Tutorials

Lush Lilac saran shifts from pale purples to shades of pink depending on the light.

Teal is a less grey, more green version of DH Lagoon Blue

Some reds compared to eachother:
Celtic Red is the colour of tomato soup and Torch Auburn is blood red.

Some blondes compared:
Lemon has a slight green tinge to it.

Notes: the acronyms DH, RD and RTD stand for Dollyhair, Restoredolls and Retrodolls who have different shades of saran hair on offer and use different names for them.

1. Root the eyelashes closely together to avoid gaps, make the eyelashes very long (you’ll cut them later)
2. Use an elastic + boil perm to set the long eyelashes up against the face
3. Use nail scissors or sewing scissors to trim the eyelashes down to a slanting shape – no longer than 3mm at the shortest part (so it will look like eyeliner not lashes at certain angles).

Model: Myscene Madison custom “Blue Moon” who’s going to get a boil perm soon. Sorry about the sloppy photos, it’s just to show the technique. She had a wonky eye placement and the eyelashes are meant to minimise that.

Froggystuff posted an excellent quick doll wig tutorial, see it here.

Here’s how to make it seamless:

After following the previous tutorial,
¤ Use an elastic band that you can sew through (flat) or around (thin)
If the elastic is too long, cut it to size and sew the ends together roughly.
¤ Pin it in several places to the head (push the pin through the elastic and into vinyl of the scalp)
¤ Sew it to the hair (use a matching colour thread)
¤ Turn it inside out and place it on your doll’s head
¤ Cut a fringe (bangs) if the elastic is too visible.

You now have a seamless wig that should hold nicely even when shaken!

Meet Alexa, she’s a “Barbie the Diamond Castle singing Princess Alexa Doll” from 2003 Indonesia. Now bald!
—>>

When I first got her, her hair seemed super sticky but I figured that it was just hair gel and that it would wash out. Soap didn’t help at all.
The stickyness was worse at the base of the hair and scalp was also very tacky so I tried using alcohol on the hair and scalp, first wipes then an alcohol bath.

In the end, after trying different solvents, I ended up removing all her hair and the contents of her head.

The gunk inside is horrible, it messed up my tools and is very very sticky to deal with. It’s hard to get out as it gunges up and forms a thick mass of hair/gunk that won’t pull through the neckhole.
Alcohol neutralises the tackiness but once it evaporates the stickiness is back.
Acetone does not dissolve the glue, neither does WD40.

Alexa is going to get a full reroot. It’s the only solution I’ve found so far to save the doll. I’m told this is a common issue with various Mattel Playline dolls such as Monster High. When I rerooted both a Gloom Beach Draculaura and a Basic Ghoulia, they both had this nasty glue sap gunk.
My Fairytopia Barbies from 2004 don’t have this issue.

Here are some links from other people who’ve had this issue with their dolls:
http://www.dollstuff.net/diary/200904041
http://dollsfromplanetmu.blogspot.fr/2012/08/monster-high-glue-seepage-problem-3.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/winksandgiggles/7497107794/

http://grownwoman.tumblr.com/tagged/glue-head

http://here-be-dolls.weebly.com/indonesia-problems-and-defects.html

http://www.flickr.com/groups/mhcc/discuss/72157629222205129/

http://akkismos.tumblr.com/post/22276103860/since-people-seem-to-be-noticing-and-finally

http://www.flickr.com/photos/readytosail/7145861361/

Here’s my workaround to make a pin vise (or “pin vice”) work with medium to hard heads.
I placed a small screw into the barrel then a long nail (the needle rests on the head of the nail). The needle is a size 7-10 with a slanted cut eye.
The barrel was wrapped with fabric scraps then plumbers tape then masking tape so that it doesn’t hurt my hand.

* Pin Vise/Pin Vice – $3 (this is called “porte foret” ou “étau à goupille” in french)
* Nail, screw and tapes – nicked from the tool kit
* Fabric scraps
* Size 7 crewel/embroidery needles for bratz heads, size 8 for barbie.

An important part of the rerooting process is head preparation: removing the old hair and preparing the scalp for new hair.

Here are the tools I use:
* Hair Scissors and Nail scissors to remove the bulk of the hair then cut down to the lowest possible.
I use the big scissors to scrape the inside of the head to remove plugs afterwards.
* Big tweezers to remove the hair from the inside of the head, little ones to remove lone plugs from the ouside of the head.

* Alcohol for cleaning and washing my hands from glue residue.
* Acetone to remove the scalp paint (cotton pad for large amounts, cotton bud for details)

* Super glue in gel form to fill in big holes in the scalp (it dries after 12h into a flexible but solid state unlike other glues that just go rock hard and snap off)
* Fabric scrap to protect the face during the work.

Not shown: soap and water used twice. big glass of water to wipe hands to remove all chemical residues when handling the doll.

Note: I’m not certain that this is the exact original hair style because my Tiana arrived with her hair messed up but it’s what i’ve been able to piece together from people’s photos.

You’ll need lots of elastics and clips, a brush and something fine to tease out hair strands.

Step 1:
Seperate the parting hair from the rest (look at how it’s rooted and tease out all the strands that don’t belong) then seperate the left hair from the right and attach an elastic around each bunch.

Step 2:
Seperate the jet black hair from the rest (you can tell what belongs and what doesn’t because it won’t be the same length)
Tie elastics or clips around the left and right bits of hair
Take the all black hair and make a tight pony tail.

You should now have 5 seperate pieces of hair:
Left and Right parting hair
Left and Right normal hair
and all Black hair ponytail

Step 3:
Tease out 4 strands of jet black hair right at the bottom of the neck and re-tie the black hair ponytail. Keep those 4 strands clipped aside.

Step 4:
Pull the left and right bits of normal hair into a pony tail above the black pony tail and tie with an elastic.
Clip the 2 (black and normal) ponytails together, out of the way, so you can work clearly.

Step 5:
Take 2 of those 4 little strands of black hair from the neck and wrap them around the left bunch of parting hair, pull tight and then attach it with an elastic close to the bottom of the neck.
Do the same for the other side.

 

You’re done!

Wild Lavender is a shade lighter match to her eyeshadow, Cupcake pink is a shade darker match to her skin, Red Wine is a match to the outside of her heart tattoo, Sherbert pink is the inside of the heart, Mauvelous pink is a match to her lips.

Often, rerooting by using just the factory plugs is not enough. The doll may have been originally created with bigger hair, curls or a specific hairstyle so the factory root pattern will match that.
A versatile reroot will allow for all kind of hairstyles on a doll so you’ll need to create your own holes to fill in the gaps.

This is Dresden after rerooting her factory plugs. I had to add 15-20 plugs more to fill in all the gaps.

Original doll (thick kanekalon curls) vs full reroot (fine silky saran):

Another example is Formal Funk  Jade, a doll designed to have a tight pony tail hardo. When her hair is down, she has no parting so her hair looks thin when loose.

I gave her a side parting and filled out her hair a little with approx 50 plugs of hair.

• Bitter Chocolate Saran is very close to black and is used on many early Jades.
• Sable matches most Yasmin’s dark browns.
• Rosewood Auburn is used on Lana, Phoebe, Roxxi and Katia as well as Bowling Meygan.