We were inundated with entries but finally chose Katrina Cliffe of Golcar, nominated by her mum, Kathryn Kaye, who was searching for a way to give her daughter a treat and cheer her up ...

Katrina Cliffe is only 24 but she’s already suffered personal tragedy. However, the Calderdale Council administrative assistant is getting her life back on track and when her mum saw our hair extension make-over competition she didn’t hesitate to nominate her daughter. HILARIE STELFOX reports

THERE weren’t many occasions in the past when a woman emerged from the hairdressers with more hair than she had when she went in.

But the growing popularity of hair extensions means that this is now not only possible but happening more and more often.

The winner of our Racoon hair extensions make-over competition was promised a full head of the new micro-weft extensions, a faster and less costly option to individual extensions.

We were inundated with entries, but finally chose Katrina Cliffe of Golcar, nominated by her mum, Kathryn Kaye, who was searching for a way to give her daughter a treat and cheer her up.

Kathryn wrote: “In June, 2004, Katrina gave birth to her first son, Casey Jacob, who was sadly born too soon at 20 weeks. She then had two more miscarriages before giving birth to her daughter, Stevie Dionne, who was born at 33 weeks and spent her first few weeks in special care.’’

In fact, Katrina’s story is more complex and distressing than that. She suffers from two conditions, both of which can lead to problems having children.

During pregnancy Katrina has what is known as an incompetent cervix. Unfortunately, she lost Casey before the condition was diagnosed.

For subsequent pregnancies she had to be given a cervical stitch, but even then the surgical procedure doesn’t guarantee that a pregnancy will survive until full term.

With Stevie, who is now two, she had to have a month’s bed rest before the delivery. But with nearly two months still to go and the stitch still in place she went into premature labour once again.

Katrina also has a blood-clotting disorder and for the final month of her last pregnancy was given injections of the blood-thinning drug heparin.

“I’m not the same person I was before losing Casey,’’ says Katrina. “I was a lot more outgoing and confident. Although everything I went through when I was pregnant with Stevie was worth it, when I see her now it also highlights what I’m missing.”

Katrina, who used to work as a marketing manager but now has a part-time job-share in Elland as a Calderdale Council administrative assistant, met her husband John, an engineer and property developer, seven years ago when she was just 17.

They had always planned to have a family and have been understandably devastated by the loss of their son. Katrina is now a supporter of Tommy’s Yorkshire group, raising money for the charity, which investigates the causes of miscarriage and stillbirth.

Kathryn thought that a new look for Katrina would help with the healing process. “She has been very low and depressed and I didn’t know how to cheer her up. Then along came this competition. I know that Katrina would love extensions because she wanted them for her birthday.” she said.

We took our winner along to the Mark Riley Hair Academy in Brighouse, where stylist Grace Mullany ‘extended’ Katrina’s shoulder-length hair.

The micro-wefts – short sections of hair sewn onto a pre-glued strip – were matched for colour and gave Katrina the long, lustrous hair that she wanted.

A set of micro-extensions would normally cost £250 to £300 and take around an hour to complete. “That’s money that I just couldn’t justify spending on myself now that I have a daughter,” said Katrina, whose grandmother, mother, sister and daughter all turned up at the hair academy to see the results.

“Her hair looks fantastic, the extensions look so realistic, you can’t tell that it’s not her natural hair,’’ said Kathryn.

We thought so too.