Style
Wrong Extension
The mystery, the majesty, the tragedy of the white-girl weave
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THE LOOK THAT LAUNCHED 1,000 WEAVES Gwyneth Paltrow with glorious flaxen hair extensions at the 1999 Golden Globes, and (inset) a few months prior (Photo: Getty Images)
Only in the fun 2000s have young white women staggered so proudly and sloppily onto the weave wagonWhile black women have been wearing hair extensions for decades, and wigs have been around for even longer, it's only in the fun 2000s that young, wealthy white women have staggered so proudly and sloppily onto the weave wagon. Plenty of A-listers, like Keira Knightley and Demi Moore, do (usually) opt for subtle and natural, but some, like repeat offender Spears, either don't know how to get a good weave or truly just don't care. "I'm finding a definite shift in the younger sect in Hollywood, that it's important to just be wearing extensions at all, and not care as much if they look real," says Seth Silver, stylist and extension technician at posh Damian West Salon in Manhattan's West Village. But why?
Blame Gwyneth Paltrow, who showed up at the Golden Globes in 1999 with a head full of blonde extensions and opened the floodgates. "She was the first major red-carpet star—who's not an avant garde cartoon like Donatella—to make it obvious." Copycats everywhere took heed and made the look their own. Nine years later, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton rep dueling weave lines, Tyra Banks assigns a dome of clown hair to half her Next Top Models, and the only weave-related shame left is getting photographed with one so unfortunate that blog readers make comments like "broke ass weave, ma!!" and "LOL SUK FOR HER."
Let's take a closer look: Silver and fellow celebrity stylist and extension technician Allison McClellan (who won't name their sizable celeb clientele for privacy reasons) weigh in on some recent broke-ass weaves.
FIRST UP: THE LEGENDARY MISS BRITNEY SPEARS
PUSS AND ROOTS Britney Spears
ALLISON: Oh, no.
SETH: Oh my goodness.
ALLISON: She did the top with a single process, then this is bleached, then she's trying to let her natural grow out in there. She has so much going on, there's so many factors. Wow. The bleach is breaking her hair, and she's sewing in tracks.
SETH: This is an example of her saying, I'm going out tonight, I want extensions and I want tracks. She wants that thickness, but of course it's not working.
RADAR: Would she have been better off with a wig?
SETH: Oh, yeah.
ALLISON: Should have been a wig from day one. Like a beautiful, gorgeous $10,000 lace-front wig.
RADAR: What's a lace-front wig?
SETH: Imagine a bathing cap with hair sewn onto it, put onto all of your own hair, and then integrated around all the borders to finish it, with the front of your hairline integrated. Britney can afford this.
ALLISON: They can be beautiful.
SETH: For instance, Nicole Kidman. She's got a head of hair, but the hairline isn't perfect, so for a lot of her movies she gets full lace-front wigs.
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BATTLE OF THE UNNECESSARY CELEBRITIES, THEIR FAKE HAIR
A TALE OF TWO HAIRPIECES Kristen Cavallari (left), and Amanda Bynes
SETH: This is exactly what I was talking about. There's a certain laziness about two young celebrities getting weaves as a status symbol, with no regard for whether or not they even look natural!
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THE HAIR THAT BANKS KILLED: BRITTANY FROM AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL WRESTLES HER RACCOON-HAT WEAVE, COURTESY OF A TYRA MAKEOVER
JUST CLOWNIN' Brittany from America's Next Top Model (Photo: Getty Images)
RADAR: Ever?
SETH: Never
ALLISON: One big problem is when the hair is put in too thick, like this. A lot of times when I have clients who have thick hair, I put in a ton of extensions. I want to put in as much hair as I can work with, but then I thin out the extensions, blend in the waves, balance the hair, make it softer and lighter and more airy. When it's too heavy, it's just a blanket of hair. And this looks very heavy—a major sign it's fake.
SETH: I mean, to look good it has to make sense.
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VARIATION ON A WEAVE: JESSICA SIMPSON'S WEE WIGLET
TWO EASY PIECES Jessica Simpson, her wig
ALLISON: Could be synthetic.
SETH: You know how wigs look waxy? Yeah. Her own hair isn't holding up to the shine of the wiglet. You could fix that with hair powder.
ALLISON: Yeah, looks like a wig, and then her hair is combed over it. Because she had a short little bob.
SETH: Very Marilyn Monroe, but ...
ALLISON: It would be cute. If it was better.
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GOOD GOLLY, VICTORIA GOTTI
SPLITTING HAIRS Victoria Gotti
ALLISON: Nothing about it is natural. She wants it blonder, longer, now.
SETH: She's not caring about looking like anyone else; she's unto her own. It goes from her clothes to her makeup ...
ALLISON: Her nails, her hair ...
SETH: Her lifestyle ...
ALLISON: Her car, her home ...
SETH: The whole package. I'd be surprised if she didn't have extensions. Someone like that has to have extensions.
