20 Inch Hair: How Long It Looks and How Much You Need

20 inch hair is the length where a bundle stops hiding anything. At 12 or 14 inches a thin tail barely has room to show. At 20 inches the last few inches tell you exactly what grade you bought.

This guide covers where 20 inch hair lands on different frames, how it compares with 18 and 22 inches, how much hair a full install needs, and how to judge the ends before you pay.

20 inch hair is 50.8 centimetres, measured from the top of the weft to the tip with the hair pulled straight.

Factories measure taut. You wear it relaxed, and the weft sits a little below where your own hair starts. So the ends of 20 inch hair on your head land slightly higher than 50.8 cm from your crown.

Before you order, take a tape measure. Start where the wefts will sit, run it down your back, and mark 50.8 cm. That mark is close to where the ends will be. It beats every length chart online, including the one below.

Height moves the result more than anything except texture. These are estimates for straight hair. Torso length shifts them too, which is why the tape test above is worth two minutes.

On a 5'3" frame, 20 inch hair sits a few inches above the waist. Buyers at that height who want the ends at mid-back usually drop to 16 or 18 inches.

Body wave pulls the ends up by about 1 to 2 inches once the hair dries, so 20 inch body wave reads closer to 18 or 19. Straight is the only texture where the label and the result match. Our full length chart from 8 to 32 inches covers every step in between.

Most buyers choosing 20 inch hair are deciding between it and the lengths on either side.

Two inches sounds small. On the head it moves the ends from mid-back to lower back, and it raises the hair you need from 200 to 300 grams at 18 inches to 250 to 350 grams at 20. If you want to compare with the next length down, here's where 18 inch hair falls.

A full head of 20 inch hair usually takes 250 to 350 grams. Our bundles are weighed at 100 grams when they're packed, so that's three bundles for most installs.

The reason 20 inches needs more than 18: the same 100 grams is spread down a longer strand. A single bundle that looks dense at 14 inches looks sparse at 20. Buyers moving up from 16 or 18 inches often keep ordering the same number of bundles and then wonder why the ends look thin.

Strand methods count differently. With keratin tips, density comes from the number of strands. Our flat tip strands weigh about 1g each, so a 100g pack holds roughly 90 to 100 strands. Your stylist sets the count after seeing the hair.

Drawn type sets how thick the tail is. A double drawn bundle has had most of the short hairs pulled out, so the ends stay close to the width of the middle. A single drawn bundle keeps them, so the tail narrows.

At 12 inches there's barely any length for that taper to show. At 20 inches there's plenty. A single drawn 20 inch bundle and a double drawn one look very different once they hang.

So 20 inch hair is a fair test of a vendor. Here's how to read it.

1. Hold the bundle by the weft and let it hang. Look at the last 3 inches. Count roughly how much hair is still there compared with the middle.
2. Run a hand from the weft to the tip. Thin ends separate and show gaps. Dense ends move as one piece and close back up.
3. Order two grades from the same vendor at the same time, both at 20 inches. Hang them side by side. That's the only way to learn what that factory means by its own grade names.
4. When you reorder, keep one bundle from the first batch and hang it next to the new one. The tails should match.

Ask the vendor for a video of the batch you're being sold, filmed that week. Buyers ask us for that video more often than for any document. One UK buyer asked three times before paying.

Grades come out of hand sorting, which is the sorting step in our 6-step production process.

Price for 20 inch hair moves with four things, and length is only one of them.

• Length. Longer hair is rarer at the source, so each step up the inch scale costs more.
• Drawn type. Double drawn and super double drawn need hand sorting that discards part of every batch. At 20 inches this often moves the price more than the length does.
• Colour. Natural black needs the fewest steps. Lifted and blonde shades need bleaching and then hand picking of off-colour strands.
• Method. Machine weft, tape-in, K-tip and clip-in all carry different labour.

We don't list prices on the blog because they change. Current numbers are on each product page, and the full breakdown is in what hair bundles cost by grade.

20 inches sits in the middle of our standard range, which runs from 8 to 32 inches, with 34 and 36 inches made on request.

One line ships without a production wait, and 20 inch hair is part of it: ready-to-ship natural black machine weft, #1B, 100 grams, in double drawn and super double drawn, 16 to 26 inches. It leaves in 1 to 2 days. Everything else, including other colours, textures and methods at 20 inches, is made at the factory and runs 10 to 12 working days.

The testing minimum is one bundle at 100 grams, sold at the normal price. The sample and the minimum order are the same thing.

Frequently asked questions