Making a clip in U-part wig

The difference between a clip in U part wig and clip in hair extensions, is that the wig is one piece of thick hair that covers all of your own hair apart from a parting that you leave out the blend the hair from the scalp. Clip in hair extensions are bulky for how much hair I like to wear and can take a while to put in and style every day. I also wanted to keep my own hair from sun damage when I go holiday this year, as it go so badly damaged last year, I had to dye it dark and I'm loving my bright red at the moment. I'm going to tell you how I coloured, constructed and styled the wig from the outset. This is what the wig looked like on:

I used 14", 16", 18" and 20" hair from Fashion Leader Hair, an aliexpress vendor I would buy from again and again! The hair I bought was body wave and in colours 4 (medium brown) and 1B (natural black). There was about 500g of hair in total and it has to be bleached to be dyed red, I used 40vol peroxide with blue dust free powder bleach, then dyed over that with Mellor and Russell Red Alert as its 99p for a box in Savers and I needed about 12 boxes to cover all the hair. To bleach and dye hair, you'll need foil to protect your surfaces, disposable gloves, mixing bowls and tinting brushes. All of this is available at your local beauty supply store, as well as discount stores like B&M, Homebargains, Poundland etc if you're in the UK, I'm sure if you're elsewhere in the world your discount stores will sell them too, and of course eBay is your friend!

I mixed the bleach and peroxide to a cake batter like consistency, saturated the hair in in, folded it in the foil for about 15 minutes. The hair being brown, and using 40 vol bleach, the hair didn't take long to process light enough to put the red on. After rinsing and leaving the hair to dry, I applied the red to the hair, then again rinsed and left to dry. I cut the wefts into approximately 10" strips to make it easier to sew in rows as well.

Recovery from damaged hair: One year without broken tufts, missing patches and frazzled ends

Okay so, it's not quite a year, it's been ten months. But it is about four years since I first decided to start bleaching my own hair at home. I began with thick, curly brown hair that reached just above my waist when I decided I wanted it "ombré", in quotation marks because it really wasn't ombre. It was medium brown with a line of demarkation to yellow bleach blonde tips. It didn't even start until near my chest and always looked odd when in a ponytail or a bun. This started in 2012, which was actually a time before at home ombré kits, balayage instagram trends and Guy Tang blessing us with video tutorials every week. I included a photo of how my at home ombré used to look in 2012, compared to earlier this year when actually none of my hair was bleached but I did the colour myself on hair extensions and found feathering, blending and using more than one tone of blonde.

This started a number of problems for me, as about 6 months after I took that photo, I decided I wanted blonde all over. I went to my local drugstore, bought about 10 bottles and sachets of Jerome Russell 30 vol bleach, had no experience or done any research and began slopping it on my head. It didn't go as badly as I would have you believe, but the bleach blonde on the ends of my hair that I wanted all over, had to go. I had about 4-6 inches cut off my hair, had a fringe and layers cut back in to repair the damage I'd caused and my hair was still thick and full. I was a little upset that I'd had so much cut off, but it needed it and this is probably where my addiction to hair extensions began. I could walk into any beauty supply store in the world, pick up an 18" pack of 27/613 highlighted blonde and it would be perfect.




I'd discovered my mixture of dark and light blonde that everyone was complimenting me on simply wasn't enough and I wanted it lighter. No matter what I did, I always felt I could always get my hair lighter. My hair was becoming fried and I genuinely didn't notice, and if anyone said anything, I was in denial. I think the worst point was when I was gluing bits of hair extension in to my "fringe" that was about 1-2 inches of pure frazzled hair, picture inserted. I honestly didn't realise this wasn't a bad look. The turning point for me however, was coming home from my holiday in June 2015, about to start at a new store with new people who I refused to let lecture me on my fried hair. I ordered 3 bundles of dark hair, went to Savers and bought 10 boxes of hair dye and let my hairs journey back to health begin! The whole time I had damaged hair, I could barely put it all into a ponytail. I couldn't reach my fringe back into a hair tie to put it out my face and I relied solely on hair extensions, as in, literally addicted. I could not go out the house without them in to mask all the broken, sticking out hair. As bombshell as it looked, there was nothing to be proud of here, because every single part was extensions, my hair was so short you couldn't even see the underneath layers when it was down

Best cheap products for hair extensions

After wearing hair extensions for around three years I've acquired a list of products I will always repurchase and some that are no good and wouldn't recommend. I've found using oils, paddle brushes and strong shampoos are not good for hair that doesn't grow from the scalp and hair extensions, whether semi permanent or clip-ins it can be expensive to replace them if they're not taken care of correctly.

I've compiled a list of the affordable products I absolutely wouldn't be without!