If you’re not born with it, you can just buy it!

by: Perriann Rodriguez

Ring! Ring! Ring! Customer Service Center: Hello, Thank you for calling the Get Beautiful Shop. What can I get for you today? Customer: Hello, I would like to order a beautiful long, full hair style, slimmer thighs, higher cheekbones, a tummy tuck and a little liposuction please. Oh, and don’t forget the face lift, I hear it is on sale! Nowadays, natural beauty can be purchased and in most cases, no one will know the difference. In the example of the beautiful long, full hair style, modern day human hair extensions offer the utmost beautiful hair for just about anyone that wants longer, fuller or highlighted hair. Dino Dondiego, founder of Sequence Hair in Englewood, New Jersey, has developed a new technique for adding hair for length and volume. Dondiego has been working with hair extensions for over 3 decades and has attached them using just about every method available on the market. He categorizes current methods of adding hair into three different areas, weaving, extensions and hair systems. The first area is weaving, where a track is made horizontally with the natural hair (created by braiding the natural hair) and the human hair is sewn into the track in wefts or individual hair. (A weft is a tiny little curtain of hair that is attached together at the top) This method was derived from African American salons in the U.S. that use to corn braid the hair and sew wefts into the braids. Dondiego says there are limitations with this method because the weft that is sewn in can be hard to hide and the client cannot wear his/her hair in certain ways and there can also be a build up of hair care products and dirt in the tracks. Removal of the wefts can also pull out the natural hair. The second area is extensions. This method was also derived from African American salons that started braiding individual human hairs into the clients braided hair. Extensions offer a more natural, free-flowing look and have become widely accepted as a way to add length, volume and highlights to your hair. Dondiego saw limitations to many extension methods. Many methods advertise strand by strand hair extensions, when in reality they are attaching chunks of hair at a time, causing undue stress on the natural hair and also creating an unnatural look. Other methods use adhesive materials that can damage the natural hair. The third area is the hair system. These systems consist of hair pieces that are sewn or bonded to the scalp. Some can include nets that the natural hair is pulled thru to blend in with the human hair attached to the net. Limitations to these integrated hair systems are that you will need a lot of hair to hide the nets. As Dondiego worked with each method, realized the limitations, he decided to reverse engineer the way human hair grows out of the scalp. He determined that the most logical way to add hair would be to mimic the way human hair grows, randomly and one at a time. However, it is unfeasible to have a client sit in a chair while one human hair is added in a random pattern. This would take a very long time to finish. Dondiego developed a technique called Hair Blending® that allows him to add one human hair at a time in a random fashion. Hair Blending® involves the use a special filament string, called a Sequence Blending Strand® that has the same thickness of one human hair, but is much stronger than human hair. The blending strands are transparent and blend into the tone of hair and skin. They are hard to see with the naked eye. Human hairs are attached by hand, one at a time to the Sequence Blending Strand® with a specially designed instrument that has a fine hook on the end. When a client first comes to the Sequence Hair offices in New Jersey, Dondiego determines exactly how much hair will be needed for the client. Color and texture of the hair is also determined. Then the client must wait for 6 weeks while his/her Sequence Blending Strands are custom designed. After completion, the customized Sequence Blending Strands are attached to the clients’ natural hair using a linking system. Each Sequence Blending Strand® is wrapped around 5 or 6 strands of the natural hair and secured with a tiny little anchor the size of a pin head. It sort of looks like tiny little pony tails. The blending strands are very fine and light, leaving the scalp open to breathe. It can take between 3-4 hours to blend in a full head of hair. Clients must return every month or so (depending on how fast their hair grows) to have the hair re-secured. The Hair Blending Strands do not need to be removed. The system can last between 3-4 years. Dondiego concludes that Hair Blending is one of the safest ways to add hair since it leaves the scalp open to breath and does not add too much stress to the natural hair. He adds that, “No method is 100% safe and anyone that adds hair must take proper care of it. Because the more hair you have the more work you need.” Hair Blending® by Sequence Hair is only available at the New Jersey Office. Expansion plans are in the works for certifying salons nationwide to do Hair Blending. For additional information on Sequence Hair Blending, see http://www.sequencehair.com , or call 1.888.BLEND.88 Concluding Phone Conversation: Customer Service Center: Thank you for your order from the Get Beautiful Shop. All orders will be delivered in 7-10 days. For returns or adjustments to your beauty service, please give us a call. About the author: Perriann Rodriguez is the founder of Hair Resources, http://www.hairresources.coma worldwide online resource center for hair styles, hair extensions, beauty salons and anything related to the hair. She recently published the E-Book, 2005's Most Popular Hair Extensions, available at http://www.hairresources.netRodriguez is listed in the 2004 Who's Who of Executives and Professionals and the U.S. Register of American Writers. Circulated by Bandoni Media