The year is 2026. Ariana Madix pays homage to a fellow Ariana’s thank u, next era with a sky-high ponytail on Love Island Season 8. Hailey Bieber invents hair colors like “glazed chocolate brunette.” Bridget and Danielle Pheloung built a cult following around their trademark roller blowouts. Yes, hair has never been more in. But hair has also never been quite so easy.
2016 was the golden era of inaccessibility. Kylie Jenner debuted rainbow braids at Coachella – an original screenshot in my camera roll that I cannot bring myself to delete. Taylor Swift was bleach blonde at the Met Gala, (and so was Calvin Harris). My 7th grade Pinterest account had an entire board dedicated to hairstyles – titled, “beau cheveaux” (pretty hair) in French because I was nothing if not pretentious. Every style, which you can still view, frozen in Ethernet time, contains the world’s most complicated buns and tutorials that feign ease by condensing the process into “four easy steps” – newsflash, it’s not four steps.
Out of the whopping 52 pins saved to that board, not one of those hair models or beach-blonde teens had short hair, let alone medium-length hair. I was just a girl with a frizzy lob and a dream. And that’s where the decade-long coming upgrade comes in. You can be a girl with a frizzy lob in 2026, but you now have way more than a dream. You have resources.
After quite a bit of soul-searching, balayage, and bangs, this decade has left me with the keen awareness that long hair is oh-so-much more flattering on me than the frizzy lob. But scissors no longer need to be the final say in determining your look – hair extensions can be.
In 2016, hair extensions were certainly not in Vogue. Not because they weren’t popular, but because they weren’t being publicized as an option, let alone an accessible one. I figured all hair extensions were made more or less equal: long installation process, longer removal, pricey, and really only worn by the likes of Alix Earle and the hair queen, Kylie Jenner. But apparently in the past 10 years, the hair extension world has made far more progress for women than our own government!
“Extensions have always felt like beauty’s best-kept secret. But no one’s gatekeeping anymore.”
– Jen Atkin, Celebrity Hairstylist & BELLAMI Global Brand Ambassador
The BELLAMI Hair experience reset everything I thought I knew about extensions. I cleared my afternoon calendar to visit the BELLAMI Beauty Bar in West Hollywood, which ended up being completely unnecessary, as I was in and out of there faster than it took me to get a strawberry matcha from Dialog next door.
Despite it being directly in the name, when my hairstylist, Ryan, pulled the BELLAMI Halo PRO out of the kit, the invisible loop caught me off guard. It’s as fine as fishing wire, but it effortlessly holds up several pounds of hair without needing to be clipped in at all.
Once the Halo was on, I could not keep my hands off my hair. For there only being 27 different shades (which I now know is much more sweeping than you think), the color match was flawless. I went around my apartment after, asking each one of my 13 roommates if they could spy any discrepancy between the extensions and my real hair, and not one was able to tell. Ryan deftly added in a few loose waves to match the pattern of my natural hair to the extensions, which also texturally erased any difference. If I hadn’t watched the process with my own two eyes, I would’ve thought it was pure magic.
I opted for the 20″ option, which is the longest kit they currently offer. Because of my current hair length, which sits at about 18″, the Halo’s function in my case is most definitely a volume mega-booster rather than length-booster. That being said, the best-suited demographic for the Halo would be those seeking both length and volume. For the blessed group of heads that don’t need any additional volume or length, this is one you could probably sit out.
When we began the installation, I soon realized that “installation” was not the right word at all. I was expecting to need to take precise notes on how to be able to do it myself, since I am not the most hair-adept Gen Zer on the block, but I only needed to leave with the following takeaways (this is a place where you can choose to ignore me and watch the tutorial on their website instead):
- Start at your part on your hairline, and use two to three fingers to determine where you need to section your hair. The lower down you part, the farther down the Halo will sit and the longer the extensions will look.
- Using the parting side of the Pro Comb (included in the kit), make a diagonal line towards the back of your head. Clip the hair away, and repeat on the other side.
- Once your hair is parted in what looks like a circle, size the Halo using the adjustable bead based on your head size and preferred amount of hold. Place the Halo.
- Unclip the sectioned pieces of hair on the sides of your head and lightly brush your natural hair over the Halo to blend. If desired, add fill-in pieces on either side of the head for added volume and blend.
- Based on the layering of your hair, you might want to carefully trim the Halo to match your ends. If, like me, you have a pretty blunt cut, you might need to feather out the edges of the Halo so that there isn’t a sharp drop-off between your natural hair and the start of the Halo.
That’s it. No unnecessary bells and whistles. No professional install needed. Just you, a comb, and the Halo (and MAYBE a pair of trimming scissors). It goes without saying that the removal process is also just as simple – it comes on and off in less than two minutes.
Yes, the BELLAMI hair experience is one trusted by the likes of Bella Hadid, Nicole Kidman, Kris Jenner, Hailey Bieber, Chase Infinity, and too many A-listers to count, but the intersection of accessibility and quality is what really makes it stand out. The hair is 100% human hair and both responsibly and ethically sourced, coming in a variety of lengths, textures, and lengths. But it also isn’t just worn by celebrities and internet personalities – it’s worn by everyone.
During my appointment, I was talking to my hairstylist about the consumer demographic of the Halo, thinking it would be well-to-do Angeleno women, but Ryan told me a very different story. He said the West Hollywood Beauty Bar drew in women of all ages, and especially for the Halo Pro, young people my age looking to go the extra mile for a special event or attain a hair transformation sans scissors. At a starting price of $360, the Halo Pro kit is definitely not a light lift in comparison to an Amazon extension pack. However, because of the hair quality and quick on-and-off capabilities, the Halo Pro is designed to last forever; it’s an investment piece or the cost of potentially one singular trip to the salon if we’re doing the math.
Not only is the result so stunning, but it is also so natural – which to me, is what truly makes the difference. To feel confident in your own hair, you first need to appreciate what you already have, and the Halo Pro does such an excellent job of accentuating the gorgeous goods you already have. It’s an extra something, a cherry on top if you will, to help you flaunt what ya already got. And in the spirit of accessibility, if the celebs are doing it, why shouldn’t we?