Talking about human hair extensions quality, you should concern three things.
- Are they 100% human hair extensions?
- Is there too much short hair?
- Does the hair strand have intact cuticles?
How to know human hair or synthetic hair?
Synthetic hair extensions are much cheaper than human hair extensions. You can't distinguish them through your eye. A simple way to test them is to use fire. For synthetic hair, it will burn out and get charred or light up and become molten, but both of these will smell like burnt plastic. If you ignite human hair, you will need to blow the fire out and smell sulfur coming off of that. You can snip a small stand away from your hair extensions to do that burning test.
Too much short hair
If you got a 20 inches hair extensions, which doesn't mean all hair strands are 20 inches, there must be some short hair strands less than 20 inches, which is not a problem, which can create a gradually fading out effect. But if many short hair strands mainly exist on the upper portion, you will notice your hair extensions have a severely tapered end which is very common for those low-quality hair extensions.
Intact cuticles
Cuticles cover outside of your hair strands, whose shape looks like the shingle. Cuticles can hold moisture and keep a sheen for hair stands. For making remy human hair extensions, there are two ways to process the cuticles, change the direction of cuticles and remove cuticles. We have discussed that processing in what is remy hair. For hair strands without cuticles, hair extensions companies cover a protective layer to make a sheen on hair strands, but this layer is temporary and will disappear over time. So if you get cuticles-removed human hair extensions and often wash them, the temporarily protective layer will come off faster, the hair extensions will become hard to manage.
The following three ways can help you determine if your hair extensions have intact cuticles.
- The first way is to run your finger down and up on a strand of hair. If you feel some resistance when you run your finger back up, that's evidence of intact cuticles. It's a subtle feeling, but you can notice the difference when you go down and back up. You can try this way on your own long lock to feel the difference.
- The second way is to check the color difference between tip and root. Just pick up a few strands and hold the tips near roots. If the color of tips is not lighter than the roots, then this hair has been completely processed.
- The last way is to check the temperature. Because cuticles help to retain moisture, then moisture absorbs heat. So if you feel cool when you touch your hair extensions, which says they are human hair extensions with cuticles. But if you feel warm, that's evidence of processed human hair extensions.
If you are not familiar with a hair extensions brand you are shopping for, you can use the above method to test its products.