I wanted to share my experience at the London Hair company with Candace. I went in looking to add some length to my hair and some volume. She suggested that I try Ultralinks, which are little strands of hair attached to your own hair through a metal ring. The ring is then clamped to “bond” your hair with the ultralinks hair strands. Candace offers two options, a full head which is supposedly 200 hair strands for $400, or a half head which is 100 strands for $250. She suggested the latter option so I went with that. Before placing the extensions on my hair, she cut A LOT of my hair off to match the length of the extensions (which made no sense to me because I was getting them to add LENGTH and volume). After she was done with the half head, I looked in the mirror and noticed that my hair looked very “choppy” and uneven. You could definitely tell which hair was extension hair and which hair was my own, because she had cut my hair even shorter than the extensions ! I explained to her that I was unhappy with the results. She had assured me before putting the extensions in that you would not see the metal links if I ever wanted to put my hair up. I tested this in front of her and you could definitely see the links because of the way she placed them on my hair and the colour of the metal link was grey (my hair is black) so it did not match my hair tone at all. So after a long conversation about the results she put the other 100 hair extension links in my hair to make it a full head because she assured me that it would make everything even and not choppy. Once she was done with everything she started cutting my hair even more to blend the extensions in. Results : the same as before. It didn’t even look like there was more hair in there. I paid the $400 and went home disappointed but willing to give it a few days.
That night was the worst night of my life ! I was in an immense amount of pain. No matter how I laid my head on the pillow the metal bonds were poking into my scalp. I must have tried over a dozen different ways to lay my hair and no matter what I did it still hurt a LOT ! Needless to say I did not sleep that night, and spent the entire night sitting on the couch. I called her early the next morning to inform her of my situation and she said that she couldn’t see me until the following week. The pain continued throughout the day, and was even worse at night time. I decided to go see another hair extension specialist in London to see if he could take a look at them and after examining a few strands he told me that the bonds were WAY too close to my scalp. Candace had left no space at all in between the bonds and my scalp. I couldn’t even run my fingers through the bonds because she had gotten random pieces of hair stuck with the metal bonds. He said this was not the first time that one of Candace’s customers had gone to see him about the same problem.
I called two hair salons that have the ultralinks extensions, one in California and one in New York and both explained the application method thoroughly and told me that Candace had made the mistake of placing ALL of the metal bonds directly on my scalp, which caused the bonds to tear through my scalp and made me bleed. I called her immediately because the pain had gotten worse and she agreed to see me the following day. When I went in I explained everything to her and told her that I wanted the extensions out ASAP. She was not happy about having to take them out. I watched her while she removed them and saw chunks of my own hair fall on the floor. I examined my hair when she was done and saw several bald spots on my head. On the verge of tears, I asked her for a refund, which she said no to right away. She actually told me she was being generous by not charging me the $75 fee for the extension removal. I asked her if I could have half of my money back, which again she said no to because she “wouldn’t be making any profit off of the extensions”. After having explained my point of view over and over again she said that the most she could give me was $46 dollars. I was so disappointed, so I left it at that and went home.
This review (I know it’s very long, I apologize) was to inform anyone who is thinking of going to Candace for hair extensions of the kind of service that she has. She does not know the proper method of application for hair extensions and all that she cares about if making a profit. I basically paid $400 for a VERY BAD HAIRCUT AND VERY VERY DAMAGED HAIR. After only 3 days of having the extensions in, there should not have been that much damage done to my hair. I wrote this review because I wouldn’t want anyone else going through the unnecessary pain and damage like I did. I WOULD URGE YOU TO RECONSIDER if you are planning to go the London hair company. Which by the way, only has one employee, Candace, so I’m not sure why she says “us” in her kijiji ads and on her website.