How to Care for a BJD Wig- WIP

I'll update this as I get more photos and tutorials together, so I'm marking this as a WIP for my own memory. 

Products

Generally speaking, be cautious about what products you put on a wig. You'll want to know whether the fibers are natural or synthetic, and what products will work and won't work on the wig.

• Volks makes a neutral wig wax here.
• Dollmore has a nice wig spray here.
• I've personally used a little human hair gel and a few other products to tame wild hairs.
• Don't wash a bjd wig unless you know that it has been sewn and not glued. If you wash a glued wig it can fall apart!
• Store your wigs in a wig net when not in use; this will protect them from damage.
• Keep a ball of tissue or other paper inside the wig to help it hold its shape.  
• Be careful to avoid products with oils in them that might sit for too long on the doll's resin and stain or ruin that area.

Heat Styling

• You can boil heat resistant fibers and scrunch them into curls. Don't use this method on non heat resistant synthetic fibers or on glued wigs. I've used this method on vinyl dolls and for Ginny Doll restoration and had great results.
  
• Flat Irons/Curling Irons should only be used on heat resistant fibers. You can use these on most natural fibers as well, but be sure to test all wigs underneathe where any damage won't be seen just in case.

Wet Styling

• For most wigs, you can use a spray bottle to lightly wet the fibers of the wig and then wrap the sections around a tool, like a pencil or straw. When the hair dries you'll have a curl.
  
• You can use this to set most styles, not just curls.

Reminder though, if the hair is glued, be sure not to get the wig cap wet!

Combing

• Don't brush curly wigs! You'll end up causing the curls to separate and end up with a fuzzy mess like this:
  
• If you must tidy a curly wig, boil the wig and scrunch the hair back up, or manually redo each section of curl with a wet styling method.
  
• Long wigs will tangle even when just sitting pretty. Comb them very gently with a wig comb, wire doll hair brush, or your fingers. Start at the ends and work your way up. Be as gentle as possible to minimize the loss of fibers.

Removing Sheen

Got a synthetic wig with too much shine? Never fear! Follow these steps to reduce the shine and give it a more natural, and expensive look.

• First, get yourself some hair spray. (I've been lazy and used MSC, but I don't recommend this as it's expensive. If you do use it, wear a respirator.)
  
• Remove the doll's wig and place it on something else, like a soda bottle.
  
• Spray the hair with a light mist of hair spray and sprinkle baby powder or talc on top. Comb it through gently. Comb and shake the wig to remove excess baby powder.
  
• Repeat as needed.
  
• The baby powder will stick to the fibers of the wig and reduce the shine.

This technique took this wig from Kemper:

http://kemperdolls.com/wigs/modacrylic-wigs/althea-turquoise-modern-wig.html

And turned it into this:

I hope this basic little guide is handy. If you want any more info or have any more questions about wigs, rooted hairs, or fibers, feel free to ask in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

Kemper Wigs Review

Another belated review!

The Raven wig in black on a Delf Soony.

Note: According to a friend of mine, Kemper prices fluctuate based on the cost of mohair at any given time. If the price seems high, wait a bit to see if they drop.

Site: Kemper Dolls
Price Range: Varies, usually $5+

Communication: 5/5. Typical, nothing bad, nothing extraordinary either.

Ease of Paying: 5/5. Just used Paypal.

Speed: 5/5. Shipped really quickly and packed well.


Like the picture: BETTER. Seriously. The pictures on the site do not do these wigs justice.

Quality:4/5. These wigs are great for the price, but they do take elbow grease to make them pretty. Don't expect something flawless right out of the package. Pet them. Style them. Love them.

I ordered a black Raven mohair wig in 8-9. It has this great little velcro dohicky to make the wig stay on tighter. I only paid about $9 give or take for this one (it may have been more). As you can see, it's fluffy. The bangs were awful when I got it. I just flat-ironed it and styled it and now it just looks like messy black hair. You can do more with it if you try.



This was a random fluke. I needed a teal wig and I found one on the site, not mohair, for $5. So I bought it. When it arrived it looked like a Halloween costume wig. Shiny, gross, blech. It had potential though, so I used hairspray and baby powder to remove the shine. voila! Pretty, cheap, tough teal wig. I traded this away with a doll, but I'd like to order it again.



I have plans to order a carrot wig and some others from them when the current prices drop. If you're willing to work at it, these wigs are nice, and I can't recommend them enough. Because of the effort it takes with these I can't say that they're worth more than about $15 a piece though.

In a nutshell, give them a try and don't get frustrated as you work with them. They do take some effort, but they're soft and look really realistic.


Thanks for reading and happy collecting!

Monique Wigs Review, Pics, and Ordering Info

Site: http://www.monique.com/MoniqueGoldCollection.html (click the doll wigs option on the left bar to see all wig options)

Style: Literally dozens, if not hundreds, of wigs in various sizes, styles and colors.

For a good color chart, I found this one here: 
http://winddoll.creezvotreboutique.com/infos.php?info_id=5&language=en&osCsid=7739f8bda7a2b93bf0b9a35225826e54

It's pretty accurate to the colors I have in real life. Note that not all wigs are available in all colors.

Size Range: tiny/fashion doll to larger baby dolls.

Communication: For this recent order, I give them a 1/5. I will explain below in the overview.

Quality: This time? 3/5 (Usually at least 4/5)

Ease of Payment:  Fine, used credit card.

5-6 Pretty Girl in blonde
You can see the back is cut strangely, and doesn't blend together right.
My larger wig in this size doesn't have this issue.

Read on!

Licht Bjd Review!

I recently hosted a GO for Licht wigs and decided to do a review!

Communication: 6/10 They were good about communicating, letting me know things were out of stock and such. However, they never gave me the tracking number nor let me know they'd even shipped it. It showed up quite the surprise lol!

Quality: 8/10 The wigs don't look anything like the pics in many cases, and the two I bought and opened had a great deal of frizzies. I was disappointed by this. It's going to take a lot of styling to make them look like the pictures. You can see thin spots in a couple places on the wigs as well. However, the colors are beautiful and rich, and the fibers are soft and easy to work with.

Stock: 6/10 It seems like nearly a lot of things on the site were out of stock but not necessarily marked out of stock. We were then messaged about a few things that were no longer in stock.

Extras: We qualified for a free wig but they did not send it. I'm not too worried about this since I was planning on ordering even before I knew there was an event going on. Extras and freebies like this are always nice, and I don't judge a company for not including them.

Shipping: No airmail shipping option, and EMS for this order was insane. It was nearly $48 usd to ship this to us. I've paid less for larger Dollmore and Taobao orders. That's about the cost of shipping one minifee from Fairyland….. 0.o

Over all, they're really cute and affordable wigs, and hands down better than any of the Happy Camille wigs I have gotten in the past. Overall I'd order again.

Hope this is helpful! Here are pics of the two wigs I ordered (I didn't open anyone else's items):

the first one is L-435 in Rose Gold, size 7-8

 The second wig is Licht #L-382 in Vanilla, size 7-8

This wig looks much better after styling. These pics are before I styled it. It's still very cute!
The proportion is large enough I think I could have gone with a 6-7 on her and been fine, though
ordinarily I HATE 6-7 wigs on my minifees.