If you haven’t purchased hair extensions before, then you must have some questions. Everyone advertises easy to apply extensions, but it’s not easy to buy them! Especially when it comes to selecting hair.
Assuming you have already decided on the type of extensions you want, including length, the next thing that comes to everyone’s mind is grams. We have had multiple clients that could not understand the meaning behind grams and were still confused about what to buy and what to avoid. Below, we have written a rather extensive guide that covers pretty much all the points of hair extension thickness and your own hair health.
If you are still unsure, don’t worry! Feel free to send us a message and we will be more than happy to help you out. Alternatively, there is another guide linked in the post below, which goes to even more details.
1 What Do Grams in Hair Extensions Mean?
A gram spec for hair extensions indicates the weight of one strand or a complete set.
For example: assuming extensions weight is 100 grams and there are 100 strands in the package, that makes it 1 gram per strand. Simple, right? However, that does not actually help as we need to know one more thing.
2 Why Do Hair Extensions Come in Grams?
Our US-centric readers sometimes get weirded out by the specifications of various hair extensions. Why do manufacturers use grams instead of ounces in the United States based hair stores? The trend has started with Asian and Indian hair suppliers exporting large batches of hair to European countries. The rest followed, although since most continents use grams, it was just that, a convenience. By the time business opened hair extension stores in the US, it was too late. Everyone was using grams already.
Also, it’s much easier to compare and create hair extensions while using grams. The overall list looks much cleaner compared to ounces. So, instead of 3.52” hair extensions, we have 100 grams, a nice and even number!
3 What Does Hair Extension Weight Mean?
As a rule of thumb, the thicker the hair – the heavier it is. Hair extension weight indicates strand and overall hair thickness. As an example, “1g / strand” hairs are much thicker than those with “0.5g / strand” spec.
It is rather simple and applies to all but the clip-in, weft and flip-in extensions.
Why? Because these do not come in strands but rather wefts.
4 How To Choose The Right Hair Thickness
While at the first thought everyone would want to have the thickest hair possible (2g / strand), that is not the correct answer. In fact, the optimal weight of hair extensions is around 1g / strand! Unless you want to risk your own hair falling out and / or constant pressure on the scalp as well as headaches.
There are always exceptions as women with thicker natural hair can handle heavier extensions. To give you a rather short answer:
0.5g / Strand Hair
These strands will fit just fine anyone who has thinner hair. If you want to increase the hair length but not the volume, go with this option. Otherwise, feel free to experiment and proceed with the next weight category, which is…
0.7g / Strand Hair
We are getting to the fine to medium hair thickness category. It is a rather great choice for women that want hair extensions to look natural, while still lifting their whole look to the new level.
1g / Strand Hair
Since a lot of females have medium thickness hair (even though they believe otherwise), this is the most popular option. In other words, it’s perfect for pretty much everyone but the Brazilian or African American women. If you are unsure, this is your pick.
1.5g / Strand Hair
If you want to go to extremes or have thick hair, then this is your only option. Your hair will look as gorgeous as in fairy tale. What if you have thin strands and / or thinning issues? There is an alternative for you too: the double drawn hair extensions. Basically, you get thicker hair at the most crucial parts, yet without increasing strand weight.
For more buying tips and weight details, please see this post. It covers all the aspects of hair extensions, from buying to styling and more.
5 What’s the Best Hair Extensions Weight?
It’s easy to measure the thickness of hair extensions when it comes to strand by strand methods, but what about wefts? Surprisingly, it is somewhat similar.
Less than 100 Grams
Just like with strands that do not exceed the 100-gram limit, these wefts will fit fine pretty much anyone who has really thin hair. Likewise, if you have medium thickness hair and proceed to apply sets below our recommended weight, your hair will look skanky.
100 to 160 Grams
This is the ideal hair weight for most women. Extensions with this spec tend to blend perfectly! As a result, naturally increasing both volume and length. It’s also important to note that 18” extensions at 140 grams will be thicker than the 30-inch extensions of the same weight. We did cover that in the guide above, so please read before buying.
180 to 200 Grams
Just like with strands, these are for hair divas that want to have so much volume that it looks like you are out of this world. Or, if your hair is already very thick and voluminous. Hair suppliers will always try to top things with 300g or even 400g extensions, but that’s just too much weight to handle. Don’t take that risk.
6 How Many Bundles or Strands of Hair Do You Need?
So, you know the grams and you know what they mean. Now, what about the actual hair extensions? How many bundles or strands do you need? As a rule of thumb, we would suggest going with around 150 grams of hair, which will be enough to cover your full head.
- Tape-in extensions should be bought in bundles of 40 to 60 tapes, 150 grams total.
- Micro loop, keratin and other strand by strand methods required 150 to 180 strands.
- For wefts, we advise to buy two. Around 200 grams total. Since you can cut them into many pieces, one and a half should be plentiful.
- Clip-in and flip-in fusion types are the simplest. Just buy one bundle of flip-ins (100g) or one medium weight set (130-160g) of clip-is.
All the extension types are available on our web site at www.airyhair.com
In Conclusion
Hair weight indicates the thickness of each strand. More grams mean thicker hair, fewer grams indicates thinner hair extensions. The optical weight is of around 120 to 160 grams for most hair extension types.
