 Hey guys, it's Monica. I wasn't planning on doing a video. I certainly wasn't planning on being a t-shirt and not, you know, all fixed up. I do have some makeup on, thank goodness, but I was getting ready to actually do something to one of my toppers and it got me thinking, can we thinking about how disappointing it can be when you open that box and you go, what did I do? It's like devastating. So if you're interested in some topper talk, stay tuned and if not, watch maybe a minute of it just so YouTube thinks you were paying attention and come back in my next video. So first off, I was getting ready to, I was gonna curl one of my toppers and I thought about how when I opened up the box on my toppers, when I buy them, how totally disappointed I usually am in them and how I'm like, I just don't believe I wasted my money. And I think about like, I'm never gonna make this work. It isn't going to be a good thing for me. And I thought it might be worth sharing some of that with you. So I have two toppers, right, that I wear an awful lot. This very first one that I'm going to share with you. This is a John Reneau and this is the easy part eight. This is probably the topper I've worn the most. However, when I got this topper, I looked at it and I was like so bummed out. It was like so silky. It was so much longer. It shined like crazy. I said, I'm never going to be able to make this work in my hair is never going to be able to get this to blend in my hair. And and I like, I just put it in the box for a while and I kept shopping for toppers. But then I pulled it out and I decided I got myself some really good shares. I got some thinning shares. I got some hair cutting shares. I just got these off of the Amazon. You can get good scissors anywhere but for hair. I didn't want to use regular scissors and I said, I'm going to start to thin this. So and that's what I did. I started to thin out some of the fibers, not a whole lot, but a little bit at a time. You can see I'm still pulling fibers out a little bit at a time. And then I started to twist it and trim it. If you if you're halfway comfortable cutting a topper, go for it. If you are not, bring it to your stylist. But I took this topper and then I still then it was still too shiny, you know. So I sprayed it with a little bit of dry shampoo and then I sprayed it with a ton of sea salt spray. I love this stuff because I wanted it to have texture and then I still wasn't happy with it. Then I put big Velcro rollers in it and I used a low heat on my hairdryer and I kind of blew it on the heat on the Velcro and then I let this sit with the Velcro curlers in it for probably a few days, right? You want to if you're going to be using any kind of heat on any kind of alternate hair, you want to make sure that if you're putting a curl in, you let that curl cool. It has to cool into shape, so to speak. So you're setting it with some heat and then it has to stay in that form. So I find the best way to do that is with the Velcro roller. Now you can do that. You can use a curling iron, curl the piece that you want and then put the Velcro roller in and let it cool that way or you can do some sort of a spray and then you can just simply put the Velcro rollers in and do the hairdryer. But just be really careful on the amount of heat you use. So I want to show you because I have this exact same topper that I just showed you and this is my backup. This is the exact same topper. This is the John Rineau. I'll show you the inside of both so you can see. Oops. Now the one that I've been wearing is shorter. You can see I've cut it significantly. I don't know if you can tell. This is the one I'm wearing and I've thinned it out. You may not be able to see that and I've also texturized it and I put heat waves in it with the Velcro curlers. This one, unaltered, brand new, although I've had it about eight months, it's just a backup. I've done nothing. I've not sprayed it. I've not trimmed it. I've done nothing. It's just been in the box. I love the lace. I love not the lace. I'm sorry. I love the monofilament lace top that you have here. I just think it gives you such a great illusion of scalp. So this has been one of my all-time favorites. I bought both of these. I think the second one I bought, and the reason I probably bought it other than wanting a backup, is that it was on clearance. And I think it was probably on clearance. I mean, you have all sorts of different shopping options now, which is really amazing, right? You don't have to just rely on looking at a catalog, you or a website. You can actually go on YouTube. You can see reviewers and stuff like that. There are all sorts of different options now for buying. And if you cruise the clearance department, you'd be amazed at what you can get. I don't remember what it paid for this, but I'm pretty sure it was on clearance. All right, Wix Studio One, and it was one of those weekends where they had an additional amount off on the clearance items. I got this, I want to say it was like maybe 60 bucks. I don't really remember. It was very, very, very cheap. Paid more for my original one than I did my backup. But that's how much I really like this. So this particular style is probably my second favorite. Now, the next one I bought, and like I said, I spent a lot of money on toppers. I bought toppers all but one, have been, all but two have been purchased by me. And the two that were not, one was a Uniwag topper, and the other one was a Raquel Welch chameleon that was sent to me. And I love it. Is it chameleon? Is that how you pronounce it? Anyways, this one I bought, this is the Easy Fringe. 