The Next Step - Sorting out the hair...

The next step in the wig making process, for me, is ventilating the hair onto the main body of the wig. In order to do this one needs some 'spare' hair. Beyond deciding such things as - the hair origin (European, Chinese, Indian, Mongolian etc), hair type (virgin, cuticle, processed), hair texture (wavy, straight, curly, body wave etc) and length, you have a few choices. You can either use hair you already have (old wefts, old wigs etc) or buy some new hair (either as wefts or bulk/raw hair in ponytails). As mentioned in my last blog post, I already had some masses of hair on the most ridiculous wig known to man. Due to my novice status, I decided that this was the msot appropriate hair to use. I think that in the earlier stages of wig making it is probably a better idea to use less expensive hair. Then if you go completely wrong, you won't be as devastated as you would if you were using virgin cuticle European hair, for example.


Side note - I do have better hair - raw and wefted, which I hope to use later when I am more proficient. Certainly if I were choosing hair, I would be inclined to go for raw ponytails of caucasian/European origin - because that texture is the same as my bio hair.


As the hair is already attached to a wig, I set about the process of brushing the wig out, separating the hair and removing some. I decided that first separating the hair in half (to effectively create two 'tails') was a good idea as there is about twice the amount of hair I want in my new wig. On the left hand side you can see half the hair has been braided; to keep it neat and out of the way. The right hand side represents half the hair and is what I am going to use on this wig.

You can see just how much hair is in half the wig in this next picture, where I am holding that braid in my hand.

At this point I have the half, to be used, hanging loose ready to be sorted.

As the hair is already ventilated onto this wig, I don't want to just cut it off as a ponytail/braid. If I did this, I would lose a lot of the upper length. In order to keep this length, I need to remove the hair in the stages I am going to use it. As most people start ventilating at the bottom of their wig foundation, I need to take the bottom lengths to use on the bottom of my wig foundation. So, I braided the rest of the hair and only left free the part I want to remove from the bottom right hand nape.

I then clipped this braid up. The hair hanging down is only half of the hair at the bottom of the nape of the wig.

I have drawing cards ready to place the hair into (they are the flat brown and grey squares to the right of the wig two pictures above). This helps to keep the hair neat whilst I am ventilating and enables me to remove small amounts of hair to work with. If you do not have drawing cards and get a pair, remember to write "Root" on one end of them (I wrote it on both sides) so that you know which way up your hair is! You put the loose hair into the drawing cards with the root end of the hair at the end you have designated "Root" and the tip should be hanging out the opposite end. This enables you to keep it cuticle correct. 

I carefully cut sections of the loose hair away. I tried to keep fairly near to the wig cap so that I could keep most of the length. I just used regular scissors for this.

Then I placed the hair in the drawing cards.

After I close them up, I always put an elastic band around them. That way, if I (or anyone else!) ever knock them onto the ground, they won't fall apart and ruin the hair (because if the hair gets mixed up, it won't be cuticle correct anymore).

Now I am ready to start ventilating.

Lastly, I want to wish those celebrating Chanukah:

חנוכה שמח

Here's my donuts, that I made:

For those of you celebrating Christmas in a few day's time...

Happy Christmas! 

I will be back with more pictures soon!

The Finished Wig Cap

Good news!


I have FINISHED the wig cap. Yay!


Here's some pics of it just perched on the wig block:

I am really pleased and proud that I managed to get it done. I think some people doubted I would ever finish it! 

As you can see, I have added an extended nape. The reason I have done this is because a. I wanted to learn to do it and see how it turned out and b. because I have very low babyhair and wanted to see if this would cover it - a bit of a prototype/test. If it's uncomfy to wear, I won't add one to the next wig. 

So the next step is ventilation. I shall be using some dark hair - a #2 (I am guessing) that is wavyish. It is currently ventilated into another wig that I have never worn because it is too small and WAY too dense (it weighs about 325 grams, which is approximately 12.5 ounces!!). The hair is not the best quality, so it is perfect for this project. I won't be crying if it all goes wrong! Hopefully it turns out well...

Apologies for lack of updates/my silence...

I have been so busy that wig making took a back seat. I recently organised a 2nd Wigs and Head Covers Event in London, which was very successful and have also been getting on with other things at home.

The good news is that I am nearly finished with making the wig foundation!

I am hoping to finish it tonight. After I have finished it, I will take some pictures to post on here and probably shoot some video to upload to You Tube. I am really proud of it. I tried the cap on again before I resumed sewing it down and spent some time pinning it to see if I could get a better fit. The end result of which was that I realised it did fit me okay and that I would only make it fit me worse if I started to fiddle with it and tuck areas. So for this first go at making a proper wig foundation, I think I have done very well - it looks neat. In fact it seems a lot better than I thought it would, so I am very pleased.

The next step is ventilation. I will, of course, be blogging about that too... so stay tuned.