit purple and it tones the blonde kind of lightens your roots because, as you know, like your hair gets greasy and you feel Like your roots are a little bit darker, so this just kind of like lightens up your roots a little bit, and it also gives you a lot of volume. The second product that i absolutely love is the moroccan oil and for a blonde i'm going to be using the light tones light, does not mean light weight. It just means light as the color of it for the blonde, so it doesn't stain the hair. I like to just put a pea size amount in my hand, kind of rub it together and you're just going to go mids to ends to keep those ends, looking shiny, healthy and hydrated, so the last product that i absolutely love is the orbe hair refresher. This is amazing, it actually adds shine and condition to your ends. It has their signature fragrance scent. It cuts the odors that may be in your hair and it eliminates static. So this is a must for mids to ends just to keep your extensions. Looking fresh and amazing, lastly, you are going to need a hair brush, and this hair brush is so important because it stimulates the follicles which produce hair growth and who doesn't want more hair growth. The reason that this is also important is because it's going to keep your hair tangle free, not knotted up. So one thing that you can do as far as brushing your hair is you're going to want to hold your hair you're going to want to start brushing at the bottom and just working your way to the top being conscious of where your wefts are, that you Don'T snag them, so we are going to start off with our dry shampoo, using the light tones and what you do is you are just going to get right in at the root to try to absorb those oils. You want to stay about two three inches away and spray right at the root sectioning, the hair, wherever it is that you find that your hair has the most oils you want to spray right there. I typically tend to say that it's like the top the sides and sometimes the occipital bone, but some people have greasier areas than others. Then you want to scrub it in like shampoo, so you are shampooing your hair and, as you can see, it already gave her a ton of volume and what that dry, shampoo did was it went in and it absorbed all those oils. Next, we are going to be putting in the moroccan oil light, and i'm just going to do like a very small amount rub that together in my hands - and you are just going to take mids to ends and put that on the extensions all right now, we Are going to spray our orbe hair refresher, again mids to ends? You don't want to put too much of any oily products on the scalp, because again we just use the dry shampoo to absorb the oils, so the rest of these products. You just want to use mids to ends to keep them looking shiny and healthy. Lastly, we are going to use our brush after putting in all of our products, and you want to grab all the hair together like this, and you want to start at the ends. Working your way up the reason that i'm holding the hair like this is so i don't pull out her wefts once you get to the point where you can no longer hold the hair anymore, you're going to want to actually hold the end beads, so they don't. Let go because maybe you're pulling too hard, but i like to hold the end beads just to ensure it doesn't accidentally get snagged. So i am going to apply a little bit of pressure to the end bead. So it doesn't accidentally get pulled. It doesn't cause any tension, while i am brushing - and i am gently just gon na keep working my way up being conscious of the rose and gently going over them. So after you have gently brushed your hair out, you want to now really get in there and make sure that there is no matting or tangling up near your rose. So you are going to let out the bottom part of your hair, the very nape and you're. Again, going to want to start at the bottom and gently brush up against the scalp, now that we have brushed the nape of her neck, we have just dropped down her bottom row and now we are going to comb that out so again just holding the hair Starting at the bottom working your way to the top, and then when you get to the wefts, i like to again apply pressure to them, so i'm not potentially tugging on those beads. So you hold it. I like to kind of get that brush in there and like wiggle it staying away from the weft, but making sure that i am getting in there and there is no matting going on up here. If you're not getting in right below this weft, you could potentially risk having a lot of matting and tangling, so it's important to really get up there. In this instance, my client only has one row, but if she did have two, what would happen next is you would drop the hair that is in between the two rows? You would brush that out. First, then, you would drop the second row and brush that out. The same way that you brushed the bottom row, but because she does not have a top row and she just has one row for fullness - we are just going to brush the top of her hair like normal. So i'm going to show you a few different ways that you can style your hair while it's dirty and make it look presentable and get you