Back to the Wig Block - Working on a Small Hairpiece

It's September and I am finally back to normal - so my blogging and answering emails should become more frequent. Apologies to anyone who has been waiting for a reply! I shall be catching up with replies this week. I was away for much of August, so had put down the ventilating hook and the computer/blogging/emailing and taken a break. I think sometimes this is just what we need when we work so hard at a craft that is quite physically and mentally demanding.

Anyway, back to the wig block! I am in the midst of working on another hairpiece. This particular one is the smallest I have made so far and I shall be interested to see how it works on the wearer's head. I am hoping it will function as intended. It is a clip-on hairpiece that has a seamed/galloon edge. My concern is that with length being far greater than width, it may not sit as flat as I would like.

Tiny Hairpiece Base - Parting Piece

One issue with making a hairpiece is that it is very hard to tell exactly how it will behave until you have finished it as the weight of the ventilated hair adds an element of structure/stiffness to the 'floppy' base and that, in turn, helps to keep the hairpiece flush to the wearer's head (I guess the force of the weight of the hair is being exerted downwards onto the scalp). As a result, I shall have to see what the end result is and will report back with some pictures.

I have some wig pictures to post of a lace front wig that I made - will post them at some point in the next few weeks.

Making Hairpieces - Special Challenges

One of the things I have discovered over the years that I have been working at wig making is: there's always something new to learn! Perhaps surprisingly, given their size, hairpieces are a nice little challenge and there is a lot more to designing and making them than meets the eye. Due to the way in which a hairpiece is worn, I find there is a certain complexity to the design and planning stage and this goes beyond what I would normally need to think about when designing and planning a wig.

How much hair?

With a wig, I can generally guesstimate how much hair I will need; however, with a hairpiece this is more complicated as one has to think:

How big is the hairpiece?
How dense does the hairpiece need to be?
Will the hairpiece be totally hand tied?
Is the hairpiece going to be really short or really long or somewhere in the middle?

Length and density can dramatically affect the amount of hair needed, and hand tying has implications over a hairpiece that incorporates a mixture or weft and ventilation.

Big versus Small Base?

Another aspect to think about when they are planning a hairpiece is:

How big does the base really need to be?

When I was working with people who had hair loss, I noticed that there was a tendency for people to want to get the biggest hairpiece possible, but this does not always work out for the best:

• The wearer was over-compensating for their loss and needed less hair. Too much hair looks fake.
• As with wigs, a lot of hairpieces are made with excess hair which means they are far denser than a normal/average head of hair would be. In reality this means that the bigger the base, the more excess hair there is - this is hair which we would not normally have on our heads and suddenly there it is... and you know what? It looks fake too. This is, unfortunately, especially true when you put such a hairpiece on the head of someone suffering from partial hair loss/alopecia. The thick density of the hairpiece does not blend well with the natural density of their own hair: the two do not merge. Sometimes people with hair loss have to adapt to the fact that the hair they have left has changed, and rather than trying to achieve what they used to have, it is better and more realistic to work with what they have - thus someone who used to have thick hair may find that when replacing what is lost, to effectively blend it with what they have means they end up with a medium density. For those wearers who do not like this idea, a wig can sometimes be better as there are less or no issues of blending with their own hair.

A solution may be one of the following:

1. A smaller base - If the person wants to compensate for one or two layers of hair, a small hairpiece can work wonders. Sometimes less is more! In this situation, hairpiece base length tends to be more important than width. The hairpiece needs to cover the front to crown to provide a sheet/wall of hair falling down over the person's own hair, whereas width just adds more hair so 2 inches for minimal loss or someone wishing to cover their roots would work well.
2. Rethinking the large base - Sometimes it is better to stick with a large base rather than ventilating the same amount of hair as you intended to 'replace' into a smaller base, as this can result in a dense/thick hairpiece and a poor blend between the wearer's hair and the hairpiece. Instead you would ventilate less hair into a larger area of base material; this results in the hair being spread over a greater area, thus looking more natural rather than having a lot of hair ventilated into a small area and looking like a great clump/chunk of hair plopped on top of someone's head. If you do decide to ventilate less hair into a larger base, it is worth thinking about the part line (if there is one) and ensuring that it will be dense enough. 

Important Considerations When Making a Wig or Hairpiece Foundation - Part 2

One of the aspects of making wig foundations (caps) and hairpiece bases that I realised early on is: the necessity to think ahead, because what you make at the foundation/base stage, can have a massive impact on what you eventually achieve after all the hours of hard work. No one wants to waste lace, hair or other materials. It can be equally demoralising to realise you have wasted a lot of time and energy, making something that is not quite right. Of course in reality, no experience is wasted - we learn through our mistakes, or at least we should be striving to do so. Even in a taught situation, where one is receiving hands-on teaching and training from a tutor/teacher, we still learn through our own efforts and attempts at achieving what is being asked of us.

As part of your wig design and making, don't forget the above steps!

For me, the necessity to think ahead has been highlighted by my own wig making mistakes. I am at a point now where my mind is capable of thinking ahead to other stages in the wig making process, that are later down the line, and assessing whether there is 'going to be a problem'. This is a really good position to be in! If you are earlier in learning the wig making process, this is what you want to be aiming for, because in doing so you will reach the stage of being able to anticipate problems before they occur. The end result will be much better, and you will find your are making better use of materials (less waste) and your time and energy.

Being able to think ahead is closely linked to being able to honestly evaluate your own work. An example of this for me has been when I made my non-bonded galloon edge wig. Overall the cap design works well, but there are things I would change if I made one again. For example, I would not bother to make an extended nape. At the time I made the extended nape because I was curious as to how it would look, and whether it might be a good option for me. In reality, not only did it add on extra work in terms of making it and ventilating it (it adds another few inches of ventilation vertically, and goodness knows how much horiztontally), but it also is unnecessary for my daily wear needs. I learnt that I don't need it, but I also learnt that if I do need it one day (because I want a certain type of hair style), I will be sure to make it differently, and to make it only on a specific type of wig: one that I would wear for special occasions that required me to have my hair up.

I believe it is therefore important to not just keep making items, but to spend time noting what works and what doesn't. I know from a friend's experience that it is very easy to get trapped into the cycle of making more and more wig foundations for example, and finding that they don't fit the way you thought they were going to. Not only is this rather exhausting, but it is also a waste of resources. If something doesn't work, it can be very helpful to not just think: that didn't work, but to figure out why, and to learn from that experience too. Sometimes a bit of brainstorming and discussion with others can be really helpful.