Hair extensions are an excellent styling tool to use when people want to add a splash of color to their hair without having to commit to months of hair coloring. Hair extensions easily add extra length or help to make a unique style for hair. Just like real hair, hair extensions can tend to curl or become wavy over time. This is especially true if hair extensions are styled beforehand by being braided or curled. Once they’re undone they can still be curled or wavy from being styled earlier and straightening them out can be a hassle.
HOW CAN A HAIR STRAIGHTENER HELP?
We’ve shared advice in the past on how to use a hair straightener to straighten out a wig and the same tips can be applied to clip-in extensions with a few caveats. The first step is to remove clip-in extensions from your hair before straightening them out. This will make it easier to style them and to work with if you want to make sure they’re as straight as possible.
Brush the hair extension out so it’s distributed evenly, this will help the heat to reach every part of the product. Spray the hair extension with a heat protectant spray and leave it for a few minutes for it to dry. Attempting to use an HSI hair straightener on it beforehand will cause the flat iron to burn the spray which will produce a worrying sizzling sound. Once the hair extension is sleek, you may have to separate it into sections. Especially if you have any larger hair extensions you use regularly that you may not be able to straighten out with just a few passes.
HOW HIGH SHOULD THE TEMPERATURE BE?
Using a professional hair iron to straighten out a hair extension is always a tricky process since you’re not working with real hair, but a product instead. Avoiding letting the clips touch the hair straightener since they can melt easily. You don’t want to have to deal with melted clips when straightening out hair extensions since they can be annoying to remove and make your hair extensions useless for styling later on.
Lower the temperature of your straightener and pass the extensions slowly and firmly through the iron. The lower temperature will prevent the hair extensions from melting the moment the flat iron touches it and help them to straighten out. The drawback with using a lower temperature is it will take a few passes for the hair extension to straighten out while a higher temperature will get the job done faster.
WHAT RISKS SHOULD YOU KEEP IN MIND WHEN STRAIGHTENING OUT A HAIR EXTENSION?
One of the risks we’ve shared with our consumers in the past is the chance of fake hair melting when applying a professional flat iron to it. We encourage our consumers to be careful when it comes to heat since certain wigs and even hair extensions may not be able to withstand high heat. We recommend checking the company website for your hair extension to see if there is an ideal temperature to straight out the extensions.
In the event, there is no recommended temperature, set your flat iron to the lowest temperature and test it on a section of the hair extension. See how long it takes you to straighten out the hair extension and bump the temperature up until you get the desired results. The other precaution we highly recommend taking is to apply a heat protectant to your hair extensions, but ensure they’re not damp when you start straightening. This way you won’t have to deal with the worrying sizzling sound when straightening out hair extensions.
Straightening out your hair extensions doesn’t have to be an arduous process filled with trial and error. We do recommend testing a small section of your hair extension prior to straightening just to check the product is able to handle the heat. Remember not to let the clip touch the flat iron during the process or else it will melt against the flat iron. Regardless, we hope you find straightening out your hair extensions to be an easy process and enjoy styling them to your heart’s content.
