My hair is really rather long. It’s blonde, naturally beachy and grazes my nipples at its longest. I rarely allow scissors to come within 100 yards of my ends. I’ve had this hairstyle for as long as I can remember; it’s part of me. So, I am not the obvious candidate for hair extensions. However, I dream of hair that travels way below my breasts. I have hundreds of pictures on my mental vision board, and the majority of them feature women with hair that ends at or below the lower half of their bodies.
Daisy Hoppen and Hannah Weiland
That being said, over the years, I have never quite managed to get any further than my aforementioned nipples. “Hair that falls to the navel or beyond is quite rare,” says Stylist and Hair Trend Forecaster Tom Smith. “Not because it’s always impossible to grow that long, but because it demands extraordinary patience and discipline. It can take a decade or more to reach that length. Most people lose patience, change their look, or face breakage before ever reaching it. Lifestyle factors like heat styling, chemical colouring, and even stress and health factors make maintaining those lengths even harder.” I colour my hair every six weeks or so, rarely brush it, and as a beauty editor, I’m no stranger to a heated hair tool, so is it even possible for me? “This is all dependent on how patient you can be,” says Grace Okello, an academy educator and creative stylist at Myla & Davis. “I would recommend stretching your colour appointments and doing a bonding treatment, such as Olaplex, which helps prevent further damage. What you do at home is key to maintaining consistent results.”
And so, it seemed that if I really wanted my ultra-long hair, my only option was to turn to extensions. I must admit that this is a sector of the beauty industry that I have never explored. Not just because of my length, but in all honesty, I naively associated hair extensions with Love Island contestants and hair disasters that I spotted in the queues for dingy university nightclubs.
My quest for long and flowy mermaid hair was something that I had shared with a PR friend of mine, who, earlier this year, sent me a very exciting email. Her client, London’s go-to extension king, Hadley Yates, was launching his own range of luxury extensions and did I finally want to make my hair dreams come true?
I immediately replied “yes” and booked myself in. Here’s everything I learnt about extensions and what it’s really like to live with super long hair.
The appointment
I headed to Yates’s Covent Garden salon, where he and his team fit, on average, around 300 people with extensions a month, and we discussed my desires. It was decided that tape extensions from his brand new Curated range, would suit my needs best. “Tapes are good for dramatic transformation,” says Yates. “Something like a bob to really long, because they’re more spread out, it fills the hair better.” As I was there to see if Rapunzel-style hair was really for me, tapes would offer that instant super-long ‘throw down your hair’ length. Yates says that bonds are more suitable for those with finer hair looking for volume and weight. “You can customise them better, as they’re more singular.”
Yates applied 20 tape pairs in varying shades around my head. Each one is about an inch wide, and we went for the luciously long 22″ length. Tape extensions are applied to either side of sections of your own hair—they sort of sandwich your hair. Once they were all in, which didn’t take long at all, Yates cut my hair into shape. It was all over in under an hour.
The first thing I noticed was how seamlessly the shades of the tapes had merged with my own hair colour. It’s like they were made specifically for me, when in fact they were existing colours from Yates’s new collection. And as for the length, the ends of my hair now ended near my tummy button. I was very pleased.
(Image credit: Katie Thomas)
Initial thoughts
As I left the salon, I couldn’t quite believe how much hair I had. I have fine hair, but a lot of it, but this was in a whole other league. My go-to, get-my-hair-out-of-my-face move is a tight, neat bun at the base of my neck. I attempted this on my way back to the office (I was frightened that my heavy work bag would pull on my hair and my extensions would fall out on the train), but my small, precise bun was no more. It had been replaced with a huge sausage—a bit like one of those massive hair doughnuts that people use to create wedding chignons. I will admit that this threw me slightly. I love how low-maintenance my hair generally is, whilst I do keep on top of the colour, I like that I can wear my hair however I please and not have to think about it. It was clear that the extensions weren’t going to be as care-free.
The reaction from friends, colleagues, my children (and passers by on the street) was uplifting. People often comment about the length of my hair, but this felt different. I attributed it to the extra inches.
I must add now though, that there was a tiny part of me that craved even more length. I thought I was going to have hair so long I’d have difficulty going to the loo or have people accidentally sit down on it on the tube. Yates had mentioned that there was an even longer length, the 26″, but that wasn’t readily available, and had to be pre-ordered.
(Image credit: Katie Thomas)
At-home maintenance (spoiler: there’s a lot)
Whilst the extensions were fitted, Yates talked me through the aftercare. And turns out, there’s quite a bit to it. Where before I always let my hair dry naturally, I was told that I’d have to blow dry it each time, because it’s essential to dry the tapes. If they stayed wet, it could loosen the adhesive.
I would also have to ensure that when I do wash my hair, the shampoo and conditioner I use must be sulphate-free, again to prevent breaking down the adhesive on the tapes.
