OK. Here is the wig. It is the usual Monique fibre, quire fine and very flyaway (but a dab of conditioner sorts that). It is perhaps a bit longer than I would want, but not so much that I feel I have to shorten it. But my main thing is that I want the front to flip up and back. I would also quite like to neaten the curls, as they are a bit stringy and untidy. But how to do it? Suggestions please.

Aw. Doesn't he look lovely? No? Ah well.



The length.



And the front. As you can see, apart from an annoying bit of thread, the edge isn't too bad.



And this is the hairdo I am aspiring to.

oooh it kind of is almost there! Shame you couldn't get that real side parting that she has in the picture. Although, I was just thinking, on a wig that Lake used to have had a centre parting, and I used to be able to offset the wig to give him a side parting, of course it made the hair different lengths but if your cutting it then you could just re-cut it all to the same length.
I think you could get the sweep back and not have too much of a bad edge looking at that. How would you train the hair to go back, or would you keep a hairclip there to keep it back? I don't know how successful wig wax or the boiling water tricks are for being able to coax the hair to stay in a set style different from what it was made in.
As for curls can only think of the ways I mentioned before, but I'm yet to try them myself~
Have you thought of looking up how dita von tease gets her amazing waves? (I can't remember the technical term for it, pin curls?) and trying to somehow recreate it using dolly hair safe methods?

pin curls would be good the you could spary it with some gunk of some kind and "tease" the curls out..lookin good mau

Hmmnn now then peeps say that you can re-style synthetic wigs...but not too much so that they melt...Now then is it using a hot water method? I can't quite remember...so what I'd do mau is throw out the question on DoA...some clever spark will know...

Fanks guys. I quickly read a thread on boiling curls on DoA and it seems to work on almost any type of hair, not just the heat resisting. I am just terrifying of frying it. Given that it is also such a particular shape at the front, I would also not be confident that my boiled curl would be right.

Yes, I am sure Dita has pincurls and her style is very similar. In fact, her whole look is a complete ripoff of Rita Hayworth in Gilda (Dita? Rita? It's not rocket science). There might be a tutorial somewhere on the net on how to do Dita hair. I shall have a look.

Raven, that low side parting thing. As soon as I took the photos and compared with the one of Rita I realised I had set it too high. It was completely no problem to set it lower and didn't make the wig look at all lopsided. And I pinned the right side back with a hairgrip and it actually looked very Veronica Lake (same era, just with a dippy fringe). This is a lot better than looking like a brunette Farrah Fawcett. Does anyone know where I could get something that would look like a tiny, diamante hairgrip?

Is it a heat resistant wig? if you set a hair curler on low and carefully do it, it should work, but you'd have to find a really small barreled tong, hmmm oh and Dita Von Teese has finger waves in her hair for that 40's feel, slightly different from Pin curls (is a hairdresser)
as for neatening the curls, wet the wig and scrunch it into the curls and leave to dry naturally, usually wigs with a set in curl activate again after washing, I do this method with my own hair piece and it works fine

Maumau I think I have some bobby pins with diamonds on them that I got for the dolls, you could have one of those if you want, can't remember how big they are though..I'll take some pics with Blood later so you can get a feel for size.

I wouldn't be scared about using hot water technique, I've done it on 2 wigs now, one synthetic and the other heat resisting. Just let the water cool off a little once it's boiled so it's not yanno bubbling so much. Only thing with boiling technique is it will straighten the wig unless you can find some means of having a style set in place while it dries.

Thanks so much Suvi. Unfortunately, it is not heat resisting fibre. I believe Monique Gold wigs are kanekalon, perhaps? Very soft fibre anyway. So I guess curling tongs are out. Any other ideas? And I don't know that it is that the existing curls have straightened. I have only just got it and have not combed it. It is just that they are set rather randomly. How could I set some big, barrel curls that look a little better than these? And finger waves or pin curls, I have no idea how to do them. Hints?

How useful to have access to a hairdresser who is also a BJD freak. I don't have such as useful occupation. Psychotherapy for their dolly-addiction, anyone?

Raven, oh yes please!

And I think I would have to have the whole thing tied up with something to stop it saging as it dried.

hehe Pin curls are wound into a little loop then pressed down and secured with a pin curl clip, those little two pronged silver ones, whereas fingerwaves are a little harder which require styling gels (on real hair) and you create them using your fingers to put a wave in the hair. You can do barrel curls too with the pin curl grips which might work if left in for a while but I'm thinking you would have to wet the hair to get it to secure hmmm

this is pin curls flat against the head to create a tighter curl



these are barrel curls which are not against the head to create a loser bigger curl

Thank Suvi. Now, could I use tiny curlers to get the same effect, as I can't imagine being able to do it with pins on a dolly head? Perhaps it is possible.

And I found this very useful (but long) video on Youtube which at least shows in which direction one has to set the curls.

Oh yes mau, so you can actually pin the curls in place...

yeh little curlers should work fine, I think the grips would be a little big hehe unless you used one to secure 3 or 4 pin curls hehe

Or another thought mau...you could always sew them into place then you wouldn't see any big grips at all....

ooh yeh, Mich is right on that! Would probably be the easiest to do, they'd stay too without dropping the curl/height

wooah this is super helpful! I'll be nabbing this info to try myself. I wanna do a different sort of curl for Momo's hair.

Maumau pics will come sometime soon, I've been assigned childcare/making a pie from scratch as things I have to do tomorrow xD