Wig Styling Essentials!

Hey guys, it's kind welcome back to my channel this videos gon na, be all about wigs, wigs, wigs. They really rule the world now, don't they. I want us to break down all of the stuff that I've got in my wig supply collection, stuff that I really use on a regular basis because lots of times in my videos, you guys, will be like wait. What is this or how to use this? What'S this, for so that's what this video is gon na, be all about I've organized things into three categories, from the very bare-bones essentials to the more optional stuff. So level 1 is what I'm calling the wig wearer stage the beginners just getting introduced to the world of wearing your wigs. What do you need? Well, the first thing you need is a hair brush, because if you're not brushing your hair, then what are you doing? This is a brush from Donna, love hair, you can see the bristles are plastic and they Bend really easily well not really easily yet they've kind of just been more from me using it a lot, you don't want something with really really firm bristles, because you need Them to be a little bit malleable to glide with a hair so that when it encounters a knot, the bristles can just slide pass it instead of ripping through it. Another really common style for a hair brush is what's called a loop brush. The bristles on this form little loops, which is really gentle, especially on synthetic hair. This is really popular. I think I just went into a beauty supply store and asked if they had anything that was specially made for synthetic hair and just what they gave me when a brush tears out your hair that hairs not gon na grow back. So you need something. That'S gon na be really gentle on it, so good idea to ask the sales just to see it, what they recommend for synthetic hair or for extensions or wigs, because I don't use just a regular hair brush that I use on my own hair. Another essential thing you need for wearing wigs is a wig cap. There'S two things people can refer to when talking about wig cops. If you look inside most wigs they're attached to a cap made out of fabric, this is what some people can refer to when they're talking about wakeup. What I'm talking about is the removable wake, half of one that you put over your own head, they're, much cheaper! Much thinner than the cap that makes up the fabric of the wig, something like this is called a stocking cap because the fabric, I guess I'm just resembles stockings, there's also a mesh cap. Let me get that this is a black mesh cap, fishnet cap, I, as you can see, there's holes in it and you can see I can put my entire camp through it. So if you have long hair, you can put this over your entire hair like a headband and then pull it up with the hair has a hard time fitting through something that's closed. If you're bald, I can't really give you many tips, not my area of expertise that I used to think, because I had short hair that I didn't even need. One of these that I thought only girls with long hair needed to wear wig cops. But if you try putting on a wig over top of your real hair, it just slides around too much and the wig cap helps to prevent that often times. I won't only wear one of these I'll wear two or three of these to get a really tight feeling on my head and also I'll pin into the wig cap, and if the wig cap is layered on and lots of them are layered on very tightly, then Pinning into that can be a secure route to pin your wigs on to your head, because if the way cops are on very tight, they're, not gon na slip off speaking of pins bobby pins are gon na, be your best friend unless you are putting on a Wig just to take a selfie on snapchat, you need a bobby pin now. If your wig is a full lace, then you don't want to pin into that, because that would ruin the lace. Even if it's lace front, you don't pin into the lace part, but you can pin into just the fabric part of the wakeup and i will pierce the bobby pin through the wig cap into my stocking cap that I wear on my head and even into my Hair, if my hair is kind of gritty enough, you are wears a full lace wig that you can't pin into then you would have to rely on things like Clips elastic bands glue to keep that on. But for most of us a bobby pin is gon na, be our first line of defense when it comes to keeping that wig on. So what I do is I like to cross the bobby pins. So pin them in like that or even put a third one, and that really keeps it secured onto my head. So I'll put a couple here in the back near the ears. Even if you're just walking around a couple of bobby pins doesn't hurt because a wig falling off is just not a good look. Another thing you're gon na want to have for your wigs is hairspray and hairspray is gon na help, secure the style and it's gon na help you achieve some of those more fantastical styles or even not, if you just want to wear your hair down. Hairspray is a way to tame down the flyaways. Get that hair out of your face. There'S two kinds of hair sprays that you can use, there's a really strong hold hairspray like they got to be glued. Something like this is for the more fantastical dramatic styles, whereas something like this is more for just if you want to wear your hair down, want to keep the two flyaways down and you don't want to go, get up so much because the more hairspray you use And the soon you're gon na have to wash it away if you're wearing a lace, front, wig, you're gon na need something that's gon na secure it down. I like to use, depending on the occasion I'll just use this dog to be glued hairspray and just spray that on my head and drive with hairspray. If I'm gon na be flipping and whipping my hair around I'll use pros-aide cream and put that on with a little popsicle stick and let that dry - and this is a lot stronger of a hold - I might even combine two both of these. I would add this in the list of things you need for your wigs, because this is gon na speed up the process of drawing those adhesive by like 10 times, if you're not wearing a lace front wig, usually that way will come with a bang. So you can sort of hide the hairline, so usually bobby pins will be enough to keep that kind of weight down. But if for lace fronts, you do want to keep down the lace to tight to your head. So those are all of my essentials for just wearing wigs, whether it's for a convention costume party you're just wearing awake for a night. That is what I think you would need level choose more about wig maintenance. So let's say you own a wig. You love it! You want to wear it again, you