A hairy experiment...

Well known Blyther Aveuch has written a fabulous hair washing tutorial that you can find here. It's quite different to the method that I normally use and uses human hair products instead of fabric softener. His Amarylis Aimee always looks so good (and Amarylis has notoriously frizzy hard to manage hair) so guess what I have been doing today...

Yep - washing dolly hair. All in the name of research of course :) Five girls got the royal treatment today and I am busting to see how it looks when it is dry. I must confess to enjoying the whole process immensely and the human shampoo and conditioner is without a doubt more pleasant to use than smelly fabric softener. I have been curious about this for a while - it makes sense to me that dish soap and fabric softener would be more appropriate for synthetic hair, but there is something kind of enjoyable about using "real" products. I think it stems right back to when I was little and washing my Barbie's hair.

I really should make time to do this more often - it was great fun! During the process Vanilla's name came to me which is nice as I was starting to think she would never have one. Apparently her name is Prickle and she's more quirky than beautiful. I am thinking of doing a little custom work on her very soon to make her a bit more appealing. Or maybe I'll send her off to someone else.... I still haven't worked out how to do those damn lips!

For some of the gang it was their first wash, so I am really looking forward to seeing if there is a difference. I don't know why I don't just do it as soon as I debox them really - maybe I will from now on (should any new Blythe make their way into the house). The drying process will probably take a few days as it's very humid here at the moment. I will have to be patient I guess.

Speaking of the need for patience, I find that I am beginning to miss having Holly my PuPe around. I've been stalking FrankieDarling's photostream hoping to get a glimpse of her! Maybe I should have sent out a doll that I wouldn't miss quite so much, but I really wanted her to be a Frankie custom - guess I will just have to suck it up and wait!

Rubies, wine and an unforseen dilema...

A few little things have happened in the past few days. Besides being horribly busy with real life things, I've managed to steal a chunk of time between bouts of drudgery, boredom, stress and frustration to give Roxy's hair a treatment. It's come up quite nicely I think, considering the state that it was in (again, the hot water/fabric softener solution is a MIRACLE!). Maybe with one more treatment it might be even better as it's still a bit frizzy at the back. This leaves me with a bit of an unexpected dilema as to what I should do with the fibre for her reroot that arrived yesterday.

The fibre is not mohair, but wool from a rare breed of sheep. I bought it from the most lovely Etsy seller that I have dealt with so far and it is stunning. I absolutely love the colour, it is perfect - I asked for rubies and wine and that is exactly how the seller dyed it. It's so amazingly soft and silky that I confess to spending quite a bit of time gazing at it admiringly and fondling it!. It has a really pretty sheen to it too.



The problem is...I think it might be a little bit too short *sigh*. And therein lies the problem, because I am more than a little afraid of Roxy ending up with her nice blonde curls chopped off and a big red afro in it's place. The locks stretch out to be quite long - between 7 and 9 inches, but in their curly state are more like 4 or 5. I was planning on using a really interesting rerooting technique that involves tying a knot in the middle of the plug and threading it through two adjacent holes, but the shorter than anticipated length makes it so that only the traditional knot method is possible.

I don't know what to do - should I chop off her hair and go for it, or should I get a coolcat scalp for just in case I don't like the result? I have heard that the coolcats don't fit as well as they could...and it is an added expense. Any advice from any super duper re-rooters that secretly read my blog but never comment?

Blythe hair secrets

When I got my fuzzy haired factory girl, I really needed some advice on how to fix her hair. I've been trawling the internet and asking nicely on the forums in the hope that some of the expert Blythe people will share their hair taming secrets with me. Apart from the hot water rinse, here are a few different methods that people have had success with.

1. Coat hair in conditioner (human hair kind), put in ziplock bag and run boiling water over it. Leave overnight and then rinse out thoroughly. Put in foam rollers for gentle waves. This was for a Kenner, not sure how it would go on a Neo.

2. Wash hair with laundry detergent, rinse. Then boil water and mix with fabric softener. Let soak for a few minutes. Rinse. Then twist hair into ringlets and let them dry overnight. I have to say that this looks really really good - check it out http://www.flickr.com/photos/squidslipper/3357586478/in/set-72157623207111178/

3. Wash hair with hot hot water, comb through conditioner, rinse and repeat. Finish with ceramic straightening irons (eep! this sounds potentially damaging - try this one at your own risk! I must admit, it did look nice though). Think it's best if you want a really straight look.

4. This is the method WoodSprite (on Flickr) uses...and it's nothing short of amazing. It's kind of lengthy and sadly involves using a product that I'm pretty sure is not available here, but I'll be scouring the shops for an equivilent for sure! http://www.flickr.com/photos/woodspriteblythe/2616138089/in/photostream/ You must check it out! It is the best guide to hair rejuvenation that I've seen.

Here is a brief summary of the steps:

- Prepare doll by wrapping face and body in cling film. Wrap cord around neck and slip arm through pull ring.
- Give hair a good brush through.
- Fill a little bowl (just enough so the hair will be covered) with about an oz of Chlorox Ultimate Care bleach (this is the product that I can't get) and boiling water. Soak for 15 - 20 minutes.
- Without rinsing, comb through hair first using wide toothed comb, then a fine tooth comb.
- Rinse and shampoo (using whatever it is that you like to use...she uses dishsoap).
- Then prepare bowl again with boiling water and fabric softener (same amount). Soak for 15 minutes. Comb through.
- Reheat mixture in microwave until hot. Soak for another 15 minutes. Comb, rinse thoroughly, de -plastic your girl. At this point, she uses scissors to trim any damaged or weird hairs.
- Now you leave to dry. If there are curls, give them a little scrunch from time to time. When it's just a little bit damp, put a little bit of leave in conditioner in it (she uses a Garnier one). When dry you can use a tiny mist of shine spray.

I especially like her advice about not brushing the ends of the hair after the treatment...which I went and did to Ashling after her hot water rinse, ruining the cute curls on the end of her hair (her hair still looked loads better though!).

I used a variation on method 4 on Ash's hair (without the Chlorox step) and it was very successful. I twisted it into ringlets to dry and here's how it came out. I didn't have any leave in conditioner, so I left that step out.