Unlocking Hair Strength: The Break-Test for Quality Assessment

Hair strength is all about elasticity—healthy hair stretches under tension (like a fresh rubber band), while overprocessed hair snaps (like a dried-out one). The more hair is processed, the more it loses its strength, leaving it vulnerable to breakage and shedding.

Enter the break test: a simple yet powerful tool for evaluating hair strength. It reveals how well different hair types, like high-end #613 blonde or processed floor hair, hold up after chemical treatments. Understanding how much life hair has left after processing is a valuable skill for anyone serious about quality.

Mastering this test lets you assess hair extensions with confidence, whether you’re choosing premium 613 or seeking the “strongest” (or rather, the best) processed floor hair. With this know-how, you’ll spot extensions that strike the perfect balance of strength, elasticity, and longevity—no matter what quality category they fall into.

How Elasticity Impacts Hair Strength

Imagine healthy hair as a fresh rubber band: It stretches under tension and then returns to its original shape. This is the essence of hair strength—its ability to stretch and recover without snapping. Just like a rubber band, healthy hair is elastic and strong, able to withstand everyday stress, styling, and wear without breaking.

But just as a rubber band loses its stretchiness over time if left unused or exposed to harsh conditions, hair loses its elasticity and strength when damaged. Over-processed hair behaves like an old rubber band—dry, brittle, and easily broken under tension.

How to Use the Break Test to Check Hair Quality

The break test is a simple yet effective way to measure a strand’s resistance to breakage, revealing its strength and elasticity.

To perform the test, take a single strand of hair from your bundle, hold it about 5 cm (2 inches) apart, and gently pull. Healthy hair will stretch before breaking, okay-quality hair will stretch a little before breaking, and overprocessed hair will snap easily.

This technique helps assess whether the hair is resilient enough to meet your expectations. Here’s how it applies to high-end 613 bundles and processed floor hair.

Break Test for the Best 613 Hair

If you’re looking for raw hair, you’re looking for extensions that haven’t been processed at all. But here’s the thing—light blonde shades like 613 or 60, while still made from raw hair, have been bleached to the absolute limits of what the hair can handle.

Only the best raw hair—sourced from donors with incredibly healthy, unprocessed hair—can survive the bleaching process to achieve these light tones while staying healthy and elastic. We’re talking about the top 20% of all raw hair materials. The rest—the remaining 80%, including average and lower-quality raw hair—simply can’t cut it. Once bleached, these “80%” bundles lose their elasticity and show clear signs of damage.

Take a look at this video to see the difference for yourself. The bundle on the left, with a slight yellow tint, is made from slightly subpar raw hair material. It’s decent but doesn’t stand out. Now, compare that to the bundle with the orange band, part of our Orange Line. This is made from the absolute best raw hair material available on the market.

The difference is crystal clear. High-end 613 hair, like the Orange Line, stands out with noticeably better elasticity and resilience compared to subpar 613 hair.

When it comes to testing the quality of light blonde hair, the break test is a simple yet effective tool to have in your hair-testing arsenal. It’s a quick way to spot the difference between hair that’s truly top-tier and hair that just doesn’t measure up.

Break Test for the Best Processed Floor Hair

Affordable hair extensions are typically made from processed floor hair. Unlike raw hair, floor hair doesn’t have aligned cuticles, which means it would tangle badly if left unprocessed. To make it usable, the hair undergoes processing that strips away some of the cuticles. While this makes the hair manageable, it also causes damage, reducing its elasticity and overall quality.

That said, not all floor hair is created equal. Coarser, healthier strands tend to handle the processing better than finer, already-damaged hair. This is why for our Black Line extensions, we source slightly thicker, stronger hair that withstands processing more effectively. By starting with better-quality floor hair, our extensions retain some of their elasticity, resulting in longer lifespans, less drying, less frizz, and overall better performance—despite having been processed.

In the video below, you can see a break-test comparison between our Black Line bundles and another product labeled as similar quality. The difference in elasticity and resilience is clear.

Once again, the break test proves to be an invaluable tool for assessing hair quality, especially when sourcing more affordable options that fall into a completely different category of extensions.

Conclusion

Hair strength comes down to elasticity—the ability of strands to stretch and bounce back without snapping—and the break test is your go-to tool for uncovering it. Whether you’re evaluating premium 613 blonde extensions or processed floor hair, this simple test helps you see what’s really under the surface. It’s a quick, reliable way to separate the truly durable, high-quality hair from the weak and brittle.

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