Tips & Tricks Wig Dyeing?

I have a fall that I bought, back when I had blond hair, and I was wondering if anyone had ever tried to dye a wig a different color. I now have brown hair and would like to dye the fall as close as possible. Just wondering if anyone has any tips. Thanks.

 

If the wig is made with natural human hair, any hair color you'd use on your own hair would work.

If it's synthetic, you may have a hard time getting it to take color.

 

I think that it is synthetic. I will have to look at it again. I haven't really looked at it in awhile. So synthetic won't take color at all? Bummer!!!!

 

If your fall is human hair, then it can be dyed with regular ol' haircolor off the drugstore shelf, exactly as it suggests on the package. If it's any kind of acrylic, or kaualon (not sure if I spelled that correctly), it's not very likely to take to color change predictably, if at all

Whoops, I typed this up before there were any responses. It just took me forever to hit "post." Now, I guess I'm just reiterating what others have said

 

I'm glad that everyone is so helpful. I just wish the thing would take dye. I was going to use it for my Sleepless Knights Gown hair, but I may have to find something else. This doesn't sound very promising.

 

Some sources say no, but I did find this one who is a wigmaster and a cosplayer- I haven't tried this myself, but she sells dye kits for synthetic wigs (or will dye yours for you)--this site has everything you ever wanted to know about wigs, and sells dye (I didn't see brown, but you could ask)

http://www.katiebair.com/wigsupplies.html#dye

good luck

 

You have one other option. There are sprays to temporarily change your hair color if you think you will ever need the fall to be blonde again. Or see if these sprays will work on the fall.

 

I know a girl who "dyed" a wig red using watered-down acrylic paint. She says it sort of worked, but it wasn't ideal.

 

I've heard of people using a coloured "Sharpie" felt marker to colour their synthetic wigs. It takes awhile, as you have to colour a few strands at a time, but they were fairly pleased with the results.

 

The Japanese Cosplay Magazine Book COSMODEL recommanded dyeing a Sythetic Wig using Dylon Cold Dye. Personally I haven't tried it out so can't comment if it really work.

 

Let me preface by saying, I've not tried this, but I got some synthetic hair this weekend, and I need it a bit darker. My real hair is colored a brown 4. My hairdresser told me to dye the syn. hair at a 6 because it would take stronger to get the syn. to take. He mentioned a brand of hair color from Sally's Beauty supply (starts with a C). I'm going to be trying this soon. I'll let you know how it goes.

Point being, if you try to match your hair it won't work, you have to shoot for a few colors past it...if it will work at all. Might be worth experimenting.

 

Thank you for the advice and I will get out and look into that dye at Sally's.

 

I emailed my hairdresser. He said the brand is Compliments Semi Permanent. That has a dedicated conductor for the Semi Permanent mix that you need to mix in equal parts, i.e. 2 oz of color 2oz of conductor.

I'll let you know how my experiment goes.

 

I've used watered down acrylic paints for dyeing fur and wigs, as well as doll hair....

http://costumes.glittersweet.com/historical/bella.htm the hairpiece around the back and sides was a dirty blonde which was dyed to a dark reddish brown. I have washed about half of the colour out now, and it also was used for this:
http://costumes.glittersweet.com/sca/valois.htm

The fur I dyed was for:
http://costumes.glittersweet.com/moulinrouge/pdiamonds.htm
http://costumes.glittersweet.com/historical/1920.htm

If you make sure the paint is completely watered down you don't have to worry about streaks, though in the case of hair it can look more natural if done well.

 

Whats a fall?

 

a fall is a hair piece that looks like your hair is up in the back. It's not a full wig, but a hair piece that goes onto the back. It's kinda like the Tony Pony if you have every watched HSN. Mine is a bit longer though and looks like more hair in the back.

 

Well, tried the dying with the Compliments, but it did not work. It did get SLIGHTELY darker, but not enough to make a difference. Compliments looks like a great hair coloring product, though, if you are working with real hair. Sigh...The hair I got is about perfect texture and curl-wise for what I need, but just a tad too red to work with my hair.

I may try the other suggestions, but at this point, I think I'm going to get more hair. That's the problem with eBay hair...it's always a bit of a gamble. And, it's hard to resell.

 

You can use an alcohol based ink ( any ink that is waterproof) and dilute it with more alcohol. put it in a spray bottle and use this to dye a synthetic wig. After it will need to be rinsed but it holds the dye well. I found this out after searching on a cosplay forum cosplay.com. if you go to their wigs and hair section they often have threads on synthetic hair dyeing.

 

Unlocked and indexed.

 

Thanks S_S

At the suggestion that I expand upon my method I am replying here

For the wig used for this costume I made a dye bath. It was my first experiment and it worked but it left the wig a little streaky. This wig was originallly a dark ash blonde. I am not sure if I have found a photo of it before dyeing but it was a very nondescipt colour!
Essentially I mixed various shades of artist acrylic ink (mainly burnt umber, burnt sienna and a little black, red and yellow) with water. The ratio was about 1T of paint to 3/4C of water. I then took my plaited hair piece and swished it in the water, wringing it about a bit to work the dye all the way through and then I squeezed the excess out and left it to dry. I checked on it every so often and to avoid the hair getting crispy I rolled it around a bit to separate the fibres.
The streakiness came about because I did not work the acrylic paint into the water enough. I should have strained the dye through fine cloth to make sure all the paint particles were out of the dye bath.

After my own hair had faded closer to my natural colour I had to give the hairpiece a lot of soapy baths and a lot of brushing to take the colour out. And it still has a red tint. So it was quite ideal for this costume.

Recently I tried a more refined technique on a wig (huge wig) that was several shades to pale. This costume uses a 3/4 wig which is worn over most of my hair that had been pinned to my head but for a strip of hair along the front hair line from ear to ear. I was unable to spray my hair to match because no spray had the red tint both my hair and the wig had. So once again i brought out the burnt umber and burnt sienna.
This time I mixed them initially with isopropyl alcohol and then water, strained it and poured them into a spray bottle. Similar proportions- the more water/alcohol used the lighter the shade. This was because the wig was so huge I was not going to be able to dye the entire thing (four wigs sewn to one wig cap and dreaded) but I thought I could dye the front and under side of the wig to make it look more natural and sunstreaked.
I spyed the dye all over the inside of the cap and the "roots" of the wig to about 20cm down each dread. I plan on doing this again. The dye worked well for blending but I'd like it a little darker underneath to increase the streaked look.

I have also started testing acrylic ink as that is a technique used in cosplay circles and works very well especially for solid unnatural colours! Acrylic ink is expensive though (used for airbrushing etc) and I have far more paint lying around than ink