by Sam Faiers
And no matter what is promised, extensions are always going to be bad for your hair in one way or another. After I’d had the micro rings in for eight weeks, I could see that my hair was thinner and weaker. It’s inevitable. So although it looks really good, do be aware that you are getting yourself into a cycle – the more you wear extensions, the more you need to keep wearing them. I’m not saying don’t do it, as they can look great – just keep in mind that you might be doing damage in the long run.
After the micro rings, I used Hair Rehab London clip-ins. They are Lauren Pope’s range and I love them. They are made from really thick, good-quality real hair, and are so simple to use. As the name implies, you just clip them onto your own hair in sections, wherever you want your hair to look thicker. Lauren has quite thin hair herself and has been trying out various extensions for years, and she has worked in modelling so she really knows what works and what doesn’t.
She got her hair-range business up and running through a show called Tycoon a few years ago, where she was mentored by Peter Jones from Dragons’ Den, which was great. Lauren is like me in that she has a good business mind and wants to do things outside of TOWIE. She is independent and wants to make money.
Like many beauty things though, extensions can get quite addictive. I used to put the clip-ins on just for special occasions or big nights out, then it got more and more often, then before I knew it I wouldn’t even leave the house to have lunch with my friends without them. I only stopped using them as much when I went back to blonde this last time. At the moment, I am not using any extensions except for on really special occasions – I just do a lot of back-combing and use a lot of hairspray! I cut my hair into a bob earlier this year, as it had become so damaged from all the extensions, and I thought it was time to start again. And it worked! The hair that was left felt thicker and healthier, and it’s easier to style.
I have also got more into wearing my hair up. The only problem is, I am not very good at doing it myself, so I tend to go to the salon. I like to have it quite tousled-looking, in a messy bun with a sweeping fringe. It’s good to change your look sometimes – when celebrities rock the same hairstyles all the time, it can get a bit boring. I always think there is no excuse for a celeb to have bad hair, as looking good is half their job! Someone like Britney Spears, I can never understand. All that money, and yet her hair looks so dry and dead, and when she has extensions they look so badly done.
I also love my wigs – I have a right little collection going now, in different colours and styles. It’s a good way of experimenting without having to do anything drastic to your own hair. I think they are really fun to wear, and can make an outfit. I’ll leap on any excuse to get them out, like when we went to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert at the theatre. That was the perfect chance to get my pink bob going on!
Colour is a funny one for me. My natural colour is a kind of golden-brown, somewhere between brown and blonde, which is why my skin tone works with both shades, as do my eyebrows, which are also kind of in-between.
I didn’t actually dye my hair much as a teenager – although as we were abroad so often, the sun would bleach it, so I looked like I had highlights long before I actually did.
In fact the first time I tried dyeing hair, it wasn’t my own! My friend at school, Sarah, became my hair guinea pig, poor girl. I used to dye and cut her hair all the time, but we never did mine, so she ended up with all these awful hairstyles, while I got to try out what I wanted but still kept my own long hair!
It was only when I was 16 that Mum let me get highlights for the first time. She was quite strict about those kinds of things. I remember wanting to get my ears pierced ever since I was little, but she made me wait until I was ten years old for that, and she was the same about my hair – she had a set age in her mind that I had to be before I could start messing around with it too much.
I have also tried dyeing my hair red – I did that for my 18th birthday – but it didn’t stay like that for long, as it was too hard to keep up. In fact I always seem to end up back at blonde.
I was blonde when I was doing modelling, and I was blonde when I started on TOWIE – I guess it is the colour I am most comfortable with. I am not a fan of bleach, or block colour, so I tend to have two or three different tones put through my hair at the same time, to give a more natural blonde look.
But when series three started, I decided I wanted a change. I guess I was thinking that I was single, it was a new series, and I wanted a new beginning. So I went dark. Not like gothblack or anything, just a nice chocolate-brown. I really liked it when I came out of the salon, and everyone kept telling me how much they loved it. It was really shiny, and looked exactly as I had hoped it would. I remember going on Celebrity Juice with Keith Lemon – which, by the way, was really good fun, although I was terrified! – and, looking back at that, I think my hair looked really good.
But then I decided to go a bit darker, and rather than going to the salon, I did it myself at home from a box. That wasn’t so good, and it seemed to look even worse on TV. When the first episode of me with dark hair was aired, feedback on my looks became suddenly more, well, negative! Some people were still nice of course, but a lot of people were saying they preferred the blonde. And I could see where they were coming from. It was still bright and shiny in real life, but it looked really harsh against my skin tone on screen, and somehow the colour looked duller. I remember watching the beginning of the first episode, when Billie and I were in a bar together. Next to her bubbly blonde self, I just kind of disappeared. And that is not me! I am not a shy, hideaway girl.
So after seeing how it looked on screen for myself, I decided I really was a blonde at heart, and it was time to go back. I introduced the blonde gradually, over a couple of sessions in the salon, and I am more of a dark-gold blonde this time.
