And the hair comes out

I thought I would start by telling you exactly how they put in my hair extensions, since a lot of people have asked me. They began by taking three clumps of synthetic hair--one purple, one black, and one golden, and mixing the purple and the black together (I know you could hardly tell when it was on my head, but there was purple in there). Then, they combed all of my hair into a ponytail on top of my head, which they fastened with a regular rubber band. That was the beginning of a LOT of pulling and tangling and general hair unpleasantness.

They started at the nape of my neck, and combed little tiny pieces of hair out of the larger ponytail, and then mixed the gold-colored extension with my regular hair and twisted it around the black hair. So the golden colored hair you saw in the picture might have been mine, or might have been extension. They were pretty much exactly the same color, so it was hard to tell. When I took it out, it was REALLY hard to tell and it got all snarled and it was a huge, huge pain. They got it into some sort of knot at the top, but they didn't do anything to fasten the bottoms. There were four girls working on my head most of the time. Two of them came up the back, and two came around my ears and up on the sides and then the front. The crown of my head was the last place to be done.

To fasten the ends, they dipped my hair into a cup of boiling water (and splashed some of it on my arms. Yay!), which shrank the extension hair and molded it semi-permanently into the coil shape. The extensions ended about the same length as my regular hair, or a couple inches longer.

I had the braids (twists, really) in my hair for 5 days. I was assured by several people that the first two days hurt a lot, and then after that you wouldn't even know you had your hair braided. That was NOT my experience at all. The first day hurt a lot, and after that my scalp felt itchy all day long and then at night it was really painful. I think the itchiness was just the way the pain felt after it was somewhat deadened. Also, the hair extensions itched my face, neck, and shoulders whenever they would touch, which was most of the time. Last night, Peter noticed that my scalp was getting red around some of the twists, which I didn't think was a good sign. Also, I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep because my head hurt so much. This morning, more of my scalp was red and so I decided it was time for the hair extensions to go.

It took us two or three hours to get them out, and I am still picking up loose pieces of hair. I hope it's the extension and not my own, but there's really no way to tell. My head still feels sore, but it is SOOOO much better than it has been the last several days.

Sorry for those of you who were hoping to see the real thing when I got home. It was fun while it lasted, but not worth keeping longer than a couple of days. :-)