Hair Extension Rentals 101 | where to start + how to price them

By far my most frequently asked question is how do you do hair extension rentals? Quickly followed up by a series of how do you price for the hair extension rentals? Do you do it for just brides? How do you get the hair back? How do I actually start? So for today's video we're going to be covering everything Hair extension rentals Disclaimer I have to give a thousand percent credit to Kara Klein who is a mentor of mine and she shared the hair extension rentals with me. However, I was just somebody who put it into action. Hi, my name is Marissa, I'm a bridal hairstylist and I can't wait to share with you everything I do for hair extension rentals. Tips, tricks, how I learned where I started, how to price it let's get into it first, let's start off with why hair extension rentals? Why not just have your clients purchase them? Well, we know that clients need certain extensions for certain styles, specifically glamways. However, extensions can be a hefty investment that not always going to want to make. So a budget friendly option is to offer them as a rental if it's something that they're only going to be using for their wedding day hairstyle. Why not offer the hair extension rentals so that way they can just get the volume and length that they maybe need for that specific style and then they can just send the extensions back to you. I've also found that this is a service add on. What that means is now you can up your invoices with clients to about $200 of straight profit. And who doesn't want that girl? If you are new to hair extension rentals, which I'm assuming you are, by watching this video, you are going to want to start small and build up from there. What I mean by this is you don't want to go out and overwhelm yourself and invest like a thousand dollars into hair extension by going and getting all these different shades of hair extensions, like 10 different shades from a luxury brand like Bellamy or Luxie. Instead, what I did when I was starting out was I bought only four different shades from a non luxury brand. That was a little bit of a smaller company to start myself out to see if my clients even wanted to rent hair extensions. In all honesty, when I was starting out with the hair extension rental process, I didn't have a lot of extra money to invest in getting luxury brand hair extensions. So I went with a lower cost option and even that was a huge investment for me. So the brands that I started out with that I can recommend to you are ones from Amazon. I know you're probably like, what the heck Marissa? I don't want to get extensions from Amazon. But wait, the quality super surprised me and it might surprise you too if you're starting out. They're definitely a lower quality of hair. However, they are definitely budget friendly when you're starting this out because as an add on service, it's an add on investment into your business. And once you see the feedback from clients and if they start liking it, you can then invest into a luxury brand like a Bellamy or Lux. So the brand that I love to use from Amazon was called Sunny V. They have a variety of different shades but my favorite part about them is they have single volume weft. So you're able to get about 100 grams of hair in one singular web, which is a lot more than the seven to 10 piece clip in sets. And personally I just love using those for glam waves and for up styles because it's a time saver when I'm applying that into the hair. Now like I said, the Sunny V does have good quality hair. However, what I found is they're not good for long term use. They do start to shed and the hair starts to get super dry after multiple washes. So what shades, lengths, grams of hair and sets do you want to start with? I found by starting out with this single volume, west really, really worked for me. I bought four different options. All four shades that I got were 18 inches in length and they were from 95 to 100 grams of hair. The shades that I got were highlighted golden blonde, highlighted chocolate brown, a light chocolate brown color and a dark brown color. When choosing your shades, you want to realize that the extensions go underneath your client's hair and when it's going underneath your client's hair, their hair is laying over top and it's already going to blend that shade in super seamlessly. You don't need to go out and buy an entire range of different colors. Start out with those four common shades and then you can build up from there. And personally, whenever I'm color matching my clients, I always go a shade lighter than what their hair naturally is, unless their hair color is like a black. Now that you know the brands to start out with some shades, some lengths to really get you started, you might be wondering, well, what happens if my client comes in and I don't have the shade to match her with. There's two different things you can do. First, what you can do before your client comes in for their appointment, you can have them send you a picture of what their hair looks like in natural light. So then you know exactly what color they're going to be for a hair extension. And you can also have them send you in a photo of the hair inspiration that they want to do for their wedding day. So that's going to let you know the hairstyle that they want. Do they even need hair extensions for that style? And it's also going to let you know if they do need hair extensions. You're going to have the shade of their natural hair color. So you can then go ahead and order that hair extension set for them to have on hand when they come in for their appointment. Now, if they come in for their appointment and let's say they want to do the hair extension rentals, but you don't have that shade in, what you can do is after their appointment, you can then go and purchase that shave color for. Okay, so now you might be wondering, how exactly does the hair extension rental process work? The short answer is you bring the hair extensions with you on the wedding day, you style them in her