- Seamless Match: Pick hair extensions that can be heat styled, like the RPZL Human Hair Clip-In Extensions, so they match your own hair’s texture and look more seamless with your own hair.
- Budget-Friendly: For hair extensions that clip in at an affordable cost, try the INH Hair Ponytail Extensions that are lightweight, vegan, and under $60.
- Tons of Shades: We love hair extensions with a wide color selection—Luxy Hair Clip-In Extensions come in 36 shades of black, brown, and blonde.
We don’t have to tell you that a good hair day can turn an average day into an exceptional one. For times when you can’t quite get your hair to reach that gold standard, clip-in hair extensions will instantly give your hair more body, length, or even a brand-new style, like a high ponytail—all from the comfort of your bedroom. Style, reuse, and customize clip-ins to create different looks. And the best part? They last for years before needing to be replaced.
When shopping for hair extensions, you’ll need to consider various hair types, textures, colors, and styles to find your perfect match. We consulted four expert hairstylists and scoured the market before handpicking 21 of the most popular clip-in extensions. Next, we tested 16 for ourselves over four weeks to find the top picks. We incorporated the extensions into our real-world looks at least twice a week and judged each one based on its ease of use and attachment, comfort, shade range, and overall final look.
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What We Love: These extensions are tangle-resistant and feel extra soft.
What We Don’t Love: The clips felt a little uncomfortable after all-day wear.
If you want instant red carpet-level glamour, mega volume, and all-around glossy, expensive-looking hair, these extensions are it. RPZL designs these frizz- and tangle-resistant clip-ins with 100 percent virgin Remy hair (translation: The hair wasn’t dyed before becoming extensions) for a soft, healthier-looking mane. Once we styled our hair in tandem with the extensions—which was extremely easy since the clips fastened sturdily and it was easy to pull a curling iron through them without yanking strands out of place—it became practically impossible to distinguish between the extensions and our natural hair. That said, after a full day of wear, the clips started to feel a little uncomfortable. We also wish the extensions came with an included case to store them when we were ready to remove them.
Type: Virgin Remy hair | Shades: 18 | Length: 16-30 inches | Number of Wefts Included: 7
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What We Love: It’s an easy way to add a little texture to your hair and offers lots of shade options.
What We Don’t Love: It can start to feel quite heavy after some time.
This wavy clip-in ponytail was an easy, affordable way to achieve a stylish look in five seconds flat. We simply slicked back our hair, inserted the comb at the base of the ponytail, wrapped the Velcro around it, and, presto, our hair was transformed without ever needing to touch a curling iron. Despite its wavy texture, the ponytail is super versatile as it comes in dozens of shade options and looks great on various hair types, including those of us with pin-straight locks. It’s also surprisingly soft for faux hair.
While the 26-inch ponytail definitely makes for an eye-catching statement, all that gorgeous length comes with weight and we felt it begin to tug a little after a few hours of wear. When you’re done using it, you can safely store it in the provided pouch to use again another time. Just know that since these extensions are pre-styled, you shouldn’t use hot tools on them.
Type: Infini-flex vegan hair | Shades: 32 | Length: 26 inches | Number of Wefts Included: 6
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What We Love: The hair feels extremely silky and smooth and comes in 36 shades.
What We Don’t Love: Redheads may have a difficult time finding the right shade.
With 36 shades, Luxy offers the widest range and most color options from all the brands we tried. Although we would’ve loved a few more options for our redheaded friends (we never did find an exact match for this hue), its expansive lines of blondes, browns, and blacks are impressive. Plus, the Remy hair is velvety smooth and doesn’t tangle or become stringy easily, meaning the final result looked glamorous each time. With this set, you’ll get nine pieces of hair, separated into four attachments in various sizes and widths. You won’t have any trouble sectioning them into their respective spots to make the overall look smooth and consistent. Once in, the hair feels natural and weightless, letting you enjoy the look without the tugging or discomfort.
If you like to heat-style your extensions, these clip-ins may not be the best choice—they can lose their texture once you apply heat.
Type: Remy hair | Shades: 36 | Length: 16-24 inches | Number of Wefts Included: 10
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What We Love: They’re easily customizable and can accentuate your hair’s natural definition while offering fullness too.
What We Don’t Love: There are only two color options.
As its name suggests, ONYC designed the Kinky 3B–3C Curl 7 Piece Clip In set specifically for those creating styles with natural hair texture, as the extensions identically mimic a 3B-3C hair type. With the generous set of seven clip-ins, there are only two colors to choose from. But we found that although our hair was a little darker than the shade we chose, the virgin kinky curly blend of human hair looked totally natural and matched our coily texture to a T. Especially once we applied a little mousse, the extensions accentuated our hair’s natural definition and provided fullness, but thanks to the different weft lengths you can also easily style it in dozens of different ways.
Type: Virgin kinky curly human hair | Shades: 2 | Length: 12-20 inches | Number of Wefts Included: 7
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What We Love: They’re very easy to layer and fasten, and the base can’t be seen from the outside.
What We Don’t Love: The ends can get a little stringy.
The Bebonia spiral curls come in a wide range of sizes, making them easy to layer around our heads and amp up the fullness of our hair in a snap. Due to the tight curly texture of the set, they’re especially great for 2C and 3A hair types that need a little extra boost. However, between the two thickness options available, finer hair types will benefit most from the 110 g, and denser ones should stick with 220 g, as it has more hair per weft and three more wefts total.
Clipping in the set was extremely easy and painless. Once they were set, we wore the extensions comfortably all day without experiencing any pulling, tugging, or digging into our scalps. More than that, the 100 percent Remy human hair made them extremely soft and natural looking, although the one downside to this material is that it became a bit stringy near our ends. We also love that you can style these extensions, though it’s always best to use low heat to avoid damaging the curl pattern.
