Hi, I'm currently wearing an extension called Hairlocs. I've been wearing them for a year now and I love them. Its a human hair, strand by strand method that uses no glues or braiding or heat or chemicals. I've been extremely pleased since wearing them. I've been able to take very good care of my own hair while wearing them and have even gained a few inches of my own due to the new hair care regime I had to adopt. I was so glad I found this method because, like you, the glue in method was out of the question. I have fine relaxed hair and I knew it wouldn't stand up to the rigors of the glues or chemicals a lot of the methods use (like Fusion or Great Lengths). I've never even worn braids because I was afraid of the stress on my hair. I tried a sew in weave once, and hated it because it didn't move or feel like real hair. I hated feeling the tracks when I touched my head. I actually took the class to learn the method because I wanted to be sure about it and what it "might" do to my head. I do know that they use this method to treat people with hair loss/damage and alopecia.

As far as taking care of them - it was a learning curve for me because I had a very BAD hair care regime before going with the extensions. I didn't realize how bad I'd been to my head until this past year. No wonder I always had short hair. I've since learned more and more about proper hair care and that's made having the extensions easier as well as benefited my own hair growth. Because they're human hair extensions, I take care of them in basically the same way as my own hair. I had to re-learn everything - even down to the proper way to wash and care for wet hair. But off the top of my head, I can't think of any real difference or anything really special I have to do to maintain the extensions. I tie/wrap my hair up at night. I wash at least twice a week - although right now its more because I'm wearing it curly and doing conditioning washes every other day. Even the BSM treatment worked extremely well for both. In the beginning I wore it flat-ironed straight, but now I'm on a no-heat campaign. I've been doing roller sets and love the results.

Right now I'm concentrating on maintaining what I have while I further nail down the best hair care regime for myself. My ultimate goal is to encourage my own hair growth to the point where I won't need the extensions anymore. I'm confident that with the tips I've learned here on these boards as well as other places I'll be able to do it.

Hope this helps.
mritunjay