Ever wanted Boss hair? I did. As a hairdresser I had always been embarrassed that my own hair was less than stunning. I’d cut it, coloured it, every colour under the sun actually. I wore wigs and pieces, but the one thing I had always wanted was dreadlocks. And with super thin, super fine hair, that was never going to happen unless I faked it. I thought about dreads as falls and pieces, but I feared the weight and the pinning required would give me a headache, so then surely dreads as extensions must be out, right? Time to investigate. I looked for someone in Australia that was scene friendly, did extensions, had decent prices and would come to my home. I found her on a Melbourne Goths Message Board (I forget which one); her name is Cass, and her site is Wildilocks.

The Wildilocks site is great; a very impressive layout and a formidable image gallery of happy clients. Her work is gorgeous and I know what I’m looking at! When I read that she was in Perth my heart sank, cause I’m in Melbourne (merely the other side of the country) yet what was this? She tours, like the Hair Police, only in my country. So I booked her, paid my deposit and ordered exactly what I wanted: long black and purple dreads with blue accents.

The day came, a lazy Sunday, with my partner and I hanging out and the cat sleeping on the bed. A stream of long blue and violet strands emerged from a cab across the road and I promptly brought her inside. I was excited to meet Cass. We had spoken on the phone a couple of times to set all this up and get her permission to be interviewed and photographed. Cass was warm and friendly and better still, she bought her own digital camera.

After a cuppa, she brought out the dreads for me to see, all hand made in advance by herself. They were double ended, meaning that she would attach them in the centre and let both ends hang down. I was mildly disappointed as I thought they would be longer, but as it turned out, the length was perfect, exactly what I asked for. Nice work for someone who had never seen me before. And I discovered I would be able to re-use them or have them made into falls. We began with some before shots, and I made sure I had a face on, so the after shots would be all about the hair. My own hair was short, purple with a black border and I hated it. The colour was fun, but I had been growing out a short cut for about eight months and it was at that horrid stage of nothingness.

It was going to take about four hours from start to finish, so I decided to interview Cass as she worked. I found her very easy to talk to. She has a natural ease about her that’s contagious and we started chatting about books and music, discovered a mutual fondness for William Gibson and became a little side-tracked. Recognizing the main event should be getting underway, I got a pen and pad and seated myself comfortably. I had been instructed not to condition my hair the day the work was to be done, and it was dry, so I was ready. Cass uses a braid technique that utilizes string to secure the result, not a glue-bonding method. This is a lot less common in Australia as it requires skill and dexterity to do well, be secure enough to last, and quick enough for one person to apply. Ultimately, it is better on the hair.

I braced myself for the pull and discomfort of very tight plaits, but none came. In fact they were so comfortable I was stunned when she moved on to the second one. I was still waiting for the first one to hurt! I ask her why they are not as tight as I anticipated and it turns out that her method, a hybrid she created by other methods and based on her experience, allows for maximum security and less breakage.

So if my hair was going to take four hours, how many clients a day could she see on tour? “Usually one a day on tour, although once I ended up doing three in one day. All [three were] in the same place 1 1/2 hours out of Melbourne though, so no travel time between them saved me several hours by not splitting them into two days.”, replied Cass. “The location of different clients does mean travel time, and all the dreads must be pre-made back home in Perth. I book myself out and still have time to see friends and go out as well.”

In Perth, Cass is a one-woman operation at her home base: a shop front that is very busy with all sorts of magical creations. And Cass is very creative. When I checked out the site, I noticed many unusual accessories and falls that I had never seen anywhere else. Cass began her involvement in hair extensions about ten years ago with hair wraps and permanent dreadlocks, which she did regularly from around 1994 as she traveled. About three years ago, settled back in Perth permanently, she began experimenting with synthetic dreads and other extension techniques.

“I had not known of other types of extensions as no one was doing them much in Perth at the time, or amongst the hippie crowds when I was still traveling.”. With a multi-media degree, as well as study in fine arts and photography (proof that that she is no mere gypsy), the self-managed web site is very user friendly and gets a lot of traffic, bringing her a lot of business. I looked at all the galleries and I noticed things like UV reactive hair (I ordered my purple and blue dreads as UV reactive, just because I can), hazard-striped dreads, a myriad of falls and pieces as well as mega accessories.

Does Wildilocks ship internationally? “Yes, and I get a lot of orders from overseas.” She welcomes Pay-Pal and has a currency converter on her site, as well as a pretty comprehensive colour chart and hair guide. She even does plastics, tubes, LED extensions, wool and all manner of custom orders.

My two favorite accessories were Anime Fringes and Pony Cuffs, so I asked how they evolved. “I was asked to do ‘anime hair’ for an Anime themed event, and decided that the most recognizable thing about anime hair were those long fringes. So I developed a method of fringes attached to a head band.” Very Japanese! The Pony Cuffs? “Actually I saw a picture of someone wearing something along those lines in a photo somewhere online but couldn’t find anyone producing them, nor did they have a name as far as I could see, so I coined the term ‘Pony Cuffs’ and had a local leatherworker develop designs. The range is soon to be expanding to Dread Cuffs (basically like wrist cuffs, heavy duty and a single circumference) and more spikey hair accessories in the next month or two!”

As dreadlocks are too heavy for conventional ponytails, and because they looked so killer, I bought a pair of stiff leather cuffs that hold the hair out in a cone-like shape. And the clip-on kitty ears are also delicious, and next on my order list. Cass develops almost all of her accessories herself save the Ponymaille (a chainmaille headdress) which is made by a local artist who does all kinds of chainmaille. “I do customize the goggles, even though the actual things themselves I don’t make from scratch.”

