Hairy experiments

Time for hairy experiments again. Many years ago I made Stella’s wig from mohair, which I dyed with henna. So I knew that using “human” hair dye on natural fiber works, but I never tried anything else but henna. I recently found a video on youtube showing how to dye lambskin with hair dye, and since natural looking wigs in FID size without bangs are not easy to find I thought I might as well give it a go. Lambskin does not take kindly to too many baths, so I bought some special lambskin detergent at a horse riding gear shop.
First I needed to make a pattern for FID wigs, and after a lot of testing and quick mock-ups from felt I am finally satisfied with the fit. The wigs I made using my pattern fits perfectly with a wig cap, and I wouldn’t put a lambskin wig on a doll’s head without one.

Since there are next to no sellers for small pieces of Tibetan lambskin for wig making purposes within the EU, I decided to cut up a larger skin and dye the pieces.
I even made a comb out of wood, which required a lot of sanding. But it’s great to preserve the locks and it’s anti-static. My dyeing attempts aimed at different shades of ash blonde, sandy hair, reddish tones and every other shade that would look natural. The basic color of the skin I used for this was some kind of light beige. The dark brown one was a piece of lambskin I already had in that color.

 

The lighter ash blonde piece in this picture is dyed with a bit of brown henna, for the darker one above I used semi-permanent foam stuff called ‘Igora expert mousse medium blonde chocolate’. The red one is dyed with red henna.

Judith modeled a wig made from the ash blonde piece dyed with brown henna. I love how the blue braid brings out her eye color. I might try a dread lock wig or see if I can manage some decent braids. More elaborate braids are rather difficult with a hair length like this. I even thought of making some wigs for sale, but I am unsure how to go about selling them – if anyone would like to buy them, that is.

 

 

I will make some more and try to take some decent pictures of them. Then we’ll see. These are rather badly lit, it has been crap weather for weeks now. If there is anyone who wants them I might open an Etsy-shop or something. I made a wig stand to take pictures and I dolled one of them up for fun.

 

This wild dark brown one is made from material I already had, I didn’t dye it.
I will test more colors and see if I can get a good result in darker colors.

 

This one is dyed with a wash-out blonde color shampoo called bourbon vanilla. It’s actually lighter than it looks in the picture.

 

This last one is bought, I found it in the wig box and put it on for fun. I like it on Judith, but the more I see her without bangs the more I doubt my decision to create her character with the look she usually has. But I think she’ll keep it, it suits her, and I have enough girls without bangs.