When the perms are again in trend, can you perm your hair extensions to get curly, kinky, or sleek straight manes? Let’s find out!
Nature hasn’t endowed all of us with perfect hair to wear any hairstyle. But nothing can hold you back from putting on a signature pony or getting luscious locks until hair extensions are here.
Their magic allows our favorites like Ariana Grande and Jennifer Lopez to pull off the artificial appearance of longer and fuller hair. You can get whatever type of look by trying to perm hair extensions or color them.
There are various types of hair extensions. While you can perm some of them, you shouldn’t try perming every type. Some hair extensions might not withstand the perm solution, and others won’t even get the perm.
So, let’s dive deep and see how you can perm your hair extensions. And what are those types you should consider not perming?
Can You Perm Real Human Hair Extensions?
According to Statista, India alone exported over 383 million dollars worth of human hair and related products in 2021. Most of this hair is quite valuable because it directly comes from people shaving their heads at the temple. So, it’s comparatively cleaner and healthier.
Just like the hair on your head, you can perm the extensions made from real human hair. The perm chemicals break the disulfide bonds in these hair strands and reconfigure them into any configuration like curly or straight.
But will it be worth perming human hair extensions?
Human hair extensions are the most expensive, and the reason for that is quite evident. They are made out of natural human hair.
As you may already know, the perm solutions are pretty aggressive and can damage your manes. While the hair on your head receives ongoing nutrition and grows all the time, extensions made from them don’t have this facility.
Therefore, recovering the natural human hair extensions from chemical damage will be impossible.
So, I won’t recommend you perm your hair extension more than once. You can do it twice or more if the locks are still thick and coarse.
Below in this article, I have discussed a way to perm real human extensions while causing very little damage.
How to Perm Hair Extensions?
Before you perm your hair extensions, there are a few crucial things to consider. They will ensure that you don’t damage the extensions overly or make them unfit for putting on again.
- The texture of your hair extensions, is it fine or coarse?
- Did you try any other chemical processing, like bleaching, on them?
- Will you consider perming your real human hair extensions again after this perm procedure?
All of the above points are crucial to defining the age of the hair extensions.
So, if you have already chemically processed your hair extensions, or if they are thin and delicate, you should employ acidic perm on them. It is gentle. However, it will not produce tight curls!
But if the hair extensions are thick, coarse, and virgin, you can instead employ an alkaline perm solution to produce ringlets or tighter curls. It is comparatively harsh.
Coarse hair extensions may sustain multiple perm procedures. It is better to analyze their condition before perming them. Check their porosity and strength.
Once you are done perming your human hair extensions, condition and moisturize them after 24 hours. The real hair in extensions can absorb the oil or conditioner and get a better texture and feel.
Can You Perm Synthetic Hair Extensions?
Synthetic hair, as the name suggests, is acrylic or nylon fibers that have been given the feel and texture of hair with a lot of chemical processing. Unlike natural hair, synthetic manes can sustain chemical damage quite efficiently.
However, you can’t perm synthetic hair extensions because they don’t have disulfide or protein bonds to be broken and reconfigured into any shape. It will be a loss of time and money if you try perming them.
But, you perm them using a technique I have discussed below.
If you want to wear buffy, kinky, curly, or straight hair extensions, I will recommend you to buy the one with the already conformed shape and texture of your choice.
How To Perm Synthetic Wig or Hair Weave?
If you want to curl or straighten your synthetic hair extensions, there are different ways of doing it. You can use the heating tools or employ the boiling water technique.
To curl your synthetic hair extensions, wrap them around the foam rollers and put them in heated water. The water shouldn’t constantly be boiling. Heat it on the stove and take the pan off it.
When the water cools down, take out the hair extensions and let them air dry overnight. And don’t remove the foam rollers unless the extensions are completely dry.
Will Perm Damage Your Hair Extensions?
While perm employs chemicals, it is not harsh as bleaching. But it does strip the protective proteins off your hair strands, leaving them dry, frizzy, and weak.
Getting a perm every few months won’t be damaging to the hair on your head because it recovers over time.
However, if you perm your natural human hair extensions, they won’t sustain the chemical processing more than once or twice. With every procedure you do, the hair in extensions will lose proteins and get weak with no chance of recovery.
The hair will start breaking off from the extensions, and others will get rough and dry because of perming.
So, how far you can go with perming your hair extensions into different shapes is up to you. If you think you can manage to wear the damaged hair extensions, you might perm them how much you want.
I won’t recommend you perm your already chemically processed hair extensions more than twice. However, you might go a bit far with those virgin and thick extensions.
Alternative of Perming Human Hair Extensions
If you want to put on the curly hairstyle for a few days with the help of your Remy hair extension, you should try gentle heating tools instead of the perm.
They will cause minimum damage and allow you to return to your straight hairstyle whenever you want.
However, a perm is the only option for permanent curling of hair extensions.
Wrapping Up
You can perm human hair extensions but not synthetic ones. Always read the manufacturer’s instructions about the chemical processing of hair extensions. Doing a perm one or two times on hair extensions will be safe. But anything above this might damage the extensions aggressively.
