Heat Styling
Using various methods of heat is the most common & effective way to style doll hair made from any type of synthetic fiber. Many people ask if doll hair can be straitened and/or style with a straightening iron. The following info is based on my experience and will hopefully help you too!
High Temperature Nylon
The main thing to know when heat styling hair is to be aware of what type of hair you have. Almost all dolls that you buy from the store are rooted with Saran hair. I tried using my straitening iron on a Fashionista Barbie and it melted the hair as well as left icky glue residue on my iron.
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- Once melted, her hair became hard and frizzy
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- Glue residue- Yuck!
So based on my experience, I would not recommend using a flat iron on Saran. You can, however, use it on the hair I sell! The hair we carry at thedollplanet.com is high temperature nylon. I have experimented on our hair to see what it can handle to be able to provide helpful & honest styling tips.
I love straight hair styles on my dolls! I use my straitening iron all the time for creating sleek unique looks. As you can see, I am not using a top of the line straitening iron. I paid about $40 for this Conair straitening iron and it is several years old. So nothing terribly fancy, but it is plenty effective.
I rerooted my L.A. Girl Fashionista Barbie in our bright lime green shade, Soylent Green. I kept her original flocking because it is awesome! She looked like most dolls after they have been re-rooted; kinda crazy.
Instead of trying to describe how I straiten my doll’s hair, I took a bunch of “Work in Progress” photos. I apologize about the mediocre quality of some of the photos; hard to get a clear pic when you have a flat iron in one hand and a phone in the other!
Her hair is pretty thick, so I am using a higher setting. On smaller dolls or heads that are not rooted as thick, I use a lower setting. It is always better to start on a lower setting and only get hotter if necessary. The following pics depict the different angles in which I hold the straitening iron for creating the desired look.
NOTE: despite how it may look, the iron is ONLY touching the hair. If you angle or hold the head a certain way you won’t touch the plastic. Plastic can handle some heat, but I do NOT recommend placing the iron directly on the head.
I do this for a VERY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME! Only a few seconds to get the hair to lay closer to her forehead. This method does not affect the hair, but doing it for too long might put too much heat on the plastic. I would NOT do this until you have practiced and feel confident in your ability to straiten hair.
Already a big improvement in a short amount of time! Using a straitening iron isn’t everyone’s preference and hair from thedollplanet.com can also be straitened using the boil method. I like using the straitening iron because it is much faster and in my opinion allows you more control when styling.
I hope this psuedo-tutorial helps.
*The main purpose is how to use a straitening iron on hair from thedollplanet, I have not used hair from other suppliers and am not commenting on how their hair manages heat.*
Happy Hair-ing!
-Diana
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