want to take good care of it. You want to wash it and just maintain it. Something you're gon na need to learn is how to wash your wig for synthetic hair. I would recommend laundry detergent and even fabric softener. I'Ve heard some people use that as like conditioner when it comes to human hair, you're gon na be using the same things for regular hair, shampoo, conditioner, hair masks. All of those things are really another video when it comes to maintaining actual hair. The best time to wash your wigs is when they're starting to feel a little bit dirty, smelly, dusty, washing them will get rid of all the hairspray and dirt and dust. That'S been collecting up in the wig if you are gluing down the lace for a lace front wig, especially if you're, using something like pros-aide spirit gum that can cause a gunky buildup. You want to remove that after every single use so use rubbing alcohol or even a special remover for them that you can find, probably at the same place that you bought those glues and ideally clear that out after every use. Because if you let that sit there, then the gunk just gets all hard and it becomes more difficult to take off the longer you let it sit there when it comes to the beginner stages of styling, your wigs and doing different things with them. The first thing that I recommend is teasing brush. I have lots of videos on my channel about how to tease backcomb your wigs to add extra volume to the base I'll be using brush like this, for the styling teasing back combing for the wig. I would also maybe use this for detangling brushing through the knots, because the brush that I showed you earlier they're, not as fine as this one. So this will really undo the knots if I'm really going through and detangling the whole wig something else. I recommend our duckbill clips. This is a smaller one. You can also get. I know what these are still called, duckbill clip, so if these have a different name to them, but this is more for like if you want to section off a large piece of hair for really large chunks of hair. Don'T use those snug book clips get one of these just a large hair clip to put a lot of hair up in place now, when you are detangling wigs, something that would really help, and probably one of the most expensive things that I'm gon na show you In this, video is a steamer, so I'll show you the one that I have this long self appalled just keeps it up. This is what the steamer head looks like. This is a garment steamer that you would use, and you would hang up your clothes and then use that you could use this on. Like curtains, I like to use this on my wigs. This is what the base of it looks like. It'S got a huge just tub of water. This is definitely an investment. You can get cheap steamers for like 20 30 bucks that are just portable. If you're gon na be working with a lot of wigs, I would just recommend getting a more heavy-duty one that like plugs into the wall, because you just don't have to keep running back to the sink, to fill it up with water. The reason I recommend making the investment is because the steamer has so many uses. You can use this to detangle your wigs and straighten them. I have a video all about that. You can use this to set in curls. If you have wire mesh rollers. I have videos about that. You can even use this to steam, your gowns steam, the wrinkle out of your clothes, so steamers come in very handy. If you work with a lot of wigs, I really recommend getting this. I don't know what I would do without my steamer. This is a new one that I've got, because I had one that lasted tens and, let's say tens of thousands. I'Ve had a steamer, that's lasted years and years and years, and I only recently replaced it because it would like leak all over my floor, so so we're getting pretty good investment to get a good quality steamer. Essentially, all of them do the exact same thing. They just heat up water to make steam, but more expensive. One will just last a longer I'm it will just let out a more steady flow of steam. You won't have to keep filling up the water jug as often if you have one - that's really big. If those lots of water, I paid a couple hundred dollars for this. It'S gon na be the most expensive thing in this video, but you can also just search up garment steamers that are portable and are a lot cheaper, like twenty thirty or forty dollars. When you are detangling your wigs when you're styling them, it helps to have a base to put them on so for cheap option would be a Styrofoam head. You can get this at a beauty. Supply store, a craft store, probably online Amazon or Ebay, is gon na. Be the cheapest place you can find these so I'll use these to display my wigs I'll use these when I'm coloring my wig, if you think about styling detangling curling, just doing general upkeep on your wigs, these things will help you out a lot in order to Pin the wig into these, you have to get some pins. I like to get sewing pins just from the craft store or from a fabric store. They look like this they're about two inches long. Can you even see and you'll just pin into the styrofoam like that? A lot of times, you guys, will see these white bands around the lace of the wig. I just bought myself a big roll of 12 tape, but you can just go to the fabric store, maybe find something like this for like half a meter. I will use this and put it around the entire lace front and pin into that, because that just helps evenly distribute the pressure around the entire head of lace, because you don't want the lace to rip when you're pinning into it and then relying on those pins To keep it sturdy as you're brushing through the wig, so the last thing that I'll include in this category of maintenance and beginner styling tools will be furniture. Polish or synthetic wigs for initial polish will help to slick the hair a little bit and just help your brush glide through it more. This will help you in the detangling process as well, and it doesn't smell that bad, so that wraps it up for level 2 and the third and final level that I'm gon na be talking about in this video is what I'm gon na call the more intermediate Wig styling level, if you have a lot of wigs, if you really have a passion for this, if you really find it fun and interesting and you want to start doing wigs for other people, maybe then the first thing that you need is a canvas. Wig block. Note the difference how this is a lot bigger than this. This is actually designed to more fit a human heads shape. First of all, it's sphere, it's harder. It'S filled