hair, and she mails them back to you. Now, let's get into the longer answer. First thing you're probably going to want to do is draft an agreement for the hair extension rental, so that way you can secure that you're going to get those extensions back. This can be as simple as a Google Doc. So in a Google Doc, you can draft up an agreement and have them sign it. So these are some things that I would put in there. Let your client know what happens if they don't bring those extensions back back how you want them to return it to you, and the time frame that they're going to need to return those hair extensions. This can be totally up to you. Personally. What I do is I allow my brides three to five days to mail those extensions back to me. And if they don't mail them back on time, they're going to owe me the cost of the entire extension. So the extensions cost me $150 to buy. They're going to now owe me $150 if they don't return those extensions within the time frame or at all. Personally, I've never had a client not return the hair extensions to me, so I can't speak on that. However, we never know. We always want to think the best of our clients, but you just want to prepare for every single option. Something else that you can do in order to ensure security on your end is you can ask to hold a card number on file. So within that document, you can ask them to place their credit card numbers on file and state that it will be charged if the extensions aren't returned within this time frame. Next is explaining the process to your clients. So at their hair preview appointment, that's where I always explain the hair extension rental process to my client. If you are just starting out, that's when I would explain it to them as well. So you let them know you style their hair with these extensions and. And then you're going to bring a mail package. They're going to slip it back in there and mail it back to you within three to five days. Something I've seen other people do or offer is to have them drop off the hair extensions at their studio or at their home. However, at my studio, I don't have anywhere that they can like drop something off. It will literally just be sitting at the doorstep. So I just have my clients all mail it back to me. You might be wondering, Marissa, how the heck do I get my clients to mail back to me? Great question, my girl. The way to get your clients to mail things back to you to make it super easy and seamless for them. So something that I do is on the wedding day, I come prepped with a mail package. This is just a bubble mailer that I got from Target. I have my address written out on here. So all they need to do is put their hair extensions back in here. They're going to zip it up, Then we're going to fold her on up. Then we open up the mailer, she's ready to roll, and then she can just go and drop this off at the nearest post office for her. I did used to put stamps on them, however, the weight of the extensions is going to mess that up. So the stamps was never enough for the weight of the entire package. And I noticed all my clients were already dropping it off at the post office, which I didn't realize. So now I let my clients know, you're going to have to drop it off at a post office. I've never had an issue with them needing to drop it off. And I've always gotten my extensions back. Sometimes I have gotten them back pretty late. Never not got my extensions back, and had to enforce that agreement where they need to pay the full amount for the extensions when I get the hair back. Wash day, the laundry day of a bridal hairstylist. So I will wash all the hair extensions when I get them back. How I wash my hair extensions, I just wash Them one time really good, get it suds up, get all that product off of there. And then I do condition them. Sometimes I'll put like a hair mask on them and let it sit a little bit. Then I rinse everything out and I like to let them air dry. If I need them for a client within that weekend, I will go through and blow dry them, but it just takes so much longer. The thing about extensions is they really hold in that moisture of the water. So it takes a long time for them to air dry. So you want to give yourself at least two full days to let them air dry. If you or you can let them air dry overnight night and take a blow dryer through them the next day. And then voila, we have perfect extensions. Next, how to price out your hair extension rentals. This is entirely up to you. This is just a guideline. So please just use this as a guideline. This is what I like to do. However, this is your business. You can always do what you want. So the guideline that you can use for the hair extensions is personally I wouldn't charge the exact amount of what the hair extensions were to buy because your client is seeing this as a cost effective, budget friendly option and they are technically used. Even though they they are clean and sanitary, they are renting it, such as clothing brands that offer the rent options for dresses and things like that. When you are renting something, you want to give it at a bit of a discount. So let's say you buy the hair extensions for $150. You want to mark it down 20 to 30% of that price and that's what you can charge. So again, for example, you bought the hair extensions for $150. Let's say you want to do 20% off of that. That's going to be $120. So that's what you can charge for that extension set. Starting out I charged 129 to include the mail package cost for these. Once you start investing in better quality hair and the more luxurious brands like a Bellamy and Alexi, then you can charge more for your hair extension rentals because those are about three to four hundred dollars for a set. Okay, now let's talk about should I offer them for brides only or should I offer them for the bridal party as well? Short answer, for me personally, I only offer them to my brides because logistically it didn't make sense when I thought it through to offer them for bridal parties. Let me explain, when you're offering it to More people like bridal