Review: Zascha Clip In Hair Extensions

You guys. I know you're probably sick and tired of me nagging about my short hair. But look at it this way: you haven't heard me bitching about it NEARLY as often as my boyfriend or my sis, who already start rolling their eyes when I open my mouth right now. YES I know my hair doesn't look awful at all, it's quite alright, but it wasn't cut the way I wanted it to be, and I just preferred my long hair. I feel like a moron for setting myself back hairgrowth-progress-wise, you know?

ANYWAY! Let's look at the positives here. At least NOW I'm able to review awesome clip in extensions, like the ones offered to me by Zascha. In a fit of desperateness brought on by my haircut (OK I'll shut up!), I started googling clip in extensions. One of the first results that caught my eye (because: PINK) was the Holland based Zascha webshop, and when I sent an email to Marlieke, the businesswoman behind the enterprise, she was excited about collaborating in the form of sending me a pair of gorgeous 50cm exclusives to review on my blog. SICK, right??

And it didn't end there: Marlieke first sent me two samples so I could see for myself which set would work best with my own haircolour. And after that, she suggested she'd come by to cut my new extensions to frame my face and work with my short, layered hair. I mean, seriously. If you are thinking of buying some extra (amazing) oomph for your hair, I strongly suggest you shop at Zascha. Great service, BEAUTIFUL quality and very fair prices for the silky soft hair you'll get. Marlieke ended up actually dyeing my set of extensions to perfectly match my own hair, which made ALL the difference.

Let me first argue to you WHY Zascha exclusives are the clip in extensions you want:

• Marlieke carefully guards the quality of the extensions she sells. A first batch of extensions by a new supplier ended up not being up to par according to her demands, and she simply refused to send them out to buyers even though this cost her profit. I love that so much.
• You are pretty much guaranteed to get the right colour, through comparing samples to your own hair and through Marlieke's personalized advice.
• These extensions come with clips that have combs going both up and down, thus inevitably fixating the extensions tightly into your hair. Also, the clips are lined with strips of plastic to prevent hurting and breaking your own hair.
• Zascha's Exclusives are beautifully silky and just as thick in the ends as on top. This really is the secret to beautiful, natural looking extensions that don't look cheap and stringy (the nightmare of extension-wearers everywhere). I mean, I don't want to be bitchy, but I think we can all agree that ideally we would like to have extensions look a bit better than this, right?

RIGHT??

And if my words didn't convince you, here are some pictures to get you over to the dark side.

The extensions come in a sturdy, clear plastic package with openings on both sides, so you can easily slip your pieces in and out without getting the hair all knotted up.

A close up picture of the clips I told you about. I was a bit apprehensive about wearing 100 grams of hair clipped into my own hair but this seriously feels just as uncomfortable as your regular bun or pony tail, which is really nothing to whine about.

Full set of hair! LUSH

Getting clipped in, cut, advised and styled by Marlieke. As you can see, the extensions (dark brown) are just a bit too light for my own hair, but the darker set (natural black) were too dark. It's easier and better for the extensions to dye light ones darker than it is to bleach dark ones lighter, so I went for the dark brown ones. Marlieke offered to take these back home and dye them to match my hair perfectly, which she did! She ended up using Kruidvat's own brand in shade 4.0, dark brown.

And this is the (intermediate) end result: after cutting and styling, before dyeing them. Already pretty, but the colour difference still makes these stand out from my own hair.

Curious to see the ACTUAL end result? I know I was!! Scroll on!

There is still the tiniest bit of colour difference between my old highlights and my darker natural hair + extensions, but I'm thinking about dyeing my own hair to get rid of the highlights anyway. I opted to have the extensions match my natural haircolour, because the red and highlights will wash/grow out and I want to keep wearing these FOREVER. 

I think the result is amazing for having short hair like mine, and for doing nothing but straightening my own hair to blend the extensions in. Extensions are even less noticeable if you put some curls or waves in there, so there's that. If you're extra paranoid about your extensions showing, you can put your hair in a half updo, side ponytail or a braid as well. Another great tip is to pin the bottom layer of your own hair (the first layer you'll clip your extensions into) back with some bobby pins, because those shorter bits tend to stick out along your neck, like you can see here:

For the sake of clarity, this is about as noticeable as my extensions get (sunlight, movement, my remaining highlights). But I doubt many people will look at my hair and declare it fake if they'd see me walking down the street.

Now, if you're looking for some step by step markers on how to put in clip in extensions, I'd recommend these tutorials: 1, 2, 3 and 4, the explanation on the Zascha website. 

Now, I think I've told/shown you guys everything I needed to (except maybe that I am OVER THE FUCKING MOON with how gorgeous these are), but if there are any questions/tips/pointers: fire away!!