Adventures In Dying Liv Wigs....

[magkelly]

Since I probably have at least half a dozen very blond Sophie wigs beyond what I need I decided I was going to try dying a few of them with Sharpies and see what happened. Personally since I don't particularly like wasting ink, didn't want an all one color result, and I don't believe it should take 3 markers to dye one wig bright whatever color I pretty much avoided the instructions I've seen online. Instead I chose 3 shades I thought would work together lime, green, and teal and basically I took the paint it on strand by strand route.

Tedious, yes, but I don't care if it takes an hour to do a wig if it comes out right. Re-rooting takes a lot longer and goodness knows I've done my share of that. By comparison spending an hour coloring a Liv wig seems like nothing. First I colored a lot of the top hair with the basic green Sharpie. Then I did most of the under hair in lime. Then I went over the top hair again with the lime and lastly I mixed in just a tiny bit of the teal trying to make the transitions as seamless as I could. The end result was a nice mix of the three colors, but I wasn't quite done then.

Last step I waited an hour to let the ink set somewhat then I dunked the wig several times in a solution of ice water and salt, basically spent a good 4-5 minutes doing that. After that I rinsed it out till I got pretty much clear water hoping that the ice and salt bath had set the ink into the wig even farther. Actually it did seem to work. My wig which is a really nice bright even blend of all 3 colors looks absolutely great and is drying as I type. It looks like the ice water and salt bath really set the colors, but also kept them bright, and it seems to have merged them in a way I really hoped it would. (I got the idea of the end dunk from doing some tie-dye work with Sharpies last summer.) Whether or not the wig will be that dark when it's dry is yet to be determined, but I do think I have a pretty good shot of it looking pretty much as I intended.

I have a Katie Liv that I am working on doing a custom with. I've been wanting a green wig for her for a long time now actually. If this one comes out as good as I think it will my next two wigs are going to be an aqua and teal mix and a firebird mix of several really bright colors intended to mimic a flaming multi-colored red hairstyle I've seen several celebrities wear in the past few years. I've actually done that once on an old 90's Barbie and while it came out a bit lighter than I would have liked, probably because the doll was older and she had really crappy nylon hair to begin with, I've always liked the end result and wanted to try it again. I think on a good Liv wig the result might be far better, darker, more like what it should have been.

I have to finish painting and dressing Katie. But when she's done and the wig is in place on her I do think you all will like it. If it works like I think it will the end results will be very Jem doll like and lots of fun. I've always wanted to do that. Make my own set of Jem inspired "brights" dolls. I've got tons of pink, purple and blue wigs. I've got the orange red wig now from the Brights collection too. All I really needed to make it all work was wigs in these colors lime/green and aqua/teal. I guess I'll have to figure out some way to give Jake some streaks or something too now that I think about it...

Anyhow, more pics soon as it's all dry....

[magkelly]

Finished up Katie's paint this morning. I'm just waiting on her drying to costume her and put on her wig, but the end result is looking good. The wig's dark steaks dried a little lighter than I thought they would, but you can still see a nice color variance thing going on. More importantly the cold water and salt dunk thing seems to have made the dye from the Sharpies quite stable. I've been combing the wig, touching it and nothing is rubbing off on my hands which means I probably won't have to worry about the doll or her clothes getting messed up. I'm definitely going to be doing this again. I really liked the result. The wig is still soft but it's nice and bright and doesn't smell much like Sharpies either which is a plus.

[AthenaSong]

Did you ever take a picture of the results? My BBB can use Liv wigs and I'm curious to see how well it came out.

[Shinku_Rhapsody]

Did this work? I tried dying a wig with sharpies but didn't do the ice/saltwater step and it started rubbing off...

[magkelly]

So far on the green wig it's working fine, no rubbing that I can see, but the aqua wig I tried to do was a dismal failure, same procedure. I'm going to go get another aqua sharpie and try again tomorrow. I think it's a question of how long you let it dry before you do the bath thing. I left it a lot longer with the green I think. I think it just bonded better. Either that or blue doesn't for some reason.

[embyquinn]

How concerned are you about the color from the Sharpies transferring from the hair to the doll over time? I've had that happen on my few experiments with Sharpie dyeing. That's why I go the watered-down acrylic paint route these days.

[magkelly]

Actually I've used sharpies quite a lot with old blond Barbies and what I find is that it just takes a long, long while for the color to set. I just do them, put them up somewhere with their hair carefully wrapped away from their heads in white tissue. Wait a few weeks. Once it does set fully though I don't have many problems with rub offs.

Most of the Barbies I've done are fully set. I did those a long time ago without the ice and salt bit. I am concerned not having done Liv wigs before and that's why Katie isn't wearing her green wig yet. I want to leave it to dry for a couple of weeks more even though it does look like the ink has set very well on that one. I will likely put it on her to take a quick pic soon, but after that I'll leave her without it until I am sure. Probably till the end of Feb maybe just to be sure.

In the end I hope it's fine but if not it's no big deal. This doll is an extra Katie for me. If worst comes to worst I can swap her head out and use the body for a Barbie eventually. She'll be dressed to cover mostly. So any problems will only affect her head, shrug.

[delbelcoure]

THis is very interesting. I'd love to see pictures of the Liv doll and the Barbies. I've experimented with acrylics before, but not Sharpies.

[magkelly]

I'm still working on the aqua wig as I type and also a red mixture one too. The green one is fully done. I'll take pics as soon as I get the 3 of them all done. You know this has been really interesting because I've had such drastically different results so far using the exact same blond wig and Sharpies from the same pack.

The dark green/lime wig dyed beautifully and after a quick rinse and ice water/salt dunk it's solid. No rubbing off at all. The dark aqua wig on the other hand has taken me quite a while and honestly it has been nothing but trouble. I've had to hand color it 3X now and do a rinse and ice water dunk each time and no matter what I still loose some of the aqua dye and you can see some of the original blond. 3X later it's acceptable in color and I think I finally have the dye set, at least there's none dripping onto the paper towels now but it's nowhere near as nice as the green one. I was doing exactly what I did with the lime/green wig aiming for a solid 2 tone aqua/teal and I've got aqua, a bit of teal, and some ice blond. That's it. It's like this wig will only take so much dye, period.

I'm about half way through the rainbow reds one and really hoping this one comes out better, more like the first one did, but I'm really wondering what the difference is really. Is it the different colors of ink? Is there more of some finishing chemical on the second wig that simply wasn't on the first? The wigs are identical, off the very same Liv Sophie doll. It just so happens that I got like 5 of them when they marked them down on clearance at Target etc. So the way I see it the second wig should have dyed as well, but it just didn't for some reason.

I'm going to finish up the reds wig tonight and leave it to dry for a few days. Then I'll finish it off and dry it again and see how it goes. With any luck I'll be able to take pics of the wigs on 3 Liv dolls in a few days and all will be cool. Sorry, I know it's taken me a while on this one, but it's been a major project, longer, much more involved than I thought it would be. I've got 2 more wigs like this that I can mess with though so I may just do them all and see what happens, if trying the same blue hues on a different wig helps.

Stay tuned.

[delbelcoure]

I wonder, did you wash the wigs before you dyed them? Some might have had some chemical left over from manufacturing on them.