Type: Remy human hair | Shades: 12 | Length: 16-22 inches | Number of Wefts Included: 6
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What We Love: The quality of the hair and the curl’s strong hold blew us away.
What We Don’t Love: The color options for darker hair are limited and might not work well for people with very coily textures.
Two features about the Bebonia Ringlet clip-in extensions make them particularly suited for curly-hair types: The two thickness options and the strong hold of the curl, which didn’t soften or relax despite our repeated usage. Although the extensions are styled in tight ringlets, you can also soften them into a looser curl with some coaxing—just coat the strands with a styling product and start brushing until you get the curl pattern you want. In fact, despite their tighter texture, we found they blended in best with the wavier curls that define 3A to 3B hair, rather than the more S-shaped and zigzag patterns of 3C to 4A hair types. Still, the lightweight, ultra-soft extensions boast an excellent quality that looks and feels amazing on anyone’s head.
Type: Remy human hair | Shades: 7 | Length: 16-22 inches | Number of Wefts Included: 6
Our Testing Process
The InStyle team gathered popular hair extensions to test. We wore the extensions at least twice per week for four weeks, noting comfort, overall look, texture, and density, shade range, and how well the hair held up.
What to Keep in Mind
- Material: Hair extensions can come in two forms: Natural human hair (called Remy hair) or synthetic. Natural hair extensions are often preferred since they look and feel like real hair, retain their structure and shape for about a year, and can be washed and reused. As celebrity hairstylist Dimitris Giannetos explains, “You can do anything you want to them and re-create any hairstyle you love since they are made out of real human hair.” While synthetic hair is more affordable, it only lasts about four to six months, and you can’t use heat to style it. But the lower price point allows you to purchase more extensions and rotate through a wider range of looks.
- Hair Color and Texture: Since all hair types have slight variations in texture and color already, don’t fret if the extensions don’t match your hair color perfectly. Adding extensions simply accentuates this feature, says Giannetos. He uses either highlighted colors or two different colors because “all hair has a natural dimension. Translation: Highlighted extensions “blend better with your own hair,” he says. Celebrity hairstylist Priscilla Valles also suggests matching at your ends rather than your roots. “You usually want extensions for length or thickness because that is where they extend from, and that’s where the blending occurs,” she says.
- Weft: Hair wefts refer to the number of hair strips found on the extensions. Depending on how many wefts there are, you can customize and alter your hairstyle and get as natural or as volumized as you wish. Some extensions feature a single large hair weft that can be clipped onto your existing ponytail. Others may come with as many as nine wefts, sectioned off into different lengths and thicknesses, awarding you a little flexibility on how you structure your hair extensions.
Your Questions, Answered
How do you put in clip-in hair extensions?
Take it from us, inserting clip-ins is much easier than you might expect, even for beginners. Hairstylist Cheyanne Clark explains that you want to start from your nape up (usually a two-clip). “After the nape, you would be following with a clip-in that covers most of your occipital bone horizontally and usually reaches near the temple (usually a four-clip or five-clip),” she says.
Follow this process upward, and add or leave out as many wefts as you want to achieve the fullness you want. Celebrity hairstylist Ne’Kea Thomas also suggests using dry shampoo at the root, teasing or back-combing once or twice, and spraying the tease before inserting the clip to get a nice lift at the root.
How long do clip-in extensions last?
This truly depends on how often you use them and how well you care for them. Giannetos estimates that they can last anywhere from 12 to 18 months. To increase their lifespan, Valles recommends brushing them after every use from root to end and storing them in a silk or Ziplock bag.
Do clip-in extensions damage hair?
Clip-in extensions are one of the least damaging styling options for your hair. While traditional extensions can pull and rip at your hair, clip-ins are largely harmless. However, “if your hair is very fine, I find it helps to replace the big clips with smaller ones so they’re more gentle and tug the hair less,” says Giannetos.
How do you wash clip-in extensions?
If you want your clip-in extensions to last and remain in good shape, you must wash them regularly. “I recommend washing at least once a month to avoid damaging the hair,” says Giannetos, who adds, “Especially if you’re using hot tools often, product buildup could cause the hair to burn or split.” Valles also agrees, “Wash them after four uses, condition them, and use a hair mask on them and blow them dry.” Taking proper care of your extensions keeps them tangle-free and extends their lifespan.
If you are working with Remy human hair, you can wash your extensions with the same products as you do your natural hair. However, in terms of technique, Clark recommends “lining them up one behind the other and attaching a claw clip to the base of the extension (where the clips are placed).” Next, you’ll want to hold onto the clip and wash it thoroughly. “Comb through with your fingers, rather than roughly rubbing them together.” Additionally, Thomas says you should brush them habitually to avoid messy tangles.
Can you sleep with clip-in extensions?
Always remove extensions before heading off to dreamland for long-lasting clip-ins and a healthy scalp, says Valles, who explains, “Sleeping with clip-ins could irritate the scalp.” And, he adds that leaving extensions in overnight will cause them to deteriorate quickly, as the hair gets rubbed and tugged throughout the night.
Why Shop With Us
Bianca Kratky is a former writer at InStyle, with two years of experience covering fashion, beauty, and lifestyle products.
The following experts spoke to InStyle for this story:
- Cheyanne Clark is a hairstylist and the founder of The Salon by Brsh.
- Priscilla Valles is a celebrity extensionist and hairstylist.
- Ne’Kea Thomas is a celebrity hairstylist.
- Dimitris Giannetos is a celebrity hairstylist.
