Cutting & Blending Your Hair Extensions

Hi, I'm Carrie, fuller, director of education for babe, hair extensions and in this video we're going to give you some guidelines and some tips for cutting and blending the extensions to make them look the most believable that they can. So there's a number of things that you can use to cut and blend the extensions, and it all depends on your creativity as a stylist. So you can use your regular shears. You can use your thinning, shears or texturizing shears, and you can also use a razor to cut and blend the extensions. We do have four points of interest that we want to go over to ensure a most natural result when we're finished. So this is our mannequin and we've just installed our tape and extensions on her and we're ready to go ahead and blend them now for education purposes. We have used a different color of extensions so that you can see where the mannequins hair stops and the extensions start. So let's go ahead and get started. So I'm going to opt to start with my regular shears first so that I can demonstrate the use of those. So I've got my comb and my regular shears. Now. The first thing that we want to do our very first point of interest is to determine the length or the bottom length of the extensions the longest length that we're going to leave that hair. So I'm just going to turn our mannequin a little bit so that we can see more of the back of her hair. Then I'm going to pull her hair down and determine how much of that length I need to remove so that it doesn't look stringy. I always want to make sure that I'm using a point cutting motion, I'm never going to be cutting blunt or straight lines, so I'm just going to lift it and create a deep point, cutting motion into the ends of that hair to remove the link. So I'm going to work all across the back, removing the length of that all right. So in order to finish point of interest number one, we just established that link all the way around the perimeter now point of interest. Number two is to frame the face, so I'm going to spin our mannequin back towards you and we're going to just simply find where her length stops here and where the extension hair starts and that's where we're going to place our shear or our razor and continue That blending line so we're going to pull it kind of forward around the head and just soften that edge connecting her layers in the front down to the base line that we just created in the back now. I want to show you how to use a razor on this as well. So if I'm going to use a razor, I would just simply be holding the razor in my hand, and I would be doing the exact same thing right behind, allow her hair to fall out and then come in with my razor and create that soft motion and That soft blend behind it, we would repeat the exact same thing on the opposite side of the head. Now, if we're going to use a razor, we want to make sure that we're using a nice new blade so that we're creating a nice soft line without pulling and distressing the hair. Okay. So we've completed point of interest number two framing the face. Now we're ready to move to point of interest number three, which is to connect the layers, so I'm going to demonstrate how to do this using both the razor and the shears. So I'm going to start with my razor. So the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to take that section of hair be mindful of the bottom length. We want to make sure that we drop some of that bottom length out of our hand, so that we don't cut that length any shorter. Then we're going to pull it out away from the clients hair again watching where the clients hair stops and our extensions start, and that's our when you begin the blend. So we're going to place our razor in and just start that connection from there down go to our next section again, be mindful of that bottom piece: dropping some of that bottom out, combing it out watching the clients, hair, fall and beginning our connection from there down. Now, whether we choose to use the razor or the shear, the technique is exactly the same, so you can use your creativity to decide which one of the tools you're the most comfortable with and the one that you would like to use. So I'm going to show you how to do it with the shears as well. We do the exact same thing, so I'm just gon na spin, my mannequin take that section drop the bottom length out so that I don't cut into that pull it out, find the clients hair place my shear in and begin my connection as well slide cutting motion. As I do this, and I just continue to work all the way around the clients head and through their hair, continuing to blend each one of those sections as I go, pull it out, find their hair. Allow that to draw and create my connection. So, to finish, point of interest number three we're gon na: do that all the way around the hip now for a point of interest number four: this is our final step and the most important. This is the step. That'S going to make or break the extensions, we can install a great head of extensions, but if we don't cut them and blend them properly, they look awful when we're finished so point of interest. Number four is creating those details, so this is where your creativity, as an artist, really comes into play. There'S no guidelines here, except that you're going to take those areas where you still see heaviness or not enough texture in the hair and those are the areas that you're going to finish off and blend. So you may pick up just a few sections or just a few pieces and take your shear and just slide cut down into those pieces. Until you see a really soft blend natural look, we want the most believable least obvious, look to the hair. So again you can use your shears. You can use your razor, you might use texturising shears to help soften the ends to help reduce some of the bulk. Whatever you need to do to make it look fantastic and to make it your own. So, as you can see, there's many different options for cutting and blending the extensions. We just want to make sure that we keep in mind our four points of interest. So, as a recap, point of interest number one establish the length point of interest number two frame: the face point of interest: number three connect the layers and point of interest number four, your finishing touches, and/or detail work. So, in order to create the most natural, unbelievable look possible, we want to keep in mind these interest points now, some other do's and don'ts that we want to keep in mind while we're cutting and blending the extensions. First of all, we never want to cut or blend extensions when they're wet. We always want to do it when the hair is dry so that we can see how that hair is going to respond and fall automatically. So there's no surprises. We never want to cut any blunt lines into the hair. We want to remember that, always no matter what implement we're using, whether it's our shears or our razor that we're always using those soft feather motions when we're cutting the extensions. Now, when we're cutting wavy or curly extensions, extra care needs to be taken when we're cutting those extensions too much texturising with wavy or curly. Extensions can make them appear more fuzzy or frizzy. So we need to be careful when we're using our razor, especially we might want to use a cutting oil or lotion to help that razor glide through the hair, while we're cutting those types of extensions and last but not least, always remember. That less is not always more when we're cutting and blending extensions. If we leave too much of the hair on the head - and we don't blend the natural hair into the extensions enough, it will look just as bad as if we didn't put enough extensions in to start with or if we cut those extensions so that they look Too short or too stringy for more troubleshooting videos check out the baby youtube page. I am Kerri what they have a wonderful hair day. You