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Human hair wig newbie with a couple questions
Hi all, so I have a human hair wig that's 75% Euro hair I believe. I'm totally new to wigs so I had a couple questions for those who are more experienced:
- How do I keep my wig straight after I straighten it? I think this hair has a natural "curl" to it so it often just goes back to the way it was a couple days after I straighten it. What's considered the best product to keep it straight, or am I just going to have to straighten it regularly with the iron?
- How do wigs fall apart with use? I'd like to know what I should/shouldn't be doing to make it last as long as possible.
Thanks in advance!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by hagster on
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There are many facebooks groups that deal with hair loss and all things involved with it - like helper hair. Those gals were human and synthetic toppers & wigs, and knowjust about everything there is to know about them. I'm going to suggest that you join a couple, check past discussions, and ask your questions there.
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Permalink Reply by femmejuice on
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Thanks for the info, will check it out!
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Permalink Reply by Murmo on
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When you wash a human hair wig you should actually blow dry it. Any hair that hasn’t dried will retain a bit of moisture and when you wear ir outside in humidity the retained water will react with it and it will become frizzy. If you go to Jon Renau’s website there is a wealth of info and tutorials. Also Amy on Wigs youtube channel.
A human hair wig will last longer than a synthetic but they are a good bit more care intensive. They definitely aren’t a plop on and go wig like many synthetics are.
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Thanks for the suggestions. What about when straightening it? What i usually do is wash, then blow dry, then when it's dry, I straighten. But it doesn't stay straight for long.
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Have you tried using a spray on heat/humidity protectant? Jon Renau makes a blow dry balm. I’m sure there are other products by other companies as well.
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Permalink Reply by StarShemaya on
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Hi femmejuice,
It sounds like you purchased a naturally curly human hair wig. So, yes every time you wet it or moisture hits it, it will go back to its natural curly state. If you are wanting a straight look, it will be less frustrating to purchase a straight human hair wig. Otherwise, you will have to straighten your wig every time you wash it.
To straighten your current wig requires giving it a perm or using either a blow dryer or a straightening comb. And of course, the more you handle your wig the more wear and tear, the shorter the life span.
Peace.
StarShemaya
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Hi! Where did you buy it from? A reputable vendor should give you advice on how to take care of it. I bought my human hair topper from a beauty salon that has a trained specialist in wigs. I had a consultation so she could see what my hair condition was like to determine what I needed, a wig or topper. Once we decided on what I needed, not what she had in store, she ordered it for me. Since I have naturally curly hair she permed and colored it to match the hair I have left. Unless you are experienced in using perms I recommend you find a salon that has a certified wig specialist on site – and make sure they are certified, don’t take their word for it. They should be able to show you their certificate. They will be able to show you how to style it and take care of it. Jon Renau has good information online, too at jonrenau.com/blog. There are plenty of people on you tube o face book who think they are experts but for the money I invested I want a certified professional’s opinon. Good luck!
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Permalink Reply by Sidney Prescott on
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hi,
ok first of all - do not start blow drying and ironing your hair on a regular basis if you want it to last!
I've been wearing human hair wigs for I don't know- 12 years maybe? They do eventually start falling apart, even if they are really high quality. Think about a sweater, if you wore that sweater every day for a year? It would probably have some reasonable wear and tear.
When you iron and blow dry your hair you damage it a little more every time. Im not sure how expensive your wig was but I'm assuming it probably cost you a lot. Using heat on your hair will destroy the natural moisture balance over time.
I don't wear my whole totally straight but if you want to style your wig try using jumbo foam follers, this will straighten and smooth the hair cuticle. It wont really make it curly, i know thats not what you want - but it will just give it soft wave and smooth the hair out giving it a more sleek look. Roll them in with a tiny bit of styling cream, or coconut oil when your hair only slightly damp and leave In for a few hours or overnight.
Use sulfate free shampoo for colour treated hair - my favourite is Pureology hydrate. it is THE best. I wish id known about it years ago.
For me the way they fell apart is the hairs In the silk top area will start falling out and you can end up with little bald spots. Which sort of defeats the purpose of wearing a wig... The lace may also start ripping and you could have holes. ive mended these before and this only starts happening after several months of wear.
