Lauren Conrad's stylist talks about her extensions

Kristin Ess of Warren-Tricomi Salon in LA has styled everyone from Rachel McAdams to the runway models at Marc Jacobs, but she's also known for her work on The Hills, and for Lauren Conrad's styles in particular. So when I found out that Lauren's perfectly natural-looking hair was actually Kristin's perfect extensions, I really wanted to speak with her to get the scoop about them.
You created LC's extensions and her look. How did you start out using them on her?
The thing about extensions is that you have to have the exact right kind for your hair. When I started working with Lauren, she had a thicker kind of extension, and because she went to so many events, we were styling her hair a lot. Because of the texture of her hair, though, we kept having to hide the extension if she wanted to put it into a ponytail. We always had to leave a little bit of a poof and couldn’t do a tight ponytail, either, because the extension would pop out sometimes, or you would just see a lump. We were working around the extensions, basically, instead of the hair working around us. I told her, "Listen, I really want to put my thinner extensions in your hair." She had never heard of them, but she said "OK, I trust you. Let’s do it." So, we took the thick extensions out, we put the thinner ones in, and she's never taken them out since.
I had no idea they were extensions until recently.
You know what's so funny? I do a lot of interviews about Lauren’s hair, and sometimes people are like, "What do you mean she has extensions? Oh, I thought that was her hair." Meanwhile, people don’t realize that her hair is actually about to her collarbone.
How do you keep the extensions seamless and blend in the ends when her actual length is that drastically different? That’s hard to do!
Particularly with the extensions — first and foremost is color matching. I pride myself on that, because I can color match your hair exactly. You can always see extensions when they aren't perfectly color matched. So that's one, and the other is the placement. There's a certain way that you have to place the hair, and a pattern that you put them in. To have extensions look natural, you have to leave a little bit more room in certain places and put a few closer together. The reason that the ones I use are so great is that they're in two and half inch panels, and I can basically place them wherever I want.
I've got lots more from Ess regarding extensions, from the different varieties to how to care for them. Stay tuned for the additional details of our interview to come.
credit - bellasugar.com