Nowadays, a natural look is more important than ever as an increasing number of young people start to use hairpieces and look for instant fashionable hair systems rather than long lasting hair systems that aren’t so realistic. These clients often prefer lace bases or thin skin bases, which are more natural and less visible.
While this is the case, some clients still prefer hair pieces with longer lifespans as it reduces the overall cost. In these instances, fine mono is a great option.
Fine mono is a traditional base material for hair replacement systems. It is normally combined with a poly perimeter or sometimes a very strong PU-coated perimeter. Therefore clients looking for durability, this is the most popular choice base material. However, there are many instances of mono units losing their hair quickly. What causes this and how can you avoid it?
Normally, people will find those fast hair-losing mono hair systems have two common traits.​
- Hair is lost from the fine mono part of the base, but no hair is lost on the poly perimeter. So what do these examples tell us? In the first case, the hair is just lost from some certain areas and it is still good on the poly area. This means the hair quality is good because we can see the hair on the poly area is strong and healthy.
- Secondly, the hair just broke from the hair roots with the knots remaining on the base. Therefore, the hair of the hair loss area was weakened by something.
The woven strands of mono are denser than lace. They are actually very dense. Whilst this makes the base strong it also makes the whole base not that breathable and makes it difficult to clean, unlike lace which has thinner strands and bigger holes. Moreover, when people use hair gel, mousse, hair glue or even hair conditioner, the products get lodged in among the dense, woven material of mono and eat away at the roots of the hair. It is not only hair products though, sweat and the body’s own natural oils can also get into the mono and destroy the hair. Since the strands are very dense, if you wash a mono hair system less often than other hair systems or you have a busy period where you don’t find time to wash your hair system like you normally would, you will find that the residue from all the products and your own oils will eat away at the hair to such an extent that the hair will start to fall out.
What should people do to avoid their hair being destroyed this way?
First, we need to carefully explain to the clients who buy fine mono base hair replacement systems about the need to be fully aware of the properties of the base material and how to care and maintain for mono in the correct way. Extra care and time must be taken when dealing with this kind of densely-woven material. It can be hard for individual clients to clean the mono unit thoroughly so that’s why it may be best to go to a local salon or clinic to have them clean it for you.
Here are some general tips, the salons or clinic can give your clients:
- Daily hair system wearers should remove adhesives and replace every day and shampoo once a week.
- Semi-permanent wearers wearing 1-2 weeks should do a 'full clean up' after the removal.
- Permanent wearers, who often wear fine mono bases should go NO longer than 4 weeks.
- Don’t use glue or tape on the mono area, just use it on the poly area. This will usually give sufficient hold for comfortable and long-lasting wear and it means that cleaning will not be such an issue.
- We suggest clients to use Alcohol based adhesive removers which are some of the most popular and effective when it comes to removing adhesive and it removes residue from both the hairpiece and a person’s head without damaging either. Also we suggest to use citrus-based cleaners which are gentle solvents and these cleaners not only ease the process of removing a hairpiece and adhesive, but they also do so without causing damage to the hairpiece.
- Use spray-on hair conditioner. Hair conditioner is great to help maintain hair, help avoid tangling and of course, keep hair soft. But when we talk about clean mono hair replacement systems, it is actually very difficult to completely remove the residue of the hair conditioner. This is because of the dense weave. When hair conditioner gets into the weaves, it is very hard to clean off completely. Sometimes we feel it is clean enough, but actually there are still some left in the weave. We can clean some, but not all. While hair conditioner is very nutrient-rich. A little of it can cause a lot of germs which will absolutely eat the hair root and we have no way to stop it. Taken together, use spray-in conditioner, which is sprayed directly on the hair. In this way, it nourishes your hair, without coming into contact with the fine mono base, or any other base you might have. Moreover, it makes hair maintenance easier and a lot quicker which is important as we know everyone leads such busy lives these days.
It is important to note everyone is different, every scalp is different, so better make sure you are fully informed on scalp oils and also how tight the bond feels over a period of weeks. It’s great if the hair looks fantastic however, proper maintenance and care is vital.
Having the correct care and maintenance, fine mono can have a long lifespan given its durability. However, as we have discussed above cleaning and maintenance can be more labor-intensive with this particular kind of base material. If clients are not comfortable with the requisite level of care required, then we also recommend a change in base material to lace or skin. Lace has larger holes in the weave which means residue from adhesives, conditioners, and other products are more easily removed from hair replacement systems which helps maintain hair strength and durability. Besides this quality, lace is also softer, more breathable and less visible. With regards, to skin base material, it is the easiest of all materials to clean and comes in a range of thicknesses and looks super realistic. However, clients need to bear in mind that both lace and skin materials are less durable than fine mono base material. Click this link to browse our high quality hairpieces https://staging.newtimeshair.com/mens-hair-systems/.
If you have any questions regarding fine mono hair systems or any other queries, please feel free to email us any time at info@newtimeshair.com.
