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Using Non­traditional Products, Items and Techniques to
Create and Modify Wigs
Heather K. Fleming
www.wigsforstage.com
[email protected]
One of my favorite wig projects happened recently, during the 201 0
Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of
Louisville. Deborah Laufer wrote a wonderful play called "Sirens"
which featured two rather fantastical creatures, both of them sirens,
of a sort. In order to help bring these sirens to life, I needed to build
some truly long, lush and outstanding wigs.
My first challenge was the actual Siren, an island dweller with
extremely long, extremely red hair (see Fig 1 ). Owing to the extreme
length and color, I knew I would have to build this wig from scratch,
which is generally how I prefer to work even when the subject isn't a
meter long. I knew that I would not be able to find hair in the brilliant
shades of red the costume designer Sonya Berlovitz, director Casey
Stangl and I had chosen, so I chose to color platinum blonde hair in
a variety of lengths. Figure 2, below, shows the wig cap (built to fit
actor Lindsey Wochley) on the headform with undyed wefts pinned
to it to - given the scale of the wig, I wanted to do a sort of mockup to
make sure I dyed enough hair. Enough hair, in this case, turned out
to be a little over sixteen ounces, wich is enough to make two or
three "normal" wigs.
Fig. 1 - Lindsey Wochley as The Siren in Sirens at
Actors Theatre of Louisville. Photo by Harlan Taylor.
Fig. 2 - The undyed
hair mocked up for
the back of the wig
Once I had a rough idea of how much wefting the back would require,
I was able to move on to dyeing the hair. The top and front were
going to be ventilated, so I planned to dye extra to use for that.
Creating color "swatches" of hair had already taken place - I had dyed ten different samples of platinum hair
using RIT dye. From previous projects, I knew that I could achieve a deeply saturated, brilliant color using
human hair and RIT dye - and I felt that I could more easily control the dye process, produce a better variety of
light/dark in the chosen hues, and do so more quickly and cheaply than if I had tried to work off of traditional hair
dyes.
When dyeing human hair with union dyes, there are a few important things to remember. Temperature is
perhaps the most important component - if the dye is too cool, the color will not saturate the hair sufficiently. If
the water is too hot, or if the pan is too hot, the hair can scorch or burn. If is also worth noting that you need to
be extremely careful to keep the hair far, far away from the burners. I like to use a large pan, with plenty of liquid
so that the hair can have plenty of room to move while it soaks - in this respect, it is like cooking pasta, though
not nearly as delicious. I have found that it is most effective to mix a fairly saturated dye bath, reduce the heat to
medium high, and add the hair to the dye pot after soaking it for several minutes in cool water.
If you cut the hair you are dyeing into small, manageable (3-4") sections of wefting (for obvious reasons, any
hair you are dyeing in this manner should be wefted, not loose), the dyeing will go more efficiently. It is far easier
to control the color and saturation level if you put only two or three chunks of weft in the pot at a time, and, like
yardage, it is more difficult for the dye to soak in evenly if there is too much in the pot. If you are dyeing multiple
shades, you can mix up several different dye pots and dye several batches at once - I recommend this as it
saves time.
Typically, the hair will need to soak around fifteen minutes for a midrange coloring - this is only an estimate, of
course, and you should check the hair frequently as you are working to control the color. The great thing about
doing sixteen ounces of hair in small batches is that it is really easy to vary the value of the color from piece to
piece, which gives you plenty of highlight and lowlights for your wig. As soon as I removed a piece from the dye
pot, I put it straight into a basin of cool water mixed with liquid fabric
softner. This helped to set the dye, as well as putting some moisture
back into the hair. Once it had set for a few minutes, I would rinse
it thoroughly in running water, also cool, to remove any lingering dye.
The hair was then conditioned using standard hair conditioner, rinsed,
and laid out to dry. Figure three (right) shows the sixteen ounces of
hair, laid out flat to dry, after it had gone through the dye process.
Naturally, I wanted to be sure the brilliant reds I had created were going
to hold up and be color fast. As a precautionary step, I let all of the hair
dry and then washed it by hand in a mixture of water and Woolite Dark - this removed any lingering bit of dye that
wanted to run. Once it was all washed and dryed, I used white tissue, white cotton, and white silk to test for
colorfastness, and am pleased to report no bleeding, running, or rub off of the color.
The wig has been onstage for a month at the time I am writing this, with no visible decrease in color, nor has it
rubbed off on anyone or anything. As for the condition of the hair, while I would not recommend dunking one's own
hair in a bath of hot union dye, I can say that by controlling the temperature of the dye bath, and giving the hair
plenty of conditioning, it is soft, supple and shiny, and holds curl beautifully. If you are reading this at the poster
session, feel free to touch the samples of the dyed hair for yourself. If you are reading this at a later date, I urge you
to look at the photos of the finished Siren wig here (Fig. 1 and Fig. 6) or visit my website www.wigsforstage.com
After I was satisfied with the color of the hair, I attached the wefting to create the back of the wig (Fig. 4) and then
ventilated the top and front. At this point, I fit the wig on actor Lindsey Wochley, still unstyled (Fig. 5). Once I had
deterimined the fit was satisfactory and the length was good, all that was left was to style the wig and enjoy the
show. See Figure 6 for a finished shot of the wig.
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6 - Photo by Harlan Taylor
The other Siren was a little less glamorous and a little more earthy. She needed a wig too, also very long and
dramatic, but made of gray yarn instead of red hair. I purchased six skeins of moderately soft wool/acrylic
yarn, in a medium thickness. The yarn was cut roughly into 4' - 6' lengths, which I then tied into a mesh cap
made to fit actor Mimi Lieber. I used a small crochet hook for this, and was able to work in a center part and
small, fringey bangs. Though I was working with yarn rather than hair, I wanted it to have the look and feel of
hair, at first glance. Figure 7 and Figure 8, below, show it onstage, after I had added some swept back pieces
to make sure Mimi's face was visible at all times.