extensions and tangles

[brittish70]

Hi there. This is long and i apologize in advance!

I have naturally thick, straight-ish hair and I am a brunette who desperately always wanted to be platinum blonde. My sister is a cosmetologist(a very good one at that) and she has been doing blonde highlights/lowlights/baby lights of some sort mixed with a balayage or ombré for years with no issue. I had my thyroid removed in 2015, and around 2017, my hair started to fall out badly. After spending 6 hours having my sister color my hair(bleach, tone, the usual) it broke off and felt like wet spaghetti. My sister said it was likely something metabolic, or something my body is lacking causing it which I agree. 

Anyways, I started doing keratin infused extensions for the majority of my color and to gain length. My hair is naturally a decent length(below my shoulder blades/mid back) but I can’t keep it long AND color it so I have been using extensions for the past few years. I love them, especially because I love adding fun colors like lavender and pinks and blues.

I was in the hospital a few weeks ago for 5 days and had my hair in a bun which resulted in severe matted knots from not brushing my extensions. I’ve tried all conditioners and I can’t find anything to make my hair easier to brush. 

Any recommendations for maybe a good mask to help make it manageable and a vitamin for hair loss? I’ve tried Bondi Boost vitamins and didn’t hate them but can’t say yet if they are helping.

My scalp is oily, ends dry. I lose so much hair everyday(both brushing and just existing that I don’t know how I have as much as I do). I use tangle teezers and wet brushes, limit my washes and using hot tools. I’m having my extensions removed in a 5 weeks to reapply but I need some help to get it manageable. I only use high end, salon quality products. Thanks! 

[MissCaleighJo]

Late to the game here but I have sew in human hair extensions (IBE extensions) in blonde, I got them July 2022 and got a new set November 2023. I’ve pretty much only used oribe products because that’s what my salon uses, although they recently started pushing Goldie locks products too. I’ve tried several different things but my absolute favorites for making dry/rough hair feel silky smooth and strong are:

-Hair alchemy line by oribe- the shampoo and conditioner but I use hair masks more often than conditioner 

-Oribe signature mask…I tried Moroccan oil’s masks before and they were decent but nothing compares to oribe’s

-Goldie locks hair oil, this you can pretty much only find on their website 

The real icing on the cake is oribe’s super shine moisturizing cream (it’s a blueish tube). If you’re only going to try one thing I recommend this one. 
I have always had thin hair, I got extensions for volume not for length. While using the oribe shampoos/conditioners for about a year my hair got visibly denser, my hair stylist even noticed. Then I experienced massive hair loss seemingly out of the blue, around September-December. It could have possibly been a result of a new medication or the filter on my shower head not being changed in time. I had also experienced extreme levels of stress over the prior several months. But I was loosing large handfuls of hair daily and my hair appeared significantly thinner, particularity on the top of my head. 
I began washing my hair every other day rather than every day, using the cooler setting on my hair dryer instead of the hottest and not brushing my hair at all while it’s wet (or only using a very wide toothed comb very gently and only after it was about 50% dry). I also started applying rosemary oil mixed with caster oil to my scalp but I haven’t done that consistently enough to attribute the improvements to the rosemary oil. 
I sleep on a silk pillow case- this actually really makes a huge difference! Silk not satin! 
I started being more consistent with using the super shine cream and Goldie locks hair oil. Since then I have next to no hair fall out in the shower and when I brush my hair, and my baby hairs seem to grow more and more every day. I’m having hairs grow in areas I never had a lot of hair (the two far sides of my forehead and by the nape of my neck). 
I hope this helps you, I know how awful I felt when I helplessly watched all my hairs fall out back in the fall and how much of a mental game I went through trying to still feel good about myself, you’re not in it alone and it will get better. 

[GG84]

@brittish70 

Where are the matts starting, if they are at the bond, this is going to be tricky. 
Do you know what brand is installed? Each brand generally sells take home products they recommend, you have to be careful of silicones, so I would reach out to the stylist that installed them for further advice. 

[brittish70]

My sister applied them and I want to emphasize that she knows what she is doing, works in a high end salon for 15 years and is very skilled.

I have always used professional/salon quality extensions(usually Bellami, I think I’ve used Donna Bella and maybe one other brand that I can’t remember as my sister orders them for me with her professional discount and I pay her). Her coworker recently tried some cheaper ones from amazon and told my sister she loved them, so we decided to try them. I ordered mostly the U-tip LaaVoo in platinum blonde and some fashion colors(pink, steel blue and purple) U tip Runature. This is my first time using U-tip bonds on my hair. I could tell they weren’t the same quality but they saved me $500, so why not try? 

I see more mattes in the blonde LaaVoo ones. I really messed up last month being in the hospital with my hair in a messy bun, and couldn’t brush my hair for 5 days. Now the blonde ones are just a matted mess. They are grown out and needing to be redone within a month or two anyways and the mattes vary between being at the bond and some further down. 

I only use high end, salon quality products in my hair. My go tos are RedKen, Joico, Matrix 

I’ve used Joico KPak hair mask, Olaplex overnight sleep hair mask, have tried wet brushes and tangle tweezers of all kinds. I feel like I’m going to end up having to cut some out at this point. I brush them too hard and they rip out. I think the larger u-tips didn’t help either, but I definitely notice a difference between the blonde matting more than the colored ones. Unsure of what’s just because I have more blonde ones in or not. I feel like I could have managed them fine if I didn’t have that hospital stay. Ugh.