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Ask anyone who knows hair and they will tell you that Kacey Welch is the best of the best when it comes to hair extensions.
Her uber-successful Kacey Welch Method, which combines a tailored technique and unrivaled silk wefts, has been rocked in the locks of LeeAnn Rimes, Tori Spelling, Jennie Garth, and Erin Andrews.
“Kacey is the celebrity go-to for extensions, and that is something not taken lightly,” says Andrew Pentecost, co-owner of Bea Rose Salon in The Nations. “Expectations at that level are high, and she created a product and method to meet those demands. And who wouldn’t want a celebrity-quality experience?”
Welch, who lives in Los Angeles but travels around the country to teach her techniques to certified artists, was a 25-year-old assistant in an A-List salon (surrounded by the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Reese Witherspoon) when she began to learn the art of hair extensions.
“No one else on the floor was doing it, so I took courses,” she says. “I learned how to do individual and tape-in extensions, but no matter how perfectly I did them I was always seeing damage to people’s hair. That was heartbreaking for me.”
Welch, who was dating an African American man at the time, took note of his daughters’ hair.
“They were going and getting these really incredible weaves, so I knew there was a better way to sew in hair because I’d seen it in the African American community,” she says. “I kept thinking there had to be a way to bring that to [my clientele].”
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Inspired by what she was seeing, Welch began to perfect her sewing techniques, toying with new ways to make extensions look natural and to keep them from damaging the hair they were being sewn into.
“I developed this way of making [the extensions] super flat and seamless,” she says. “I wanted something really flat and really comfortable.” She says the hardest part of the process was finding the silk wefts.
“The method came first and the silk wefts came after. They were designed to go in perfect tandem with the method,” she says. “I wanted something comfortable and something where the colors were really blended and balayaged and natural-looking.”
Pentecost says that mane mission was accomplished.
“The silk wefts Kacey designed for the method go hand in hand for the best extension experience,” he says. “They are virtually undetectable, create the least amount of tension [on the hair], and are completely chemical free.”
Two years ago, she realized her work was being noticed nationwide when a stylist in Wisconsin reached out to see if she could learn the method. Welch traveled to the salon for what would be her first of many classes. Now, there are 250 Kacey Welch Method certified artists around the country (and growing), including Nashville, where Welch taught her largest class to date—at Bea Rose Salon. For Welch, it all goes back to her original goal: to make women feel good about their hair and to feel comfortable in their extensions.
“For a long time there was a stigma around hair extensions. Women didn’t want to admit they had them. I wanted to create something that didn’t have a stigma,” she says. “I consider myself a designer or an artist. I didn’t invent hair extensions, but I took them and created a brand and my own way of doing it.”