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ASHLEE SIMPSON GETS BAD HEAD
SYNTHETIC PART Ashlee Simpson (Photo: Getty Images)
ALLISON: No, it is. You can see right where her real hair ends.
SETH: There's nothing to relate the color in the middle to the color at the ends. The cut isn't strong enough, but the hair's also too thin. You have to put more hair in because the layering is so strong here.
ALLISON: Another thing I try to do when I apply extensions is you want to match the color at the hair ends, not the top. Because that's what you see. So if she has really blonde hair in those extensions, you have to match it to the end, because it has to continue from that line. She should have had that bleached and then lightened. She has darker roots that fade out to lighter ends. But that hair in the middle is what kills it.
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POSH SPICE LOOKS STRAINED
THIN ON TOP Victoria Beckham
SETH: Knowing she's a slave to coloring and hairstyling—flat-ironing, extensions, blow-drying—it probably took a toll.
ALLISON: Because of changing it so frequently—blonde, brown, red, blonde, brown, red.
SETH: Every week. Or it could have been something else we don't know about—medication, stress. A combination of those.
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BRITNEY ... AGAIN
GIMME MORE HAIR ... PLEASE Britney Spears (Photo: Getty Images)
SETH: It'd be like me, with my hair right now, wanting that long hair. (Seth has a man's haircut.)
ALLISON: Whoever did this obviously tried. I don't think it's too much a bad application as the fact that she has short hair but she wants it long and thick.
SETH: She has a strip of real hair on the top—and you can see the bonds because it's too short. It's just not going to work.
ALLISON: When you do extensions, you have to hair that's at least as long as your temple.
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THE GRANDE DAME OF FAKE PARTS: DOLLY PARTON
NICE PIECE A young Dolly Parton (Photo: Getty Images)
ALLISON: Like extensions are right now.
SETH: Exactly.
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NICOLE RICHIE (HONORARY WHITE GIRL—HEY, SHE'S FRIENDS WITH PARIS HILTON!) FLASHES HER HAIR'S UNDERCARRIAGE
BACK TRACKS Nicole Richie
ALLISON: And if the hair is too fine and the extension is too heavy ...
SETH: See how high it is on the crown? You need to lower it.
ALLISON: And this should be thinned out. You can't really make your hair that much thicker.
SETH: It looks like thick at the bottom and balding at the root, which ... doesn't really happen in nature.
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TAKEAWAY MESSAGE: YOU DON'T NEED TO BE A CELEBRITY TO GET A BAD WEAVE. SEE BELOW:
THIS IS YOUR HAIR ON DRUGS Friends don't let friends get bad weaves
SETH: Which causes breakage, spottiness. It's tension and bad application that cause hair damage.
RADAR: Don't let this be you.
But if you want good extensions, Allison and Seth can give them to you—$2,500 buys a full head of the highest-end hair extensions and two months of maintenance, in case you need a new style or a couple fall out. It'll last you three months—tops. While your extensions are in, make sure to brush your hair and avoid heated hair tools. Then, to take them out, a special solution applied at the salon dissolves the bonding agent so the extensions just fall to the floor.
Good luck, and remember to take good care of your new extensions. If they get dreaded and matted, that's your own damn fault.
Related: Style
Posted by: Britterdacritter on February 7, 2008 1:06 PM
Honorary? Richie's (birth) mom is white.
Posted by: brechtgirl on February 7, 2008 5:56 PM
My god, this is brilliant. And why I keep coming back for more.
Cue Missy Elliott's Let Me Fix My Weave now!
Posted by: David K on February 8, 2008 7:04 PM
Jesus...who invited the Weave nazi?
Honey, it's a lite-hearted article in Radar Magazine, not a textbook from Empire Beauty School. Calm down.
Posted by: Jess on February 9, 2008 12:43 AM
But she's not a white girl.
Posted by: Phinsmum on February 9, 2008 8:49 PM
Victoria Beckham's bald patches are amazing. If she lost any more she's look like a spray-tanned zombie. And let's face it, it's the closest to 'braaaiiiinnns' she'd ever get!
Posted by: Fangirl on February 10, 2008 4:58 AM
I agree girlfriend it's just an article not a dissertation on the evolution of the weave. By the way "leave Brittany alone. boo hoo" :0)
Posted by: listenup on February 12, 2008 7:39 PM
This is not true! Whoever wrote this article is under a huge misconception that is continually perpetuated throughout society. Caucasians have been wearing fake hair almost as long as asians have. Which is hundreds of years longer than African Americans. For an example of this I give you George Washington, and Geishas. The inverse of what this article tries to imply is actually true; blacks have been wearing fake hair the least amount of time. I do admit blacks have made them more stylish and possibly acceptable in our society, but they are by no means the pioneers. So Edith Zimmerman you need to do some research, because it has not just been since the fun 2000's that white people decided to start wearing weaves. Has anyone ever seen a picture of someone from the victorian era? Next they'll be an article about how the chinese invented tacos>tisk tisk