Yes! You Can Combine Synthetic & Human Hair

When you’re in a bind, you can totally combine different hair types and textures to create your look. Human hair with synthetic is what I’m talking about there.

Because, we’ve all been there, right?

You look in your (hair) closet and find you have nothing to wear.

That was me a few months ago when I was desperately searching for hair to wear to two weddings. I wanted something with volume with some wave or curl, and I just wasn’t getting that with my current pieces.

You might remember my review on Raquel Welch’s Longing for Long, which was a gorgeous, beachy-wave style.

The problem?

It was a tad shorter than I normally wear (but that wasn’t too big a deal…since I wear my hair straight every day a change to wavy would disguise that), and it wasn’t very close to my color.

The first wedding I needed it for was with a bunch of work friends, so having the color be so different wasn’t going to fly.

The second wedding I was attending was a whirlwind trip; I knew I’d have only a tiny bit of time from when my plane touched down to when I needed to be at the ceremony, so I needed something quick and easy.

And since I wasn’t planning on wearing this hair on my incoming flight OR the day after, I couldn’t have the color be off here, either. I was going to be around family 24/7.

So what’s a girl to do?

Get crafty, that’s what.

I knew I had my Jon Renau Top Wave in my everyday color, 10H16. While I love the waves, I wanted a bit more oomph.

Volume.

Va-va-voom.

My wheels started turning.

I also own Tressmerize clip-in extensions in a pretty close color (TressChic)…so what if I combined them?

This might not be a novel idea to anyone else, but, I literally saw a lightbulb. 🙂

There are a few obvious considerations here:

First, my topper is a thicker-feeling synthetic, whereas my extensions are fine, European-like human hair. The extensions are much closer to my bio hair (which is arguably thinner than the extensions are!), so you might think that the difference in texture would look odd.

Every day, I wear a synthetic topper with my cotton-candy-meets-old-lady-in-the-Titanic-why-did-she-drop-that-diamond-in-the-ocean bio hair.

When you look at my bio hair and the synthetic hair individually, you’d probably think there is NO WAY that they would work together.

But, they do.

So adding in some human hair extensions and combining with a synthetic topper really ain’t no thang, when you think about it.

The color of my bio hair, topper, and extensions are all different. The topper and extensions are pretty close, but my natural hair is all-one-color and a few shades darker.

Guess what?

It still works.

The process is really simple, but I thought I’d make a video to show you exactly how I worked with these pieces together. From start to finish, including curling my bio hair, it took me only 20 minutes.

(The video is about half that, though, since I cut out the parts where I left the screen to curl my hair.)

Oh, one note. As much as I silently told myself this is the Top Wave, I still managed to call it Top Secret at one point in the video. Whoops.

I mention this in the video: I definitely could’ve worn one of my Tressmerize human hair toppers (check out my review), but I only had about 30 minutes to get ready before the wedding.

So, while my Tressmerize toppers are beautiful, I needed something that was half-way done so that I could get out the door FAST. It was nice that I didn’t have to worry about curling the majority of my hair — and bonus! It rained that day so I didn’t have to worry about human hair keeping my style in the wet and humidity.

This combination worked out perfectly!

The bottom layer of my hair is my bio hair, which I curled. Then I clipped in three of my Tressmerize extensions. After that, another layer of my bio hair, which I curled. Then my Top Wave on top.

While this might sound like a crazy effort, it seriously took no time at all.

Because everything is covered by a topper, what’s underneath doesn’t have to be anywhere near perfect. You’ll see in the video how messy the back of my hair looks.

But, the overall look was pretty awesome.

Here’s another pic. I promise, no crazy filter was put on this one…it was just near sunset.

If anything, you can see how gorgeous this topper does in the sunlight. No crazy shine that can be typical of some synthetic pieces (but y’all know how to eliminate shine on synthetic wigs and toppers).

Don’t be afraid to pull a little DIY with your hair pieces, even if it involves mixing and matching different hair textures, types and colors. You might just hit on an amazing combination that you’ll fall in love with!

Tell us, do you have any DIY hair tricks?

Hair mentioned in this post:
Top Wave by Jon Renau (comes in 12″ or 18″)
Tressmerize human hair clip-in extensions (If you buy the topper or the topper + extensions kit, save 10% with code LAUREN10)

Lauren

While obsessing over my hair loss consumed most of my life several years ago, I now focus on wearing awesome, undetectable faux hair!

See my hair loss, read about my hair loss journey and learn why wearing faux hair has been the best beauty decision I've ever made. Feel free to send me a message here.