This is the question I get most often, and the honest answer is that it depends on what you are actually asking. There are two separate timelines, and mixing them up is why people end up disappointed.

Timeline One: How Long Until Maintenance

Your extensions do not fail after a set number of weeks — your own hair grows. As it grows, the attachment points travel down away from the scalp. The look stays good for a while, then it starts to feel loose and look less seamless.

For most clients that is 2 to 3 months between maintenance appointments. Fast-growing hair sits at the shorter end of that range.

At a maintenance appointment I remove the extensions, clean the hair, and re-install it back up at the root.

Timeline Two: How Long the Hair Itself Lasts

Good quality hair can be re-used through several maintenance cycles — often 6 to 12 months, sometimes longer, before it needs replacing. What decides it:

• The quality of the hair itself. Cheap hair looks great for three weeks and then never brushes out the same way again.

• How you care for it. Extensions cannot repair themselves — they never receive natural oils from your scalp, so dryness is cumulative.

• Heat and colour. Every hot tool pass shortens the life of the hair.

• How often it gets wet and how it dries. Rough drying and going to bed damp are what turn silky hair into hair that tangles.

What Makes Extensions Fail Early

When someone tells me their extensions "only lasted a month," it is almost always one of these:

• Products applied directly to the bonds

• Conditioner or masks used at the roots

• Sleeping with wet hair or without braiding

• Not brushing enough — the biggest one by far

• Waiting far too long between maintenance appointments

None of those are about the installation. All of them are fixable.

What Should Not Happen

A little shedding of individual strands over months is normal. What is not normal is several strands sliding out in the first weeks with no explanation. That is on me, not on you — which is why my work carries a one-month warranty: if a strand slips because of how it was installed, I put it back at no charge.

The warranty covers my workmanship. It does not cover care that broke the rules — and after enough installs, the difference is genuinely easy to see in the hair itself.

Planning Around an Event

If you are getting extensions for a wedding, a shoot or a holiday:

• Install 1 to 2 weeks before the event, not the day before. It gives the hair time to settle and gives you time to get used to styling it.

• If the event is more than two months out, plan a maintenance appointment just before it.

• Book the trial and the install together if the look matters that much.

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Want a realistic timeline for your hair, your budget and your calendar? Message me and we will map it out.