Choosing Hair Colour When Wig Making & Colour Blending

Over the years that I have been undertaking the wig making research process, I noticed that there is an aspect of wig making that tends to get somewhat overlooked: hair colour. So much of a wig maker's focus tends to be on the construction of the wig foundation or the hairpiece base, that what type and colour hair to use is sometimes almost an afterthought. In reality, it should be given equal thought.

Unless one is making a wig for a character as part of a production (TV, film, theatre etc), then there seems to be two situations regarding hair colour:

1. People who want to stick to, or as near as possible to, their own hair colour (or, in the case of alopecia totalis/universalis and people who dye their hair, what they think would be their own hair colour).
2. People who want to use supplemental hair as an opportunity to change their hair colour.

In situation 2, choosing hair depends on what the wearer envisages, as the change could be minimal (1 shade lighter), but you may also find that some people do not mind having far more expressive, modern and funky hair colours. For people who are open to suggestions, it can be a case of: anything goes and I think as a wig maker, it can be a good way to exert some creativity.

At the same time, it is sometimes hard to imagine how a wig or hairpiece is going to look, so asking the prospective wearer for pictures (from magazines or printed off the Internet) that demonstrate the colour they are trying to achieve can be a good way to aid the design process. It also helps to minimize getting your wires crossed about what they really want, and you think they want. Do not be afraid to make well-thought suggestions if you think the colour or colour combination may not be the best option for them. If you choose this be careful how you word it; usually it is better to gently suggest an alternative.

It is also important to be aware that not all colour tones suit all skin undertones. For example, I am a person who struggles to wear blonde. It's definitely not an easy colour for me to wear because most shades of it can make me look sickly, pale and/or yellow. I tend to suit daker hair colours, certain reds, and highlights that are light brown rather than blonde.

For people in situation 1, while adhering to requests for a match to their own hair, it is important to try and achieve as natural a hair colour as possible. For example, people who have European-type hair tend to have hair that has a range of hair strands of different tones that make up their 'one colour', rather than every hair strand being the same colour. As a wig maker trying to achieve this look, this is where colour blending can be a good option. If the request is for colour 8, blending a 6 and a 10 together can achieve a nice shade that is somewhere in the middle and has a depth and richness that may not be achieved by using just one colour.

The wefts below are virgin European human hair in a number 6 (the darker on the right) and a number 10 (the lighter on the left):

Hand Wefted Virgin European Human Hair in Number 6 and Number 10

Close Up of Hand Wefted Virgin European Human Hair in Number 6 and Number 10

Combine these two colours - 1 weft sewn on top of the other, and you get this blended hair colour:

2 wefts blended to make a mid-range hair colour

Close up of the blended hair colour

On the other hand, people of other ethnicities, such as Asian and African, who are opting for colour 1, 1b and 2 will generally be okay with having a 1 shade colour. This is because it is rarer to find a high level of variation in individual strand colour in these shades.

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!