through the days. So you can stretch out your hair washing first we're going to start with a cool fun headband. So this is a cool cute, fun way to style your dirty hair and another way to help kind of get like more volume. More fluff out of it is to use the dry texture spray, which i love this stuff. It just has like a little bit of grit and tack. It'S almost like a shine spray and hairspray had a baby, and it just helps get the hair, fluffy and textured. Looking another fun thing you can do, while the hair is dirty is add in some braids. So i am going to leave her headband in and add two braids. One thing that i like to do is just slide my elastic down a little bit. To give me some extra slack and you want to start by pulling on the braid a little bit and just kind of like opening that up and as you can see it's pulling at the bottom, that's why it's kind of important to slide your elastic down and Give yourself some slack so for another style, i'm gon na do a nice trendy, sleek low bun, so i am first going to take the hair and hold it all the way back and i'm going to twist it like so and then i'm going to start wrapping. It and you're gon na hold it you're gon na use a regular scrunchie like this. Okay, now for this bun, you are going to want to take one of the invisibobbles or scrunchie whatever you prefer, but i like to use this type of hair tie and you want to go around the hair twist. It pull your bun through, but not all the way you want to get like halfway, then you're going to take the remainder of the hair, wrap it around and tuck it into the hair tie after you tuck it in you're like this, you are going to just Want to pull on that bun and fan it out. You also could use a dry texturizing spray to kind of give it a little bit more fluff. The best way to get your hair in a top knot is by flipping your head over. So i'm gon na have my client here flip her head over and we'll show you how we do it. I went one time around with the hair tie and now i'm gon na do the same concept that we did on the low bun. We are going to pull the hair through creating a little bit of a bun and leaving this tail out. So once you have this tail out, you are going to wrap it around your hair and tuck it into the elastic. Once you have it tucked like that, you are going to pull on this bun and then you can bobby pin these edges down. So once you have your bun and your pins, i like to kind of make it a little bit more loose, and i also like to pull a little bit of pieces down just so it looks a little bit more softer again. You can finish this style with dry texture spray, so if you are wearing this hairstyle or any of them to the gym, obviously you're going to get super sweaty. And what do we do about all that sweat? My suggestion is, i go home and i blow dry that sweat into my hair and then i spray in some dry shampoo and everything is all better. So just to recap on how to style your hair in between washes. We strongly suggest that you are only washing your hair one time in a seven to ten day period. First, we started off by using dry shampoo on her roots to eliminate any oils. Secondly, we did some moroccan oil mids to ends to put that hydration back into her ends. We also used a hair refresher which eliminates oil also hydrates and eliminates static. Lastly, you want to be using your brush at all times again having one everywhere that you are home work car purse because brushing is going to be your new best friend and again, brushing stimulates the follicles for more hair growth and who doesn't want that. So i hope this all helped you, and all you have to do now - is get creative with your hairstyles in between washes. Don'T forget it's even important to take care of your hair, even while you're sleeping we suggest going to bed with dry hair, investing in a silk pillowcase avoid wearing your hair up to bed, because it will tug on the extensions and preferably wearing it in either. One braid or two loose braids to bed a few things to keep in mind when going on vacation or going outdoors is, if you are in any windy situation, making sure your hair is tied back or preferably in a braid two. You want to make sure that you avoid sunscreen on your hair extensions as it will turn your hair extensions, a peachy tone, and we unfortunately cannot get that out. Avoiding chlorine at all cost, maybe having to wear your hair up. If you are going in a pool or a hot tub, and lastly, you are okay to go into the ocean and get your hair wet. Just as long as when you get out, you use a leave-in conditioner and have your wet brush ready as far as professional maintenance, we suggest that you come in to gloss your hair, every four to six weeks, to reinstate tone, condition and shine to your hair. If you guys have any questions, or you need further information on everything that we have covered in this video, you guys can head over to my website, it's opelct.com and everything that we said is under extension care. I hope that you guys enjoyed this video. If you did, please give us a like please subscribe and comment below, if you guys have any recommendations on video content, you'd like to see next