parties, or if you have a team and you're offering it for them as well, that is more investment upfront for you. So when I'm offering it to bridal only, I can get away to only having about eight sets of hair extensions to rent out, versus if I'm doing it for a bridal party, I'm probably going to want to double or triple that because bridal parties in my area are large in a charge, and we got about really a minimum of like, seven guests, and it goes all the way up to like, 15. Now, not everybody is going to realistically want to rent extensions. However, let's imagine three of those girls do a wedding the next day. Four of those girls want to run hair extensions. You're going to want to make sure that you have a lot of multiple sets in different shades to be able to accommodate that. So let's say one set is costing you $200, and you want to have 16 sets to be able to do it for a bridal party. That's going to be an investment, about $3,200. But I do that down the line. Could you do that when you're scaling? Absolutely. It's a great way to add extra cash flow into your business. That's practically all profit. However, personally, I just offer it for my brides again, because I can get away for having less sets of and it's less maintenance for me. So if you're offering it for the bridal party, when you get all of those back, your laundry day is going to be wild. So I feel that brides are a little bit more invested with you, so they're a little bit more invested in the hair care of the actual extensions themselves. Versus a bridesmaid is just like, I'm in this wedding. I really want my hair to look bomb, and she might not be as invested. Now, that's just my personal take again, maybe they could be really invested. I've never done it. Okay, now let's say you're somebody who has a team and you're like, oh, I want to start offering this for my team members for their bride. I've also thought this through a little bit, and logistically, I'm not quite sure this can make sense. Would be a lot of responsibility for that specific team member. I would make sure that they would be responsible for coming to the studio and picking up those extensions to bring to the wedding to style for that bride, and they would be responsible for the maintenance of it, such as washing and things like that. Personally, I would make sure that my team was comfortable with that maintenance and responsibility to do that for their clients. And again, if you are offering it for more people than just your own bride, say for a team, you're going to want to make sure that you have multiple sets and shades on hand. Probably like 16 plus to be able to offer and rent out to their brides as well, depending on how large your team is. All right, so let's say that I did want to offer it to bridal parties and let's say I did want to expand my service offering menu, still keeping it within bridal hair, but I just wanted to add something on more. So that way I get my packages up and just start getting more profit. So I start offering hair extension to bridal parties and brides. Here's how I would do it. What I would do is bring everything on set. I would probably have specific suitcase and a specific setup that had just hair extension I was setting up. I would probably probably lay out those hair extensions and make sure that they're visible for clients. I would probably also get like a little acrylic plate that said hair extension rentals with the cost information. So that way when the bridal party comes in, they can visibly see what I have to offer versus having to explain it. What I would do is probably have eight total sets in four to five different shades to have two highlighted blonde, two blonde polyge brown and two dark brown. So a total of eight sets. I would have a packet of the printed hair extension rental agreements and have them ready for them sign. I would 3,000% make them put a card on file and state verbally to them. If the extensions aren't returned within three days, this card on file is going to be charged the full amount for the hair extension. I'd also bring a box of the mail packages so that they're able to return the extensions to me. And the way that I take payment would probably be through Venmo. Once all that was said and done, then I would style their hair with the hair extension rentals. So that is the business model I would use if I wanted to offer the hair extension rentals to bridal part. After offering hair extension rentals for over two years, I have some tips and and organizational things that I need to share with you. When you have multiple brides running extensions, want to make sure that you're tracking the extensions that you have rented out and you want to make sure that you have some kind of visual wherever you keep in your notes or your calendar. So that way you remember, oh, this bride rented extensions. I need to bring those. I wish I could lie and say to you that it's never happened where in the morning of somebody's wedding I need to come and stop at my studio because I forgot to pack my hair extensions. However, it has happened that one. So I don't want that to happen to you. So what I started doing is immediately after my client's trial. I use my bridal dashboard where I host all of my clients notes. And in those notes the first line is what's going to show up? So what I did was I put a star emoji and with that star emoji, that signals to me this bride is either getting hair extension rentals, I'm staying for touch ups, or she's getting a second reception style. I need that visual trigger. Otherwise sometimes I we have a lot going on. We're business women, okay? I also wish I could tell you that starting out with hair extension rentals, there was never a time where I forgot to charge my bride for those rentals. It's happened more than once. So what I used to do was at their hair preview, we style this banging glam wave and I use the hair extension rentals and then I say these deadly words, okay, if you love these hair extension rentals, you just email me and let me know if you want them. What this led