12 inch, heat defiant, shade of praline, John Minotopper. And I thought this would be perfect. But when I opened it, I almost cried. It, a fringe, I expected just a little fringe in the front. I didn't expect all of this volume. And I have not altered it yet at all, meaning there's no spray. There's, I didn't cut it. I didn't thin it. I didn't do anything. I love the Monotop. The clips are on the side, which I like. I hate when you have a clip right in the middle. My Raquel Welch has a clip near the front. I keep thinking I'm gonna move it. And then you have the clip on the sides. This is really nice, but it needs a lot of help. So when I first opened this and looked at it, I was like, oh my gosh. So what I do when I get a topper, and I'm not too sure if I'm gonna keep it, or I'm not too sure how I'm gonna handle it, I just put it back in the box and I think about it for a while, right? I think about it and I don't wanna react because I know that sometimes that first impression, even a wig, you get a wig and you look at it and you go, oh my gosh. So anyways, this one I bought from hairdo bangs. This I thought would be an option that would be perfect for someone that wants just a little bit of a bang. And that's actually what it is. So this is the front, where the bang is, which you can trim and then you have a little bit of hair on the side. So this would say clip in, and then you would be putting your own hair up, or if you had long hair, you just would blend this into your own hair. But I've done nothing with it. It's very shiny. I probably would thin it out a little bit more for me if I was gonna use this. But yeah, I figured with the bangs, that's all it would be. And I was a little bit shocked at the amount of volume it had, even though it was the bangs. So recently I bought two toppers. And to be honest with you, I looked at them both and I said, what have you done? So the first one, the base of this topper is too big for me. But I'm still playing with it. I don't know if I'm gonna keep it or not. This is by hairdo and this is, I believe called their top class. And I have it in the shade buttered toast. So I looked at the pictures of the model wearing this and it didn't quite look this way at all. And I thought, okay, this would just give me a little bit of volume near the top and the front without being overwhelming. But as you can see, I have to do some cutting. And I'm unsure about this because this goes from ear to ear and it's too, it comes down too low for me. So I'm still debating, but I opened it up and I was like, oh my gosh, now I may come back to this six months from now and go, this is not bad, right? The other one I bought is Magic Top Two. This is by Aesthetica. This was actually on back order for quite a while. And it's supposed to be a body volume topper. It gives you fullness, gives you body, gives you volume. And it has a small base, 3.5 by 5.5, which I think is pretty good. And it's supposed to have four inch loose curls. Well, when I got it, the curls were really tight. And so you can see what this looks like, right? Take a look at the inside. Now this would be awesome for someone that has short hair and you wanna pull some of your own hair through these holes, it'd be just perfect. So I think it would be a very natural, relaxed look. But for me, the curls ended up just, it's just too curly. It's just too curly and I've been playing with it. So I, yeah, nothing like the picture though. You look at the model wearing this in the magazine and the websites, it's nothing like the picture. But I bought it. So that was Aesthetica. There is a Beltress Has One Out, which is a, I think it's a six inch topper and it's supposed to be full and give you waves, you know, volume. I'm so tempted on that. Even with a 30% off sale though, it's still expensive. And I'm like at the point where, yeah, I spent all this money on these and I'm bummed and disappointed. So I have also have this one. This is Ellen Villa. This one I know I got on Clarence, on Wake Studio One, but this is Ellen Villa. I love, love the monotope, the lace front. And you can wear it whichever direction you really want. This is in the color sand. The fibers are nice. It's just longer. I have to really work on trimming this down, but I love the lace front. And I think once I trim this down, once I shorten this up and I figure which direction I wanna wear it in, right? Because you can go this way or you can go this way. So whichever way you really wanna wear it in is where I'm going to make the decision on the trimming and the hair and how much hair and how much volume I leave on here and how short I go. But I've had this one for quite a while. I think the fibers are really nice. I still have to play with it though. And yeah, I don't know. It's like one of those things, you know? The Jon Renau Easy Part 8 has been my favorite. Now Jon Renau has some Easy Part 8 that have the human hair. I only have the heat defiant, the synthetic fibers. I've never tried a human hair topper other than a uni-wigs topper. You see that one in my opening a lot. I wore that. I think I'm sitting at a restaurant with Jay in a white top and I have the uni-wigs topper on. I still have the topper. I really like it. I think it's Bella. I got to look at the label. I think it's Bella and it's in the color almond frost. The thing with this topper, for me, it's almost like a wig. It is almost like a wig, but a heck of a lot more comfortable. It's a lot of hair. And I have trimmed this down. This was a little bit longer, a little bit fuller. I've trimmed it down. I haven't won it in a while, but look at the base. You know, it's a big base. And there are, what do I have? Six clips here. You know, the top, you