I Got Pilus Extensions and They Turned Me Into a Hot Monster

The swollen allergy eyes only minorly detracted from the beauty of my mane.

The bloated allergy eyes only minorly detracted from the beauty of my mane.

It's half-dozen p.m. on a Tuesday, and while I'm not i to brag, I am past far the hottest bowwow at this Old Navy. This has nothing to practice with my lovely fellow shoppers, who are dutifully browsing the racks of denim jackets, and everything to exercise with my hair, which looks and then incredibly sexy, it's as if Beyoncé herself cast a magical spell on information technology.

I did non wake up like this, just I did just emerge from an extension bar called RPZL that somehow achieved the impossible: transforming me from a girl wearing a Target T-shirt-dress to a babe wearing a Target T-shirt-dress in less than an hour.

About a year ago, in an "If Taylor Swift did it I should too" frenzy, I chopped my long locks into a cool-daughter bob, and it's been a whirlwind of salt spray and mussed texture always since. Just lately I've been missing the va-va-voom feeling long hair gave me, not to mention the countless updo options. While my scraggly brusque pilus grows back, I begrudgingly decided to try extensions, hoping I wouldn't finish upwardly resembling a 2009-era Britney Spears.

RPZL claims to be the first extension salon of its kind, offering iii different options for adding more hair to your caput: clip-ins, which attach to your hair like barrettes; record extensions; and their own in-house version, which are attached using some sort of "ultrasound technology" that sounded and thenStar Expedition, my eyes kind of glazed over while discussing it. Usually, to become extensions, you accept to "know a guy" (or in most cases, a girl). Other salons that often offer extensions often require that you prepare upward a consultation for them to color-match your hair, then wait for the hair to get in via a 3rd party. RPZL gets its own 100 per centum virgin pilus straight from the manufacturer, and then you tin can have the extensions fastened to your caput inside minutes of picking them out.

Having never gotten extensions before, I opted for the clip-ins, which are the cheapest option and the merely ones you can remove yourself. If I looked more showtime-season Real Housewife than Kardashian, I figured, I could always steal away to a nearby Starbucks bathroom and unclip the testify.

After a quick shampoo and blow-dry of my natural hair, my RPZL stylist Tiffany and I color-matched before she started clipping in the long extensions. Since I'm currently sporting an asymmetrical shoulder-length cut that's in desperate need of a trim, I was worried information technology'd look vaguely mullet-y, like I'd popped over to the local Claire's and attached the nearest hair-like product I could find to my scalp. Lucky for me, my fears were unfounded: when Tiffany spun me around in my chair, I nearly choked. It looked good, merely I just didn't look similar…me? Weird. Upon further inspection, I realized the clip-ins were nearly undetectable as long as I didn't put my pilus up in a high ponytail–great for celebrities with the accompanying lifestyle, not so peachy for someone who would likely wake up to two cats sleeping nestled in my fake pilus. But withal, I thought, as I fingered a piece of a stranger'south hair at present attached to my caput, I looked…kind of amazing.

And so, finally resembling the goddess I ever knew I was deep down, I immediately striking the street in search of the perfect hot-spot to debut my new 'practice. Erstwhile Navy it was. In the dressing room, I was alone with a mirror for the first time since I got the hair put in, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief: I could finally admire my ain beauty in peace. I immediately whipped out my jail cell phone and started taking selfies. Is this what it'southward like to experience yourself? I wondered before tweeting one. The faves were counted, and the consensus was in: I looked hot as fuck.

Strutting down the street among the Chelsea throngs in their sensible workwear and normal hair, I felt self-conscious. I'chiliad, like, besides hotto be out on the street right now, was a thought that my brain actually formed. Guys are totally going to striking on me!

Nobody hit on me. Nobody even did a double-accept. Conspicuously, the hair was starting to become to my head.

My boyfriend's reaction didn't exactly rein in my budding megalomania. He entered a location every bit as glamorous as Old Navy (a Just Salad a few blocks upwards) and spotted a frail creature with flowing mermaid-hair hoovering a turkey wellness Cobb. Surprise! Information technology was me.

This was catchy territory, and he knew it: If he didn't like the pilus plenty, he'd hurt my feelings. If he liked itbesides much, I'd (jokingly, but not) give him a hard time about preferring me when I await similar a unlike person.

"Y'all don't look like yourself?" he kept repeating over and over again, as if the extensions would fall out and he'd get his regular girlfriend dorsum if he said it enough times. He stared at me with awe in his optics, clearly fascinated by my transformation.

"You wait similar a …"

"A loftier-school hateful girl?" I offered.

"Yeah, I guess," he responded.

Not-so-secretly, this thrilled me. I had spent high school ducking from girls with the mane I was currently sporting, but at present I was finally their equal, the hair apparent to their legacy. Unlike them, I would accept to use my new ability for adept, and not for cyberbullying.

That night I barely slept, excited and nervous to article of clothing my extensions into work, where my co-workers would surely take find. I had thought near basically nothing else besides my hair, obsessively texting friends pictures and tossing my locks casually on the subway platform and manipulating my v-twelvemonth-old sister into confirming that yes, I exercise look like a Disney princess now. I was greedy for the compliments my co-workers would experience obligated to bestow.

"It looks so natural!" they told me the adjacent morning, assuaging my fears that I looked like I was wearing a wig.

"Wow, you wait HOT," some other added.

My boss passed past me in the hallway, when I was on my way to adore myself in the bathroom mirror. "Did y'all become extensions? You look like a bombshell!" she exclaimed. Then, later: "Yous look like a Barbie!"

By this point, I was so drunkard on my own beauty and power that I could've walked the Yeezus runway solo and earned a standing ovation from Cathy. I spent the day talking and tweeting endlessly most my hair. I Instagrammed some other selfie. When I sent 1 to my family group chat and my dad responded, "Weird," I pretended he hit ship too soon and meant to say "Weird how great it looks!" I had officially reached Kanye levels of self-delusion.

My closest work friend's nerves rapidly began to fray. I sensed her back stiffen every time I mentioned my coif or twisted a shiny gyre around my alphabetize finger. I felt hotter than I e'er had, but the potent noesis of my hotness was making me into an unbearable monster. I had canceled drinks with a friend because I wanted to go abode and gear up the way one of the curls fell; all my conversations in the last 24 hours had basically started with, "How cute does my hair expect?"  I loved my extensions — really loved them — just I didn't belovedme with my extensions. Or maybe I loved meas well much. Either way, they had to go — and non just because I desperately needed to launder my pilus.

That dark, I sat cross-legged on my bed and sadly removed them i at a time. I lovingly brushed each extension and put it into the RPZL-branded storage bag before gently placing them in an empty cabinet. "Good night," I whispered as I shut the doors.

I would never forget the joy my extensions had brought me; no i else would always forget how goddamn detestable I'd been.

Pilus Extensions Turned Me Into a Hot Monster