I don’t think Star magazine were very pleased when I went back to blonde though – they had just got me and my dark hair into the studio the week before to do a whole new set of pictures to go at the top of my column. Oops, sorry about that!
I think I will stay like this now – and before you ask, yes, I do think blondes have more fun!
I tend to get my roots done every five weeks. A girl called Polly comes to my house and does the highlights, and then puts toner on it to stop them being too bright. It’s great, as she is happy to come round any time, so it fits with my lifestyle – which doesn’t exactly allow for routine. But while I am fussy about the colour, I am not too worried about the cut and am happy to let one of my friends cut it when I don’t want to go to the salon. That’s probably because I have never really had any hair nightmares. Like I’ve never been to the salon and come out with green hair or anything! I do remember once getting really upset because I asked for an inch off, and they took off three inches, but that is it. It grew back in a few weeks anyway.
I like having long hair, and it is my plan to grown it back – the bob is not here to stay! I had a bob with a fringe as a toddler too. After I started school, I just let it grow and grow, and by the time I left it was down to my waist. It was only when I was 18 that I cut it to the length it was until the start of this year. One of the reasons I like it long is that, as I mentioned earlier, I hate my ears. Honestly, they are really big! So I always try to cover the tips to make them look smaller. You are never going to see me with one of those little pixie haircuts or whatever. Can you imagine?
How to Get Perfect Big Hair Without Extension
When I want my hair to look as natural as possible, this is how I get that big-hair effect.
• I put thickening or volume mousse in my hair, and brush it through with a big, round brush.
• Then I set my hair in rollers – I use five or six of them, and spread them out over my head. Heated rollers work best for me, but there are many different kinds – Jess Wright prefers the Velcro ones, for example. It’s a question of trial and error to see what works best for you.
• After the rollers are in, I us
e a lot of hairspray – probably about half a can – and then leave it for an hour.
• After I take the rollers out, I run a wide-toothed comb through it. Some people get really curly hair at this point, but for me, because of the type of hair I have, the curls drop and it is more wavy.
• Then I part my hair at different points, sprinkle on some talc and rub it in. This helps give hair more volume, but make sure you only apply it at the roots.
• If I want really good volume, I backcomb my hair. Some people do this all over, but I think that is a bit much, so again I only do it at the roots, to give my hair more lift.
• Then I add a bit more hairspray, and I’m all done. If you have followed this routine exactly, I promise you it won’t go limp within half an hour, but will really stay big and full of volume for the night.
• As with all these beauty treatments, if you have a big night out coming up and you can afford it, go to the salon! Most of the time, you won’t be able to do it as well as the professionals.
Choosing the Right Hair Extensions
There is such a huge choice of hair extensions that choosing what to go for can be a pretty hard decision! But there are a few things you need to take into consideration.
The obvious one is whether you want them in for the long term, until you have them professionally removed or replaced, or if you just want them for a short while, to make a particular style look good for the night.
Then there is price. Fixed extensions cost more than clip-ins, and obviously the better quality the hair, the more it will cost. It’s definitely worth forking out a bit, or you can end up with an irritated scalp, or hair that just doesn’t look real.
If you are going for permanent extensions, really research the stylist – and where possible I would go for someone who specialises in extensions, rather than a hairdresser who just happens to do them on the side.
If you are buying clip-ins, spend a lot of time matching the colour to your own. A good shop will let you try them on, and a good internet shop will have a returns policy in case they don’t quite match your own colour when you receive them. With clip-ins, people worry about what length to go for. I’d say always go longer than you think you’ll need – you can always cut them once they are in place, just like normal hair. And if you are unsure, pay a hairdresser to put them in the first time and show you how to do it. It will be worth it!
How to Put in Clip-in Hair Extensions
Clip-in hair extensions are the only type you can put in yourself at home, and that’s easy to do – once you know how. Here is my guide.
• Generally you will get six hairpieces – two medium pieces to go at the back of your head near the bottom, two large pieces to go further up your head at the back, and two small pieces to go at the sides.
• Start with your hair washed, combed and down, in the way you want it to sit.
• Part your hair across the bottom at the back using your fingers, just a bit above the bottom of your hairline, and clip in the first medium extension, attaching the clips as close to the scalp as possible. It doesn’t matter if the parting is not perfectly straight – no one will see it.
• Repeat this with the other medium piece, a couple of inches above.
• The next parting should be just above the top of your ears, and the first of the larger extensions can be clipped in here, with the second a couple of inches above.
• The small sections are done in the same way at the side of your head. You can either do one on each side, or if you have a side parting and want one side to be thicker, you can add both to one side.
• Use a large brush with soft bristles to run through your hair afterwards to combine your hair with the extensions and create a natural overall look.
• When you take your extensions out, you need to treat them just as you would your own hair. So they need to be washed, conditioned, combed and dried in the same way.
• You can also curl and style them as you would your own hair – I find it easier to curl them before I put them on my head.
