Should You Go With The Cheaper Hair From Aliexpress?
When looking for hair extensions, the majority of us have the tendency to settle down for cheaper brands. We often forget to ask ourselves why those products are relatively cheaper. To save some pennies, we throw our hard earned money on poor products that leave us disappointed within days, weeks or months. Why not spend a little more on products that can serve you for a year or two? Remember, quality and value come at a price, and this holds true for hair as well.
We tested and reviewed almost all types of hair extensions to single out the bad brands from the good ones, and to help you make a judicious decision. In this review, we’re going to discuss the worst hair, which, according to our extensive research, is hair bought via Chinese e-commerce site Ali Express. You’ll stumble upon hundreds of vendors on the site when searching for hair. Now, here’s what we did: we tested and critically examined most vendors on the site. We ordered their products, used them and critically analyzed their performance. They failed on almost all fronts.
Top Chinese hair vendors on Ali Express like New Star Hair, Queen Love Hair, Mobb Hair, Hair XoXo and hundreds of others claim they are selling “virgin hair.” They also claim that they sell Indian, Malaysian or Brazilian hair. But, the truth is that 95 percent of the hair products are neither virgin nor Brazilian, Indian or Malaysian.
We studied how and where those vendors get the hair. What we found was that in most cases, they use processed Chinese hair in their products. In other cases, it is basically scrap hair rejected by large, quality-conscious hair companies for reasons like presence of lice, dandruff, mold, etc. Now, what the Ali Express vendors do is they buy the rejected hair as scrap and then manufacture hair extensions out of them after chemical treatment and polishing. Some of those vendors even steam process the hair extensions to make them curly.
Are those reviews for Aliexpress all real?
You will also see positive reviews and comments on Ali Express for hair extensions. Actually, the vendors themselves write those reviews and positive comments to fool other people into buying their products. And then there is another mechanism on Ali Express whereby the system leaves automatic feedback (dictated by vendors) on products whenever a customer fails to leave feedback.
Appearance and authenticity
Ali Express vendors show us pictures of beautiful, natural, shiny, full, stylish and elegant hair. Their goal is to get customers with attractive pictures. Let us tell you frankly that those pictures also lured us for the first few minutes. The reality is that they simply copy those pictures from the websites of large companies that produce quality hair, like Her Imports. If you don’t trust us, just take a look at the pictures used by different vendors on Ali Express. You’ll see most vendors have used the same pictures of smooth and silky hair over and over again.
When we received the hair extensions, they were rough and strange and gave an unnatural feeling. The products were 100 percent contrary to what the vendors showed us in the pictures on the site. Most vendors on Ali Express also use animal hair in their hair products. If you are an experienced hair extension user, you’ll spot the animal hair at first sight.
Smell
The cheap, Chinese hair items we ordered on Ali Express gave a really bad and pungent smell. The bad smell may be due to the chemical treatment and processing. One of my colleagues said it’s probably due to being stored at a warehouse. Would you want to go out to an event wearing hair that smelled funky? The bad news is that the smell doesn’t go away even after shampooing the hair a dozen of times.
Wefts and itching
When it comes to wefts, hair bought on Ali Express are completely terrible. With all the items we bought, the strings were coming out within a few days. The hairs were piercing out. The wefts are so bad that you may think of sealing them. Within a few hours of wearing the products, we experienced harsh itching. This normally occurs when there are fungal agents in the wefts and hair.
Shedding and tangling
With most of the Chinese hair extensions we bought on Ali Express, shedding started right after we took the items out of the package. Day 1 saw an average shedding of 15 to 20 strands. The number is increased with the passage of time and within two months, the products became useless.
And when it comes to tangling, OMG! The hair tangles more than ten times a day. We even used some hair oil to help the extensions, but to no avail. Nothing actually helped decrease or get rid of the tangling issue. It was really annoying.
Coloring
Yet another horrible story! The hair is seriously terrible when it comes to coloring. You can’t dye or bleach it with ease. It dyes very poorly. And when you go for a more intense coloring method, it will damage the product and render it useless. The problem can be attributed to the use of poor quality hair in addition to the use of chemicals during processing of the hair.
Life expectancy
Cheap, Chinese hair bought on Ali Express typically lasts for 2-3 months. Now, compare this with a good quality hair that typically serves you for 12 -24 months. Of course, the life of hair extension depends on the quality of hair, the manufacturers commitment to quality, hair originality, hair origin and the manufacturing process; hair bought on Ali Express delivers poor performance on all of these fronts.
Swimming
No, you can’t swim with cheap, Chinese hair. If you love to go swimming, this hair is not for you because swimming leaves them tangled and makes it very sticky. And yes, the strands are not perfectly placed, which results in excessive shedding during swimming.
Shipping
And when it comes to shipping, Ali Express hair vendors are yet again a big disappointment. When we ordered hair from different vendors for testing, the items took a very long time to get to us. One of them took about a month, and the other two items took over two months to arrive.
Conclusion
This review is based on extensive research and testing. We ordered and used the products, read reviews all over the Internet, discussed with cheap hair users, studied the websites and social media accounts of the vendors and researched where they get the hair. Based on our review above, we caution our users to stay away from cheap, Chinese hair on Ali Express. Don’t be tempted by the beautiful pictures and false claims you see on the site.