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Thanks for your thorough response! I only wash it & blow dry it about once a month and straighten it about twice a month - that's not too much is it? How long do your human hair wigs typically last?
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Oh ok, for some reason when I read the post it sounded like you were going to be blow drying it every couple days or so
Once a month is fine, just use a low setting and use some sort of protecting cream as I'm sure you would. I just prefer not to use any heat whatsoever because I find the hair will just stay so much softer and healthier.
I typically try to buy a new wig once a year. Im saving up right now for my new one. Ideally i'd like to buy a new one every 8 months or so, before you start noticing any visible changes. Right now the silk top is thinning but otherwise the wig is still in very good shape.
Last year I waited closer to a year and a half and the netting had ripped a little in a couple places and the silk top was balding quite a bit. It sounds like "Oh well sounds like a bad place to buy your wigs" But they are in fact the best quality I've found so far, and better than all over wigs I've had in the past and more affordable too. It was simply because I'd been wearing it every day for so long. (If you're interested in checking them out, they are called Silkawigs.com and I can answer any questions you have about them if you ever place an order, density, colour etc )
I'm curious, what is the other 25% of the hair?
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YESSSSSS! THIS ^^^^ Sidney's right.
I would NOT blow dry it unless it was a major emergency and I was prepared to treat it with repair serum as soon as I got back home. Definitely do not make a habit of it, unless you're prepared to buy new hair every 3 months or so.
It's true that you will have residual moisture if you let it air dry. Depending on where you live - in the desert some very dry days I let HH air dry with a deep coat of leave-in conditioner and still have static.
GETTING IT STRAIGHT
I was going to suggest super-huge Velcro rollers, although Velcro can be rough on the ends, so use end papers or just be very careful when you wrap.
Hair has to go around a curler 1.5 times to make a "curl," so figure out your hair length versus roller size to end up with generally straight hair. Look at some of the "Victoria's Secret" hair tutorials for long hair that's mostly straight with strategic bends to flatter the face. They'll use big rollers/irons - just note the technique, and don't try to fry the hair like they do. They only need the models to look pretty for one shoot/show - they don't go home with her and cry with her over her fried, 750-degree curling-ironed hair.
GETTING STRAIGHT TO LAST
When you wet-style human hair, you actually change the molecular structure so that it's more inclined to stay in the shape you designate until something comes along to molecular-ly alter the structure, like a rain storm, or your shower, or an impromptu hot tub with a handsome date (oh, if only!).
Wet styling - as long as you don't stretch the hair too much when you wind the rollers - is probably the least damaging styling method you can use for HH pieces, aside from letting it dry naturally in its own style.
Remember how your granny (or someone's granny) used to get those weekly roller sets? And how they kinda held for almost a week, depending on humidity/her rain bonnet/etc?
SPLIT ENDS = EVIL OF HAIR
I have a 2 yo Louis Ferre HH. The hair itself has done OK with regular split end search and destroy missions. Do this weekly - easier to do off your head than on - trim anything split before it snarls and takes other healthy hair hostage with it. Split ends cannot be mended. I've seen the videos, yes, and I've Olaplex'd my own hair in various projects, and those "repaired" split ends are temporarily welded, but will eventually come back apart with wear and they will take five more ends with them when they go. Do you want to lose one hair of length or six? Easier to trim and keep it all looking smooth.
DID WE MENTION "NO HEAT"? VERY LITTLE HEAT, ANYWAY
Generally, stay away from heat. Heat is the enemy of someone else's hair that has finally made its way to grace your head, and heat is the quickest path to damage.
If you must use heat, start at lowest setting on a bottom back piece (so it's not easily visible if you fry it) and turn up the temp in micro-increments until the hair curls. Do not start on medium or high because curling irons have been re-calibrated in general since the last trend of straight hair. These 500 degree flat irons are the fastest way for you to get the opportunity to go buy new hair. If you're like me, you just invested a lot of time and money trying to get THIS hair to behave as expected. There's at least a three week learning curve/break-in period for each new piece of hair, I swear.
And good grief, a couple grand or more for hair is a lot, plus, if you're going to be shelling out money like that on hair, you could have just gotten the Maserati of hair the first time around instead of killing hairpiece #1 and then buying its replacement.