With the help of her mother’s seamstress background and her inventiveness. I wondered what was the most unusual request she has ever had? “Well,no-one has asked me for pubic extensions yet.” (Careful Cass, this is the internet after all!)

“I suppose beard extensions and a small wig piece I was asked to make with loose hair to match the clients existing short hair was difficult.” Cass has done all sorts of hair extensions as well as pieces and falls. I had almost forgotten that she did loose hair because I was primarily interested in dreadlocks, but a tour around her site reveals some pretty clever transformations all around. My favorites dreadlock makeovers are Craig, Louis, and Karmashka.

When you consider that Cass is not trained as a hairdresser, the quality of her work and natural eye for detail are all the more remarkable. So where did all this experience in hair evolve? As Cass, a self-confessed hippie at heart, says it comes from traveling the world as an artistic bohemian. As an artist she has a natural affinity for colour. She has traveled around the globe five times doing pavement art and offering hair wraps (coloured string wrapped around a small section of hair, fairly substantial) at festivals, in Glastonbury and Edinburgh  “I still attend a local festival in WA every year, the Fairbridge Folk Festival”. There was much experimenting on herself and friends, perfecting her method before she took it to the public. Even at the time of my own extensions she had a full set of blue and violet wool extensions she was trying out on herself before she offered them as a service. These are now available. They look awesome and feel sublime, and according to Cass, becoming increasingly popular.

“Extensions generally have had a bad rep for damaging the hair, braids mostly so, because they are usually tight and heavy and sometimes there’s not enough after care,” Cass explained. “I wanted to do good quality extensions that lasted, so I developed my technique before I created my business. I opened in 2002 at a market stall in Subiaco, Perth and in 2003 moved to the city centre shop front I have now.” She does make good on the after care too, providing tightening or reattachment for any wonky braids.

So how does she operate? “I have an hourly rate for my work, plus the cost of the hair, and I have equal demand for fake and human hair as well as for dreadlocks and loose hair. I do all sorts of colours as well as natural looking extensions.”

Does she still do the hair wraps that started it all? “Sure, there are pics on my site.”

And her pavement art? “I have done work internationally with designers doing large interior murals in private homes, but these days that’s only once or twice a year and within Perth, not internationally. The extensions business keeps me hard at work and I turn down most other jobs offered to me these days!”

Cass tells me of the lasting influence at the hands of a former teacher of colour theory, Paul Green-Armitage. “Actually, probably one of the best in the world.” This gave her a strong background in colour and its relationships, evident in her work. With all of this in mind and my own hairdressing background, I asked her about the one picture of her work that I didn’t like, Courtney

“I didn’t like that too much either, but she was one of my first customers and after discussing it with her she was adamant that was what she wanted. She really liked it but it’s not my best work.” Fair enough.

After the half way mark, my head still felt very comfortable. In fact the only discomfort was sitting for so long, so I took a small reprieve and stretched my legs. While in the bathroom, I took a good look at my new self and liked what I saw. I was curious about the size of the sections the dreads themselves were attached to, I thought they may have looked rather ‘fat’.

“Bigger is better,” Cass explained, “Too small and there is so much more artificial hair attached to your own. It becomes very heavy and you’ll end up with more breakage. Bigger sections result in less dreads needing to be attached and therefore less weight: dreads can be made thicker or thinner but there’s a minimum thinness for them to be thoroughly backcombed and still hold together. Dreads can be made thinner, but they’ll generally just be twisted not properly backcombed, and will not last as long”

When we are almost done, we decide on a zigzag side part for the top and as the last dread goes in, it is all I can do not to run to the bathroom and check out my new look. Damn, I looked good! I can’t believe that I didn’t look like this before. It felt so comfortable and looks so right I almost believed they were mine! Well, I did pay for them. So what was the damage? I’ll not go into dollar amounts here, but suffice to say it was about $100 less than I would have paid elsewhere. Depending on where I could have gone, it may well have been a lot more, and for loose extensions. It seems Cass charges roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of most other quotes I’ve seen. I was thrilled as the price also included the accessories I bought; the pony cuffs and the dread-snood, a sleeping net that I found very useful.

After packing up and posing for after pics with me, I bid Cass farewell with hugs and added her to my LJ friends list. I had the dreadlock extensions in for three months and I loved them. They added something that I can’t define, but I felt a little wilder in them, a little more ‘me’. I did discover one drawback – the incessant questions from strangers about my hair. At first, the attention was flattering, but it became an irritation as complete strangers felt they had the right to come up and start talking to me about my hair, always the same questions and always at length!

The three most asked questions were:

1. Are they heavy?
2. Do they hurt?
3. Can I touch them?

The answers?

1. No.
2. No.
3. No.

Are they hard to wash? No, but it is time consuming. The recommended method was soapy shampoo and warm water in a bucket over my scalp once a week, but I cheated sometimes and simply did it under the shower occasionally. Not recommended as it was very heavy and would have caused some breakage but hey, I’m lazy.

And the breakage? There was some as I was warned before we started, but it was much less than I anticipated and my hair was so much longer once they were out.

Were they hard to remove? Nope, I did them myself, but again this was time consuming and I would recommend a friend to help if you choose to do this. I was going to get Cass to do it, and perhaps get different extensions but my semi-corporate position meant that the dreads were perhaps not the best idea. Well, tough, they looked great, I loved them, will recommend them to anyone and will no doubt do it all again. Perhaps it’s time to drop Cass a line, seeing as I want those kitty ears!