My Hair History

I have always had short hair. Even pictures of me as a child show me with a pixie cut. I have always dreamed of having long hair. I have on numerous occasions tried to grow my hair out, but it gets to a certain point and it drives me nuts and I end up getting frustrated and cutting it off. The longest I have ever grown my hair is to my shoulders. You might be saying, "Hey, that's pretty long!". Well on a normal person maybe. But at 5'2" and with a round face and virtually no neck to speak of, even with it being down to my shoulders, its still not very long. I have permed, colored, cut, and styled my hair to the point I'm still surprised I have any hair left. I have shaved my head and worn wigs and I dabbled in hair extensions. Out of everything I have tried, extensions seemed to fit me the best. I liked the quickness of wigs and being able to change styles on a whim, but I didn't like having to take them off every  night and put them back on every morning and in the summer...well...you can imagine how hot it would get.

My history with extensions started about 15 years ago. It was when the extension craze hit the public. It used to be you could only get extensions in a salon and pay about $1000 to have them put in, then women started trying to do them themselves. I spent months searching the internet, saving website after website after website, joining message board after message board and reading anything and everything I could find.

My first foray into extensions was glued in. I bought some cheap hair from Sally's and that black rubbery glue. They were not hard to put in but they only lasted about 2 days. And at this very new stage in my learning curve, I knew nothing about products, how extensions were made or anything. So I plopped extensions in my hair and then preceded to treat them like I would my own hair. BIG MISTAKE.

I then went from glue to the shrinkie tube things. OH MY GOD, what a mess that was. First of all I had bought really, really, cheap hair. I bought the tubey things off the internet but didnt want to spend the extra money on the heating tool to put them in so I bought a straightener. They lasted about 2 days. The hair became such a horrid mess, I didn't leave my house for 3 days, and that's about how long it took me to get them out! I really thought I was going to have to shave my head again with that one. But with diligence and  A LOT OF PAIN, I managed to get them out. I left my hair alone for about a month and then decided to try the rings.

You know what Im talking about. Those little metal rings that you pull a very thin section of your hair through, then use a "stick" extension and clamp it shut with pliers. I think I put about 100 of them in my hair. It took only...oh....about 4 hours to do! They were heavy and pulled my hair and began to fall out after about 4 days. Then it took another...oh....4 hours to get them out! At this point I didn't even want to try the individual extensions that you glued in.

Then I discovered tape. Toupee tape to be exact. And I knew I had found my destiny. I still bought cheap hair (still cant bring myself to pay $150 for hair) and still didnt know anything about straighteners, products, brushes or the extension hair itself. This phase lasted about 2 years. I wore them off and on as money permitted. I think the longest I had been able to wear them was about a week at a time. I bought wefts and tried different kinds of tape and it only took about an hour to two hours to put them in and take them out.

Then life interrupted, as life tends to do, and I pretty much left my hair torture free (except for coloring) for the next 5 years or so. 3 years ago I decided to go back to wigs. I cut my hair very short, kind of pixieish again and bought some gorgeous wigs and used toupee tape to keep them on during the day. I did this for about a year. Then I decided to knuckle under and give growing out my hair another try. For the last 2 years, I haven't done much to my hair except to color it every few weeks...fighting back the gray. I didnt even cut it but  maybe twice, I didnt trust myself not to walk into a salon and say "CUT IT ALL OFF!" Its now all one length and touches my shoulders.

A normal person would be happy right?? Well, Im a HAIR JUNKIE and as such am not yet satisfied. When I say Ive always dreamed of having long hair, I mean LONG hair. Down to my butt long hair.

Gimme head with hair

Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it

My hair.

Yeah, thats what I mean when I say long hair. November of 2010 I bought a wiglet. Great invention, wiglets. Its like a wig, but dosnt have a full cap. It has a honey comb netting that you can pull your hair through. I found a long haired version, only paid about $70 for it and it was gorgeous. I had never gotten so many compliments on my hair before. The only problem was, it was synthetic hair and it only lasted about 3 months, since I was wearing it basically every day. And putting it on every morning got to be a hassle. I would shower, wash and dry my own hair, then put on the wiglet and pull my own hair through and blend it in. The first time it took me about 30 minutes to do. I got to the point where I could put it on, pull my hair through and style it in under 15 minutes. I was satisfied......for a while. I bought one wig and wore it a couple of times when the wiglet finally got to frizzy to wear. 

This brings me to today. I finally decided to give toupee taped extensions another try.

TO BE CONTINUED...........