Go shopping for hair extensions today and you’ll likely be faced with having to learn some new vocabulary words. The industry is so awash in jargon that some of it tends to get confused, so here’s a quick vocabulary lesson to help straighten things out:
Cuticle
The cuticles of the hair are the thin flakes of keratin that make up the outermost layer of the hair. The cuticles serve to protect the hair from damage and always run in a direction away from the scalp so that they often look like shingles under a microscope. Cuticles are the reason why hair feels smooth when rubbed from root to tip, but rough when rubbed in the wrong direction.
Virgin
As the name suggests, virgin hair is hair that hasn’t been chemically treated—whether it’s to remove the cuticles from the hair, or to dye or style it. By not treating the hair or removing the cuticles, virgin hair is typically less prone to damage than hair that has been chemically processed. Because the hairs that do not run in the same direction can damage themselves when the hair cuticles rub against each other, virgin hair is also usually Remy hair.
Remy
The term Remy is used to describe hair that is handled and stored so that all the strands are facing the same direction—roots on one end and tips on the other. Why is this important? Well, by keeping the hair bundled up so that the strands all face the same direction, the hair does not need to go under any special processing to remove the cuticles. This makes Remy hair more durable than non-Remy hair.
Non-Remy
Non-Remy hair is the most common type of hair on the market. It usually comes from a lot of different donors, so varies wildly in quality if it is not first processed. To make all the hairs uniform, non-Remy hair is processed through an acid bath to remove the cuticles. It is then coated with a layer of silicon to protect it. Unlike cuticles, this protective silicon layer can wear off.
Posted in:
0 comments:
Post a Comment