Feather Hair Extensions!! Super Easy Tutorial!

Feather Hair Extensions! They are all the rage this season!  For the past two weeks my daughter was having a fit for some of these colorful ways to jazz up your hair. So last Saturday we headed out to our local salon…but me being a cosmetologist in the hair replacement business for many years and wearing extensions myself, I watched with an eagle eye to figure this whole thing out. With a little research, on where to get the supplies and getting a feel for how they work…(wow is it simple) I am going to teach you how it is done.  Salons are making a killing on this and there really is nothing to it! Here’s how it is done!

Materials needed: Inkahoots Inc. Silicone Beads for extensions, $8.00. Make sure they are Silicone, this makes them non-slip and does not break the hair! They are sold in Sally’s Beauty Supply store’s and online. Now they also sell a kit at Sally’s including the beads and the feathers for $16-19.00, but this is a less expensive way. Just ask for the beads only, they come in a pkg. of 36 multicolored beads. I found them in the extension section. (Some Sally’s stores keep them behind the counter.) For the feathers: I went to Hobby Lobby and they had a huge variety of different types of feathers. The longer the better. I bought Fancy Feathers  Brand in Goose Stiff Biots, Chinchilla Saddle Hackle, Furnace Saddle Hackle and some colorful dyed Saddle Hackle. Hobby Lobby also has feathers in the floral section. You can buy them bunched on a floral pic in various colors. Just remove the floral tape and  separate the feathers. You will need a small crochet hook (the kind from Sally’s that you use to pull hair through a frosting cap.) You can use a regular crochet hook if you have it, it just needs to be small enough to fit through the bead easily. Sally’s also has a hook for extensions that is basically a tiny latch hook for around ($4) That may be easier for you if you need it. Being a Hair Replacement Technician we always used the frosting cap needles for our attachment & bead work, so that is what I am used to, and easiest for me.

Now for the fun part! Figure out where you are going to place your feather. Do not get too close to the ear though, so you can’t put your hair behind it. Most little girls are wearing them close to the front of the hair and more colorful feathers. Most women are wearing them under the hair on the sides, very subtly in white, brown, black, red & stripes, so when the hair moves they show.

To place the bead, pick a section of hair, clip the other hair away from the  area you are working on, at the base of the hair at the scalp grab a section of hair the size of a small pea.  Take your bead and slide it on the end of your needle. Take the hair section and wrap it around the end of the needle and catch in small hook on end, hold tight, slide the bead up, again hold hair section tight and pull the hair through the bead. Not all the hair will go through because the of the silicone inside the bead. That is ok, just make sure you do have  a good amount of hair in the bead or the weight of the extension will pull the hair out and can cause permanent hair loss. So the feathers need to be anchored in tight with a good amount of hair. This technique may take a little practice. If you think this is too much for you, go and buy the extension hook (tiny latch hook) and try it.  It has a broader wider hook to catch the hair and hang onto it. 

Once you have the hair through the bead just slip the hard end root of the feather under the bead next to or on top of the hair.  Position the bead on the hair shaft, close to the scalp…for kids about 1/2 to 1 inch from the scalp, for adults about 1/4in or more from the scalp, getting too close to the scalp can cause pain when sleeping. Also if  your hair is fine put the feather in a thicker area, not too close to the hairline. This can also cause breakage.  Next take a pair of needle nose pliers and crush the bead flat so it will lay flat against the head, squeeze as tight as you can.  And that’s it!!

Now to remove: DO NOT PULL THE BEAD OUT OF YOUR HAIR!! You will lose hair or have really bad breakage!  Just take the pliers and clamp the bead and squeeze the two ends that are flat so they open and slide the bead out of the hair. So easy and cute and you can put them in and out by yourself! They can last up to 3 months. You can even curl, straighten and blow dry them! Soo cool and easy! For ideas on how to wear them click on this Google link I set up.

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