• Store them carefully! Brush them out and put them back in the packet, to keep them clean and dry.
• If you want to watch me explain this technique, there is a video on YouTube of me demonstrating on my own hair – put my name in the search bar and you will find it.
10
MY SISTER BILLIE
No book about me would be complete without a chapter on my sister Billie.
She has really influenced who I am as a person, and is my best friend as well as my sister.
She is only 11 months and 15 days older than me, so even in age we are really close. In fact we were born in the same year – she was born in January 1990, and I was born in December of that year. So we grew up pretty much side by side, and did everything together. We went to the same schools, went on family holidays together, swapped gossip and fashion, and shared the same friends. I don’t think I have met another two sisters who are as close as me and Billie.
We were also both really close to our mum growing up – in fact we are like three sisters, as Mum is so young. We hated to be apart from her when we were younger – Mum says that at one point she couldn’t even go to the toilet without the pair of us appearing in the doorway, demanding to sit on her knee. She’s a very tolerant lady!
We both got our confidence from our mum, I think, as she is a very strong woman. But Billie and I deal with the downsides of life quite differently. She likes to let it all out and talk and rant to people about things. I tend to keep things inside. I rarely cry in front of other people, not even my friends. If I am pissed off or upset, I will keep it to myself and then go off and cry on my own in my room. I keep my emotions hidden pretty deep inside so, for example, I’ll talk openly with my friends about sex and that, but not the emotional side of my relationships. I think everyone saw that side of me when Mark or Joey and I had any conversations on the show that got too serious. I rarely put my feelings out there on show, and it was always me who would cut off the conversation when it got too deep. I am not sure why I do that, but it is me, and it is how I will always be, I think.
Billie always calls me Manf, rather than Samantha or Sam. My Auntie Sam is called Manf for short as well, so we are Big Manf and Little Manf! All our friends have copied Billie and call me that too, but the rest of my family still call me Min – short for Minnie.
When I got onto the show, Billie was 100 per cent happy for me. She thought it was great, and would help me choose my clothes and stuff like that. It really helped that I could talk to Billie about the things that were worrying me when TOWIE started, such as whether the real me was coming across.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved spending loads of time with Amy on series one – like I said before, I think that was the best series for me – but I was seen very much as Amy’s agony aunt, and I wanted the chance to show people what I was really like. So I thought it would be good to have some of my family on the show, so people could see other sides of me. I suggested Billie to the producers and brought her in to meet them, and they really liked her – she is as real as you can get. I really wanted to share the whole experience with her, and it has been great that we have been able to do that.
People always think I am the older sister, or that I am the one in charge, and possibly that’s partly because I was on the show first and was more relaxed in front of the cameras, so I tended to take charge when they were around the two of us together at first. But the reality is that Billie definitely has the more overpowering personality out of the two of us!
She is fierier, and reacts on the spur of the moment, whereas I am softer and more laid-back, maybe too laid-back at times! I just let Billie get on with things. But we agree on most things anyway. For example, if we are deciding what to do with our day, we will always want to do the same things, and will come up with the same plan. The only time I might take the lead is if it’s something to do with being brave. Say we are at a water park and there is a scary ride, Billie
will wait for me to go on it first before she will go for it. I have to lead the way.
She was scared of a lot of things when we were little, like fireworks, and she would cry and climb into bed with me. One time Dad dressed up as Santa at Christmas to surprise us, but Billie was frightened of him and hid in my bed. I had to tell her it was Dad and not to worry!
I am about the only person she doesn’t mind hugging, other than boyfriends. She is not a touchy-feely person – it annoys her – whereas as a kid, I would always want to be hugged.
We have both always been thoughtful about each other, about what would make the other happy. I remember when we were little kids and we’d be given £5 each to spend at the shops. We’d always make a deal that we’d spend it on each other, so we’d go off and come back with sweets and toys for each other.
We have the same humour, although Billie is definitely wittier than me – I’m not a funny person at all, annoyingly! She is also cleverer than me. While I was concentrating on sport at school, and my piano practice, she was good at her studies, especially English. We thought she might go to university, and she did stay on for sixth form, but then she decided to work instead. I think she saw me working and earning money, and realised she wanted to do the same.
Not that she is always sensible with her cash – that role falls to me! I have been saving all the money I’ve been earning from TOWIE and the life that has come with it to buy a house. It is something I have wanted to do for ages, and so I have worked towards that – and I finally got my dream home at the start of the year. It is a three-bedroom house with a garden and a big drive, just five minutes from Mum’s house. It is the perfect place and I hope I am here a long time – maybe I’ll even bring my kids up here!
I hadn’t realised how much work it was to get the place in order though – I hired people to help and all my family chipped in. But it’s been great having my own space, as well as my friends around all the time. Billie always comes over, and she loves the place, but it hasn’t made her want to save for her own. She just spends what she has. Billie is much more someone who lives in the moment. So she is happy to live at Mum and Dad’s for longer, if it means she can enjoy her life.