It turns out extensions knot and tangle very easily, so to prevent that from happening, I would have to do another thing that I rarely do: brush my hair. Yes, despite owning about four or five brushes, I typically only brush my hair after washing to detangle and then allow it to do its own thing until the next shampoo. With my extensions, Hadley was keen to point out that I needed to brush once in the morning and once before bed. “Start at the bottom and work your way up to the roots,” he told me. He said that was the best way to avoid thick, unmanageable knots. Because we had chosen the longer tapes, there was an even bigger chance of tangles, so Yates also told me that at night, the best way to keep them at bay when sleeping was to braid my hair into two plaits. That wasn’t too much of a problem, I’ve always loved the effect of slept-in plaits—ultimate beach waves.
How to wash your hair with extensions
One of the best things I was told in the salon was that I could drop my hair washing from two to three times a week to once. Yates told me with a smile that I wouldn’t want to do it more than that with hair as long as mine was going to be. This was music to my ears. I hate shampoo day; it’s one of the definite downsides to having longer hair. The funny thing is, is that I also felt like I didn’t need to wash it more than that. My hair never looked greasy, and I only had to use dry shampoo every so often. I think that’s down to the fact that I didn’t play with my hair as much. Because of how thick my ponytail was and how my hair now was, I wasn’t putting up in top knots or holding it back with claw clips, so my hands spent a lot less time in my hair.
When it comes to the actual washing, you have to be choosy with your shampoo and conditioner. Sulphate-free is essential. Sulphates are a type of salt, and they’re another thing that can break down the adhesive on the tapes. The same goes for your dry shampoo.
Product placement is also essential. I was told to apply conditioner to the lengths and ends, avoid the crown and tapes as much as possible. Again, this is to prevent the tapes from loosening.
Fox & Vamp
Extensions Shampoo
K18
Damage Shield pH Protective Shampoo
Living Proof
Perfect Hair Day Advanced Clean Dry Shampoo
What it’s like to live with super long hair extensions?
Yates had warned me that it can take a couple of weeks for you and your extensions to get used to one another, and he was right. It took me some time to fully work out what my new hair was capable of. I soon realised that claw clips were out and plaited pigtails were in. I grasped, somewhat too late, that I needed to be strategic about how I wiped my children’s bottoms. Closing car windows, whilst driving, became a challenge. At one point, my extensions were poking out of my car window on the M25 like a very excitable puppy. However, just as Yates had predicted, after about two weeks, it all started to click, and I started to get into a groove with them. I became very attached. Until I went on holiday…
Yates informed me that going on holiday with extensions has its challenges. Because keeping them dry and preventing birds’ nest-knots is so essential, he told me that if I was going to go swimming, I should try and dry them as soon as possible and apply a nourishing hair mask to the ends and pin it up. I don’t know if you’ve ever been on an all-inclusive holiday with two children under six, with four swimming pools and the sea at their disposal? But I’ll tell you now that their daily plans don’t allow for regular trips back to the room to dry and tame hair. I’ll be honest, I now realise why none of the female Love Island contestants ever go in the pool. Too much faff. It’s funny, really, that you spend your life desiring mermaid-like hair, but when you finally have it, you feel safer on dry land.
Oh, and if that wasn’t causing me enough bother, it turns out you also can’t use sun cream that contains avobenzone and octocrylene, two chemical filters that tend to turn hair orange. Nice.
Over the week, I tried my best to keep my hair as dry and knot-free as possible, away from chemical sunscreens, but I wasn’t overly successful. At one point, as I brushed my hair in the shower, a tape fell to the wet floor, looking like a very sad snake who’d given up all hope.
The holiday was a tough point in my hair extensions journey. Coming back, a few of my tapes had slipped, and I was convinced that people could see them. And by that point, six weeks after I’d had them fitted, it was time for them to come out. The salon asked me if I wanted to have them refitted, which I declined as I wanted the full experience, including the removal. I was given my collection of tapes and told that I could bring them back in whenever to have them put back in.
La Roche-Posay
Anthelios UVMune 400 Dermo-Pediatrics Invisible Spray Kids SPF 50+
How long do hair extensions last?
I was told that my tape extensions could last anywhere between six to eight weeks, depending on how they were cared for. The key thing about tape extensions is that if at any point you feel like they’ve slipped slightly, you can have them moved back into position. If you manage to make it to eight weeks and want to keep them in, the salon will just move the same tapes back up.
Bond extensions, on the other hand, last longer. You can get three to five, maybe even six months, out of them. But once they’ve grown out, you cannot reuse them, and you have to have a whole new set refitted.
Is mermaid hair for me?
When I sat having my tapes removed, I was relieved, because I was done with them. What had started as a budding, loving relationship had ended slightly sour; the holiday had been marred by my constant fussing over my hair. But as all 20 tape sandwiches were removed and my beautiful, longer length disappeared, I suddenly felt like I was lacking something. I combed my hands through my hair and felt like something was missing. All of a sudden, my ponytail felt feeble and thin. I had been warned that after a removal, it can take some time to get used to your old hair again, and I’m still waiting for that to happen. I yearn for length again, for locks that catch people’s eyes when I walk down the street. I want the hair of my dreams back. I miss my mermaid hair.
I’m already thinking about rebooking, only this time I am seriously considering asking Yates for the 26″ length. Because true mermaid hair needs to be ethereal, otherworldly, not off the rack.