would never, if this is, when this is on, you would never know because of this scalp piece is so, it's like the silk is so realistic. So I like this. It gives me that sort of like page boy or wedgy look a lot. This was actually one of the first toppers that was ever sent to me from uni-wigs. And then the second one was my Raquel Welch chameleon. I really love my chameleon. Chameleon is my number one. And it's part of their transformations, collections. And the thing is on my chameleon, I have it in the color golden wheat. You know, golden wheat, right? It blends in, my bio here right now is a mixture of gray and ash. And often I spray that L'Oreal root spray that gives a little bit of golden, but it blends in pretty good except for the back. So I usually have to be pretty careful when I do the back. I usually wear this, I put it up, but I'll show you what it looks like. So you can actually see, because the bottom part of my hair is much darker than the top part. It has always been. I have never had evenly blended hair ever. So you can see here. Now normally I would be taking this and I would be lifting it up and I would be putting it in a clip and I would be adding one of my little fake buns to it. And then I would have other little clips to pull to, you know, to kind of do the sides. So that's exactly what I do. It'd be adding one of my fake buns to it like this. You might see me going to work like this, especially in the summertime. And then I have, I don't have the clips here, but I usually have two little clips that I put in. And I have no idea what it looks like because I'm not styling it, you know, right now. But I have lots of different types of clips that I use and I usually just put it in that way. But this particular piece that I have on my head, chameleon, is the one I probably wear the most. And yet when I got this, when I received it, I did nothing to it. I looked at it and I went, wow. I mean, really. So all I did the first time I wore it, I did nothing. The second time I shortened it a little bit, just trimmed a little bit. And I probably will trim a little bit more. I may show you the cap, the base cap on this, but I think the whole thing, you know, the real point of this is that when you open up a topper, you expect certain things. You expect it to look a certain way, to feel a certain way on you. You expect to put it on like magic and you're gonna feel awesome. Instead you look at it and you see this thing that's got all of these hairs, all of these curls or a different color and it's heavy. And you put it on your head and you feel like you're wearing a ruck, right? You didn't blend it in, you didn't pull your bangs and you just kind of sat it on there and it's like this big ruck. And then you're trying to figure out how to clip it in and it's overwhelming. So you get that topper, take a deep breath, look at it and if you're going to keep it anyways, look at it, shake it out. Sea salt spray has been phenomenal for me. The other thing that's been huge for me has been my Madison Reed. This is the fill powder. This actually will cover your grays. This will actually fill in, if you have a lighter, a light spot where your scalp is showing too much, it'll fill that in. It's also a brow, it is awesome. This stuff when you put it on is not gonna run off in the rain. It's gonna stay on, you cover your roots with it, it's gonna stay on until you wash it. So until you wash it off. I love this stuff. This was actually sent to me complimentary from the Octaily Network via Madison Reed in exchange for a review and I actually reviewed it in one of my other videos. I just don't know when it's, what's going for us, this or that. But this stuff is awesome. Out of all of the root powders that I have, this has hands down been the best. Good scissors, get them in Amazon or just go to your stylist. But sea salt spray makes a huge difference. I don't care what the piece is, when I first put it on and I'm gonna keep it, I'm gonna put some spray in it because my bio hair isn't silky and smooth like some of these pieces are. My bio hair is not like this. So I would have to really texture it up to get it to look more natural and to remove some of the shine. So sea salt spray, I have a backup of this. I really love this stuff. I've not used it on my own here yet but I've used it on almost all of my wigs and all of my toppers. So let me show you the base on this piece because this is my favorite and I'll show you the base on this piece so you can see what it looks like. But this just feels really good. It's super, super comfortable. They've got some clips. It's only like three clips, pull this off. And the thing is when you're putting a topper on, you know, on your own hair, you wanna make sure that your own hair is kind of textured up and roughed up a little bit. So you can see you get two clips and a clip here and you got a little bit of a lace run. So it depends on how far down you're gonna pull something like this onto your head. I don't pull it down a real lot. I kind of just pull my own hair forward and then I sit that in the back and I blend my own. I try to blend my own bangs into this. So, but yeah, I just wanted to share a little bit of top or top with you because it is such a, I don't know, such a huge disappointment when you pull that topper out and you go, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? So now I'm gonna really go into time and I'm going to trim up and rough up one of my other toppers. I won't bore you by showing it to you, but it is really, it makes a big difference. So if you're curious about more top or top, let me know in the comments below. Thank you so much for watching.