I have a bonnet dryer that I use on the lowest, almost no-heat setting with velcro rollers. I don't stretch the cap over a head form or stand because it stretches the cap kinda permanently - just put a collapsed stand in the cap to open it up enough to provide circulation without stretching the cap. It sometimes takes a day for it to fully dry because it's long hair and there's a lot of hair, or at least there used to be.
WEAR SPOTS FOR HH
Mine developed alopecia on top, too -- seriously, how dang ironic is THAT?!-- and the front lace line has started to look rough, even though I only bonded/taped it a ways back from the lace hairline.
It's a stretch lace, so that lace has "bagged" out in the back. It was a little loose when I bought it, and in hindsight, I should have sewn a few seams in to pull it tight.
You don't want to stretch elastic or the cap in general when it's wet, because it will eventually want to stay that way, at least until the next washing, if not longer. Also, be sure you're using something in your washing/conditioning to provide some conditioning to the cap materials - if you do a conditioning treatment and dunk the hair in a bath (uh, there are other concerns with that method, especially if you have long hair, but anyway...), that should help the fabric/lace/elastic.
Generally speaking, you don't want moving/loose parts in your cap. Moving parts will itch, stretch, get stretched, and when you're sweaty, get stretched waaaaay too much. A good fit to begin with will save you some wear.
Likewise, if you bond, use a tape/glue remover very, very gently with the hairpiece. You can scrub your head, but be careful with your lace. I've actually used Almay oily eye makeup remover (which made my eyes burn 100% less than tape remover) on tape that was already giving way. Also, tape's easier to remove if you remove before it's started to break down.
BEWARE (SOME OF) THE YOUTUBE EXPERTS
Keep in mind that you have European hair, which is infinitely more delicate than Indian hair or Asian hair. Those brave gals on YouTube putting their wigs into pans of boiling water on the stove DO NOT have Euro hair in their pieces, or else their videos would end verrrrrry differently. I have a friend who has Asian-like hair, and it's obscene what she can do to it - any one of the things she does every day, and my pretty LF HH lace front would have committed complete hair suicide long ago.
RINSING
Depending on how your knots are tied or injected on top, you will want to rinse it a certain way. Look this up. The Hair Plus website has a lot of good tutorials on taping and washing, I think.
PRODUCT
One last thing while I'm being bossy. Sorry - hopefully not too bossy, but I don't want you to have a hair disaster on your hands, and some of us have had those already, and if we share our knowledge you don't have to learn expensively.
Every manufacturer sends their hair out with their own specialized products that are supposedly designed to work with their hair. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes, whether it's the hardness/chlorine in your local water, the particular batch of hair you bought, or whatever, sometimes their products just do not work as advertised, and it takes a little trial and error to figure out what does work.
For instance, Jon Reneau Thermal Protection Spray may work on SOME kind of hair, but it definitely did NOT work well at all on my JR HH extensions, and that was such a disaster, I didn't dare try it elsewhere. It caused my iron to stick to the hair. Mot good, exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to do. That's when I quickly learned to mist/pin-curl my HH extensions instead of trying to fry them to death - they have lived longer than humanly possible - Willard Scott will be calling to congratulate them one of these days).
You spent a small fortune on your hair, so don't get all crazy thinking a $2 shampoo should be your first trial/error. Use good products and learn a little bit about the science behind the different kinds of treatments (and go find actual science, not what passes for "informed" nowadays - I like this site: http://science-yhairblog.blogspot.com/?m=1 )
GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR NEW HAIR!
Hope that helps! Like I said, I don't mean to be bossy, but you go home with new hair and all this hope and sometimes you have the right information and sometimes you don't. My first trip around with synthetic had me believing all kinds of things that were merely half true. If I'd believed everything the first saleslady had told me, I would have spent $15,000 on hair since then, and, of course, exclusively from that lady's boutique (she cut the tags). I've probably spent $5,000 since then, but I have about 10 hair options that have far, far lived longer than possible and can be used generally interchangeably without anyone much noticing.
FULL DISCLOSURE - I quit reading when I read Sidney's reply. If I dupe anyone below me, then merely consider it seconding the motion! :-)
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