Hello, lovely ladies!

I just spent the past 10 days sailing the British Virgin Islands with my guy. What a wonderful time. We sailed in heavy winds, snorkeled around beautiful reefs, and visited little beach side bars – and I did it ALL in my wigs!

I brought two basic synthetic wigs, the kind you can buy online (Noriko, Aspen, etc.) They are not custom made (but I usually have them thinned out a little and perhaps have the bangs cut.) One was pretty short and razor cut, the other had longer bangs and slightly longer sides and back but was the same color.

As you might imagine I was initially anxious about wearing wigs during the activities involved in such a vacation. How would a wig handle the wind, water, heat, and extended wear? The biggest worries were the wind and water. Well, I can happily report that all went swimmingly! :-) I used several strategies to make myself comfortable in the wigs. Regarding the wind during sailing: at first I wore my longer wig with a straw fedora-style sun hat. But after a while, I didn’t want to wear the hat anymore. So, I switched to the shorter wig, messed it up a bit with just a touch of styling product and went without the hat. I assumed that the wind would blow my bangs back revealing a somewhat unnatural hairline, but with the shorter wig this did not happen. It just got nice and messy like real hair would. And, in fact, I thought I looked pretty cute and sporty in this condition.

Snorkeling was handled with equal ease. Before I went into the water, I put on a Scuba Do Rag (http://www.cococheznaynay.com/). This is a light do rag made for scuba divers and works wonderfully to protect hair. Since it is made for scuba diving, it is not an unusual piece of headwear for snorkeling and attracted no one's attention accept for an occasional complement from other snorkelers. I got a black one and thought it had sort of a pirate edge to it. :-) My mask and snorkel fit over it well. It stayed on VERY securely! After putting on the Scuba Do Rag, mask, snorkel, and fins, I just jumped into the water and never thought about my hair again. When I got out, I sometimes kept the do rag on until it and the wig were fairly dry, and sometimes whipped it off and fluffed my wet hair. This worked well because even as I did this, the "mono top" on the shorter wig looked good. And advantage of synthetic wigs are that when they get wet they dry quickly and regain their style. (Can you say that about real hair?) I ended up preferring the shorter wig for snorkeling as well as sailing, reserving the longer wig for dinners on shore. Of course, another person would not necessarily have two different styles, but my guy knows about my wigs and is used to my instantly changing looks.

As far as routine maintenance goes, my wigs got washed a lot and were no worse for it. Usually after snorkeling, we’d take showers to get all the salt off our bodies. As I showered in the tiny “head” (boat-speak for bathroom), I would also wash my wig in Woolite. I'd pat it as dry as I could, and fluff it up. Sometimes I’d wear the short one that I'd just washed again after showering, and sometimes I’d wear the longer one. However, if one had two identical wigs, the wet one could just be swapped for the dry one and no one would be the wiser.

And that was it. It all worked out just fine. I even took to sleeping in my wigs and completely forgot I was ever concerned about wearing one on a sailing vacation. As always, if you are into wigs like I am, my advice is to wear them fearlessly!

You are all SO beautiful!

Peace, Marie
P.S. I've added some photos from the trip to my profile. These are from my camera. My guy has some of me underwater with the Scuba Do Rag on, but I need to get these from his camera. I’ll post later.