to was them emailing me like a week before or sometimes even the night before saying, oh yes, I would like to do those hair extension rentals. And then I totally slit my brain to add it onto their invoice or they've already paid their invoice. So instead what I do is I make them make that decision before they leave for their hair preview. I say to them, if you love these hair extensions, do you want to add them onto your invoice? If they're like, oh, I don't know, I'll say, okay, well, do you want your glam waves to look exactly like this? On your wedding day, you're going to want to make sure that you get extensions. So you can either purchase them or you can rent them from me. If you feel like you want to use hair extensions for other events, such as your honeymoon, rehearsal dinner, bridal shower, suggest purchasing them and I can send you the hair shades that we use at today's trial and I can send you the website or if you just wanted to wear them for your wedding day, I would definitely recommend running them from and that will usually get them to make the decision. That way, immediately after, when I'm typing in my hair notes from their preview. I'm able to have it top of mind for myself and add onto their invoice so that way I don't lose any sales. I really wish I could tell you that never happened to me, but it did something else. After trials when I did use hair extension rentals, in their notes, I write down the shade that I use and the placement that I use use. This is going to be really important for me. So that way I remember the placement that I use when I go to style her on the wedding day. Also know when it makes sense for your client to do extension rentals. I previously touched on it. So when it makes sense for a client to do a rental versus purchasing. So if they want to wear extensions for the rehearsal dinner, maybe they want to do a voluminous ponytail or they want to whip their hair back and forth on their honeymoon, they're going to want extensions. So that's when I would recommend purchasing them. So what I'll do is I'll set them up with hair extensions to buy on Bellamy or Luxie Versus if they just want hair for their wedding day, then I always say I would recommend the rent. I never want to feel like I'm forcing a sale on my client and I really just want to do what's in their best interest. When I tell my clients to go for a Bellamy versus a Luxie, Luxie has really amazing redhead shades. They also have really nice highlighted options. Bellamy has really good colors, but they're better with ombres and more like balayage sets versus Luxie has beautiful highlighted options, more shade, variety. But the number one thing I love about Bellamy is that they have the most grams of hair. Like we're talking goes up to like 200, 150 plus. All right, so now you might be wondering, okay, I want to do this. How do I let my clients know about it? Do I just go on Instagram and make a post? Let's hold up quick. I might not do that just yet. Because what if you get multiple brides saying they want to do that, but you don't even have the hair extensions yet? So what I did was I mentioned it to them when I was scheduling their hair preview. So when we were scheduling their hair preview, I would say, hey, I'm offering this new service. I have hair extensions that we can use at your bridal hair preview. And if you love them, you can rent them for your hair style for your wedding day. Let me know if that's something you're interested in. And then I would have them send me pictures of their hair so that way I can match them up and buy that shade. And I would have them send me pictures of the hairstyle that they were thinking of. I didn't market it at big scale at first, only because I didn't have any shades and I wanted to keep it limited. Once I saw there was a little bit of a demand for it from my brides, that's when I started marketing it, and that's when I put it into my website and things like that. So once you see that there is demand and you're able to get the investment in the hair, then I would start putting it on Instagram. Okay, let me help get you set up with some hair extension accessories that I love. So for traveling with your hair extensions, you're going to want a bag to put them in. And also when they're returning them back to you, you want to have something that they can put their hair extensions in. So I love these bags. You can get them in different colors. This is the black one. They also have a pink one on Amazon, and I have them linked down below as well as in my Amazon storefront. They're really nice. They're actually pretty big and they have this little hole up at the top. So that way you can use a hanger and put the hanger up there so you can actually hang them up. But I love these to keep my extensions nice and clean. Another thing I love are these hangers. These are actually clothing hangers for pants, but they work really nice. Our hair extensions. So you just open them up and you slide the hair in there, and then you can hang them up and then you can slide it through underneath here and then you can hang them up with the bag. Some of these bags actually do come with hangers as well. I bought these in a pack of like 20, so that way I can hang them up in my studio. And speaking of these, let me show you these racks because I love. So I wanted a way to display my hair extensions, my hair trials, and we want it aesthetic and functional. So what I was seeing was like those iron ones that were gold, like clothing racks. But these ones are actually really cool because they slide off the wall. It can slide onto the side and they actually hold a lot more hair extensions. So I'm able to fit about six hangers onto one. I have them linked down below for you. Another accessory you can use for hair washing for your extensions is this hanger that actually holds the extension you can set it up on anything. And then you put the extensions in there, so if you need to blow dry them, it makes it so much easier. Happy hair extension building. I'll see you guys in the next one.