Nothing is ordered, booked or paid for until after this appointment
Foster & Length Studio is a private hair extension studio in Lake Country, BC, working with women across the Okanagan. Three things happen in this one appointment, and you leave with a method, a colour and a firm price.
New client consultation
It starts before you arrive. A digital intake form comes to you once the appointment is booked, covering hair history, anything going on with your scalp, what you have worn before and how it went, and the maintenance schedule in writing so nothing about it arrives as news later. Ten to fifteen minutes, at home, whenever suits you.
It asks two things people never expect. Whether you work out most days, and whether you wear your hair up in a high ponytail. Both change where rows can sit, and both are far easier to plan around before the hair is on your head than afterwards.
In the studio, three things get assessed by hand.
| What is assessed | What it decides |
|---|---|
| Density and texture | Which methods are open to you, and how many grams of hair you actually need |
| Scalp condition | Where rows can sit, including tension spots and anything that would make a bead or a bond a bad idea |
| Elasticity | Whether your hair is strong enough to carry the weight at the moment |
The elasticity test is the one most people have never had done. A few strands are drawn gently to see how they behave under tension, and it is the one that occasionally ends with a recommendation to wait. That answer is available here, which is the entire reason this appointment comes first.
What to bring: your hair down and unwashed-ish, so it behaves the way it normally does. Photos if you have them, including ones you disliked, which are usually more useful than the ones you liked.
Colour matching & hair selection
Same appointment, once the method is settled. Your hair is matched against a colour ring, and it is never matched to a single shade. At least two or three tones get blended, because one flat colour is the thing that makes extensions obvious in daylight. Real hair is not one colour and matched hair should not be either.
Hair selection is the other half of it: not just the shade but the length, the weight and how many grams your assessment actually calls for. This is where the quantity is decided, and quantity is the largest single thing that moves what you pay.
If your own colour needs to move before anything can be matched to it, that is a separate appointment that happens before install day rather than being squeezed into it. It gets identified here.
Method recommendation
Four methods are fitted at this studio and the recommendation comes out of your assessment rather than out of a preference. Most people arrive having read about one method and leave with a different one, which is not a sales tactic. It is what happens when someone looks at the hair first.
You get told what was ruled out and why, not only what was chosen. That matters more than it sounds: if a method was ruled out because of where your density sits, that is a fact about your hair you can carry to any studio, including a different one.
And occasionally the recommendation is to wait. Extensions are not right for every head of hair at every moment, and a studio that never says so is a studio that has never turned down an install.
You leave this appointment with the method, the colour, a firm price for the install, and an honest estimate of what upkeep will cost you across a year. Not a starting-from figure.
Before you book it
There is no deposit and no commitment at first contact. Requesting a callback costs nothing, and I will tell you on the phone whether an audit is even worth your time yet.
- Work through the twelve things that decide the method beforehand, and the appointment gets shorter and more useful
- See what the studio days themselves are like, from arriving to leaving
- See what everything costs
Everything gets decided here, and nothing before it
Leave your number and I will call you back to arrange it.