Hair extensions can add length or volume to accentuate style

When Piper Davis walked into the Lemon Drop Salon on Lee Highway last weekend, her hair was short. When she walked out eight hours later, her hair hung below her shoulders. Thanks to hair extensions, Ms. Davis’ lengthy new “do” will last two to six months, said stylist Noel Grosche. “There’re so many people in the area who have hair extensions, but you’d never be able to tell because it looks like their natural hair,” she said. The process is tedious and takes a trained professional to do well, Ms. Grosche said.

“You seal a hair extension, either fiber or natural hair, onto hair near its root,” Ms. Grosche said. “And it doesn’t interfere with the hair’s natural growth process.”

According to the Web site beauty.about. com, celebrities such as Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton have popularized hair extensions, with Ms. Simpson actually going into the extension business with hairstylist Ken Paves.

“While synthetic hair is about a fourth the cost of human hair, most celebs use human hair extensions,” the Web site noted. “Each strand is ‘pretipped’ with a synthesized keratin protein that acts as a glue to bond the strands onto hair. Heat may be used to bond, or melt, the glue, which uses air pressure to bond individual hairs in faster time.”

The procedure, which costs $300 to $2,000, depending on the number of extensions, takes up to eight hours, Ms. Grosche said.

Natural hair extensions are more costly, but the fiber extensions work just as well, Ms. Grosche said. “The fiber extensions looks like real hair, and it will hold curls for days,” she said.

Ms. Davis, 23, said she had wanted long hair for several years, but due to a medication she takes, growing long hair has been nearly impossible.

“I’ve wanted to get extensions for about a year,” she said. “I did my research, found out it was safe and went for it. And I’m really happy I did. Nobody can tell it’s not my hair, and I love that.”

Ms. Davis said the lengthy application process was not painful, just tiring. Her family and friends were “shocked” with the transformation, she said.

“It’s just that I went from short hair to long hair in one day, and it looks so real,” she said.

Ms. Grosche said the customer can “shampoo, brush, curl and style the way you ordinarily would, except you take caution not to put too much heat on the area that was fused.”

Of 21 stylists on staff at Lemon Drop Salon, only two are trained to attach hair extensions.

“I think that’s because it’s just now becoming popular in Chattanooga,” Ms. Grosche said. “The process, in its early days more than a decade ago, was called weaving.”

Nearly half of Ms. Grosche’s clients have hair extensions, she said.

Ms. Grosche said applying the extensions is a work of art.

“You can’t just stick an extension on a piece of hair. You want it to fit in like it naturally belongs there,” she said. “To do that, you have to ‘feather’ the hair with a razor. You can’t use scissors.”

Hair designer and color specialist April Quintrell said hair extensions can be used regardless of desired length.

“Even with short hair, it’s hard to tell if someone has extensions,” she said.

And it’s not just women who are getting the extensions.

“I’ve got around 10 male clients, but most of them don’t want anyone to know they’ve got extensions,” she said. “They make appointments typically on a Sunday or when there are few people here.”

There are many reasons why people get extensions, Ms. Grosche said.

“I have an older woman whose hair is thinning and she simply wants it thicker, and I have a man with a receding hairline. Then I just have people who want longer or thicker hair.”

The clients range in ages from teenagers to people in their 60s, she said.

“Everyone who has it done loves it,” she said. “It makes them feel good about themselves, and that’s what I like the most.”