with cork. I believe a pin can go in it and be a lot more sturdy than going in styrofoam. They come in different sizes and different lengths. This is 20 2.5, which refers to, I think the circumference around the head, shape, which 22.5, I think is the average for a human adult. You can see this seam right here, tells you where the middle of it is so you can line up your wigs nicely. Mine is covered in plastic. I got this tip from bobby pins, which is the name of a channel here on YouTube and the plastic wrapping around. It is just tape in a plastic bag that just helps protect it from when I'm using color. It'S one amazing hairspray. When you start getting into sewing wigs from just left's, if I sewed a wig and use this as my foundation, then it would come out too small. It wouldn't fit me. A question that I get a lot is how I mount my head. There are actual clamps that will clamp onto tables that you can buy. This is a tripod, it's actually not for wigs at all. This is a light. Stand. That'S meant for the studio lights that I have behind the camera. This is just an extra one that I have it's just a piece of tissue on there. If you look underneath both your canvas, wig block and your styrofoam head should have holes in them to put on this exact purpose, but without the piece of tissue. This is just too wobbly, it spins around too much, so I put a little tissue there just to have it be more secure, so I'm not able to look at it from different angles and bend this down, but I can walk 360 degrees around it, which I Can'T do if it's mounted onto a table. I can move this up and down if I want to sit down and stand up. So if you're interested in using what I use just look up, light stand on Amazon or you can look up an actual wig tripod. If you're, a regular viewer of my channel you've seen these a lot, these are wire mesh rollers and these are resource for you to be able to curl your wigs most hair rollers. If you go, look in the hair section of Walmart or a beauty, supply store, have some sort of velcro or clips to clip into your natural hair because they weren't designed to be used for wigs. Something like this is really good for wigs because it has holes in it that you can put a pin into it and then you would pin it onto the head like that and that's how you roll your wig. So you can watch lots of my wig tutorials to see how you use these. You don't have to use wire mesh. You can experiment with other sorts of rollers, but I find when I've used like the velcro rollers or the magnetic rollers. It just is too much of a hassle or the velkoz will get all tangled in the hair. In order to pin through this, you need something that's longer than just a regular sewing pin. These are three inch long pearl head pins that you can use to, pin through the wire mesh roller and into the wig to secure it down once you've got the hang of styling your wigs and curling them and molding them and sculpting them to perfection. How are you going to send it venue to venue or to your client whenever you buy a wig, I'm gon na, say 99 % of the time it's gon na come wrapped up in a hairnet like what cafeteria lunch ladies use to wrap up the hair, and I will use this and wrap this around the hair. That'S just gon na help to keep the style intact. If it's a really elaborate style, I'll, even transport it on a Styrofoam head. I will wrap the style around in a hairnet and then put that in its own separate bag like a plastic bag, a ziploc bag, because I don't want to get it caught in any zippers or jewelry or anything else, that's going in my bag. Now. What? If one wig is just simply not enough, maybe you want to add more left's. Maybe you want to add a second wig. Maybe you want to add some sort of addition extension to it. This is a curved needle. The advantage of this is if you're sewing into your wig, blog or mannequin head. You don't have to worry about piercing it into that head, but you can just sew and then it comes right back up, so you can get weaving thread at the BU supply store and you can use this method to sew in a second wig to stack it. Another method for stacking, your wigs is zip lights. The plies are small they're, not gon na come undone. I'Ve used bobby pins before to try to stock. My wigs was not a good experience because he just had to use so many of them. It was becoming bobby pins, central in my wig versus only using two or three zip ties. If you still think that zip ties are too bulky because they do have that little head then sewing in with a needle and thread is gon na, be your most seamless option beside from stacking wigs. I'Ve done a video in the past on sewing in weft. To give your wig some dimension, some highlights without using hair colors, so that is another option that you can really only get with sewing. Let'S say I want to put my hair up in a really big bun, instead of using 100 bobby pins. I'Ve discovered these recently that they're kind of like spiral bobby pins bun twists, is the name on this package. You see it has those two ends. You just spiral it into the hair, and this has a strength of like a thousand soldiers. Elastic bands and ponytails are also something that you might want for certain styles, get yourself, those small elastic bands, not the big ones, that you would use to like wrap papers or something like a ponytail for getting more hair. I really like these, they kind of remind me of like telephone cords, and these have a lot have a smaller chance of getting all tangled up in the hair. Don'T know the science behind it, don't really care to know, but I like these, I think that wraps it up for our video there's still so many more things you can do with the wigs. You know there's still a whole nother world when it comes to hair, coloring, hair, styling, there's wig lace, ventilation, so many more things that even are beyond my realm of knowledge. But this is really just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to styling your wigs and maintaining your wigs if you've got your own wig. Let me know down in the comments: is there anything in this list that I missed? Is there anything that you use that you can't live without and whether you have a wig or not? Anyone can answer this next question. What is your dream? Wig, the cut, color style, I don't even know if I have one, I think, I'm too fond of transforming. I don't i couldn't settle on a favorite if you did like this video be sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. But until i see you guys next time, i hope you're all doing well. Bye,