Simple Hair Extensions

There’s no substitute for your own real hair, but for various reasons many people (including myself) can’t or don’t want to grow out their hair. A couple years ago, I discovered clip in hair extensions and they have been a game changer for me both when I’m cosplaying and just going out. I’ve gotten a few questions about how I do my hair, so I figured I would write a mini tutorial on it.

Why not wigs

I’ve really grown to dislike wigs for long-term wear. They’re heavy, super hot/sweaty and the wig cap always seemed to dig into my head. Also unless you go and buy the really nice human hair ones, it’s pretty obvious that you’re wearing a wig. The only time I’ll wear a wig anymore is if a cosplay that I realllyyy want to do requires it.

Why clip in hair extensions

• It looks more natural as you can use your real hair line
• It weighs much less than a wig
• Allows your head to breathe
• Is much more stable than a wig. I’ve tested mine while running, wrestling, and even during… um, more active moments. While I wouldn’t recommend pushing them to the extreme, they’ve held up surprisingly well.
• Easier to untangle than a wig as you can focus on individual wefts.
• Also easier to wash than a wig
• It’s cheaper than professionally done hair extensions and much easier to take out.
• Way cheaper than a human hair wig
• I feel like it looks better

What to buy

Depending on the hairstyle you’re going for, you’ll need to get around 150-250 grams of human hair extensions that match your real hair color as closely as possible. Human hair is a MUST. You will also probably want varying wefts (see footnotes if you don’t know what wefts are)¹ lengths. Fortunately since this is a lot less hair than a whole wig, extensions are going to be way cheaper than their wig counterparts. This is what I have. For reference, I have the 18 inch ones. Make sure that the extensions match your hair color as close as possible.

Haircut Requirements

Obviously not all haircuts will work for this, you’ll need enough of your own hair to 1) allow the wefts of the hair extensions to clip on and 2) hide the clips. I have a fairly normal undercut, but the important part is that you have enough length of the top of your hair to hide the clips of the final layer of wefts. Color-wise, dark hair is going to work the best as the clips of the wefts will blend in better. Dark hair is also going to be easier to match. My natural hair is pretty black and I used to dye it to better match the dark brown color of the extensions, but after a while I realized it didn’t really mater under most lighting conditions.

Clipping in the hair

See this instagram reel for a video walkthrough.

1. Start by clipping the top of your hair up. We will use this hair at the end to hide the final clips.

2. Then starting at the bottom of your hair, clip in a layer of extensions. Then move up half an inch and repeat. The only rule is that each new layer must completely cover the clips/wefts of the previous one.

3. We want to continue layering until we reach the root of the hair you clipped up at the beginning (see blue line in the figure above). This is going to vary for everyone, but for me this takes four layers. Starting from the bottom right, the clip count of the wefts I use are: 1-3-2, 4-2, 4-2, 4.

4. Once you reach the base of the clipped up hair, release some of the hair from the clip, enough to cover up the clips of the previous layer. The figure below shows the first layer of real hair covering up the clips of the pre-root layer.

5. Then add another layer of extensions on top of the released hair. Repeat until you have no more hair clipped up. Do not clip any more extensions on top of this final layer. The figure below shows the last clip in extension layer before I cover it up with the final bit of real hair.

6. And you’re done! I usually end up putting in some bobby pins to keep my bangs in place, but that’s not required. Also I tend to wear some sort of headband as well. This keeps the extensions in place, but also helps hide the clips in case your hair moves around a bit.

From start to finish, the process takes me around 10 minutes, which while slower than putting on a wig, saves me a lot of pain throughout the night.