Home/Blog/Winners of the 2025 Hair Extensions Championship
Winners of the 2025 Hair Extensions Championship
16.10.2026
5th World Championship HEG 2025 · onlineTrophies and personalised diplomas of the hair extensions championship
In the spring of 2025 the 5th World Hair Extensions Championship HAIR EXTENSIONS GURU took place. It was fully online: neither the master nor the model had to travel anywhere, and the entries were collected by a chatbot. From 17 February to 31 March participants submitted their work in each nomination, and the judges scored it against criteria published in advance. Here are the official results, taken from the protocol of the Hair Extensions Industry Development Association.
How the 2025 championship worked
The defining feature of that season was the way entries were submitted. A master did not have to catch a single competition day and bring a model to the venue: the bot accepted work around the clock for a whole month and prompted which angles to shoot so the judges could see the result in full. That solved the biggest pain in the profession - finding a model for one fixed date.
NOMINATIONSFive directionsShort hair, thin hair, straight cut, creative hair extensions and hollywood hair extensions. The first three follow the model's hair type, the other two are about complexity and showmanship.
CATEGORIESProfessionals and juniorsMasters with more than two years of experience competed separately from those with less than two. Every nomination had its own standings for each category.
SCORINGScore, not a quotaPlacement was defined by the average score, so several masters could share one place - and in hollywood hair extensions no first place was awarded among professionals at all.
The geography of the season is wider than the word “online” suggests: the winners came from Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, the USA, Spain, the Netherlands and the DPR, while the full standings also include Italy and the Czech Republic.
Winners of the 2025 championship
Below are the prize places for every nomination and category, exactly as recorded in the Association protocol.
2nd placeOksana ShkarupelovaNovorossiysk, Maria TrofimovaRakvere, Estonia, Viktoria SaprinaTallinn, Estonia, Victoria ShapovalovaHomel, Belarus, Olga AleksyutovichMinsk, Belarus
3rd placeKarina AroyanGdansk, Poland, Diana StalmakhovaMinsk, Belarus, Elena ZakharovaSyktyvkar
A championship is not a full stop but an entry into a professional ladder. It is easiest to see in those who won in 2025 and in 2026 found themselves on the other side of the judging table.
Oksana Shkarupelova took prizes in four standings at once - second places in short hair, thin hair, straight cut and creative. On the 2026 panel she is already a judge. Kristina Silaeva, who shared first place in creative hair extensions, joined the trainee judges. Anrietta Wagner, a two-time HEG 2025 champion, judges herself in 2026.
There is another path as well: Svetlana Tseliuk, first place in creative hair extensions with the best score of the season, now teaches her own programmes at the HAIRSGURU Academy - a championship leads not only to judging, but to teaching too.
From winners to official representatives of the Association
Yuliia Cowan, Association adviser for the State of California
Order No. 364-us of 05.04.2026The President of the World Hair Extensions Industry Association appointed Yuliia Cowan national adviser of the Hair Extensions Industry Development Association for the State of California, USA.
After the appointment, Yuliia Cowan began receiving invitations as a judge and speaker at federal American beauty championships and congresses, and her name became far better known in the US beauty industry. The championship win worked as an entry to another market: first place in “Thin hair”, then official status as an Association representative, and then invitations from venues that most masters spend years trying to reach.
First your work is judged. Then you do the judging.
That is how the Association ladder works: participant - prize winner - trainee judge - judge. A title gives a name in the professional field, then comes practice on the panel under the approved regulations, and after that accreditation. So the names above are not just the results of one season, but the pool the judging panels of future championships are formed from.
The 2026 championship: offline this time
25 November 2026, Moscow
The next championship will be held live, at the Holiday Inn Sokolniki hotel, on Day 0 of the META HAIRY FEST festival. The format has changed: half of the work is done before the championship and arrives at the venue already worn, the second half is done in front of the judges within 3-4 hours. What is assessed is not a fresh picture, but how the work holds up.
Places are limited: 21 for masters and 25 for capsulators, applications are accepted until 10 November.
How exactly the new format works, who joined the judging panel and why half of the work is assessed after wear - in a separate article: World Hair Extensions Championship 2026.