Sunday, January 11, 2009

Doll Hair Rescue 101

Deb received Kirsten for Christmas (see previous Christmas post). My mom found her in Texas and she was in great shape except for her hair. So I looked on the Internet and found a site that told me how to fix her hair. Here is what she looked like at the start.

Hair unbraided prior to brushing.

I brushed with a wire wig brush and got out the tangles. It already looks much better now, but it was a little dull looking and the ends were frizzy. This took me a little less than an hour to brush it out.

I washed it and conditioned it according to the directions. To condition it, you soak the doll's hair in fabric softener for an hour then rinse. But the most effective treatment was to steam the hair with a hand held travel steamer. It certainly tamed the frizzy part of the hair. They weren't completely gone, but they were certainly reduced. This took me about an hour all told.

Kirsten newly braided and looking ready for Deborah to take her to church.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can you email me the instructions on how to fix American Girl hair? I'm not sure what a travel steamer is. I have 3 dolls that need some attention.

Anonymous said...

maybe I should try that on MY hair, LOL

Great job!

Diane said...

Great idea. My nieces have the big "walking" dolls that my sister and I had when we were their age. But their hair is icky. Matted and clumped. I'll give this a try!

Griese Family said...

That is amazing!! And American Girl actually charges you money to send your doll to their "Hospital" - probably a lot of money if it's like anything else they sell. Carina has a "look like you" doll and the hair seems hard to take care of. If you don't mind, could you send me the site you found this at??

Great Job!!
Christine

Technoprairie said...

The site is JustMagicDolls.com. Here's the link to the hair care 101. http://www.justmagicdolls.com/articles/HairCare/HairCare101.htm

A travel steamer is something that generates steam but there isn't any kind of plate that you iron with. The idea is that you generate steam and try to steam the wrinkles out of your clothes without laying them down on the ironing board. The site has a picture of one on that advanced hair care.