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Monster High Re-root Progress

So the above pic is a series of progression shots through my reroot. I’m not going to go into an in-depth reroot tutorial because I already posted a list to reroot tutorials in a previous post here. Basically I started in the back using the reroot tool and filled up each hole. I saved the bangs until the end so it would be easier to keep them separate from the rest of the hair. Also, naturally you save the part thatching for the very last. Part thatching is probably the hardest part of a reroot, but there is also a great tutorial for that in the post I previously mentioned. 🙂 So, after you get all the hair in, you need to smooth it down how you like and set it with boiling water. You can also use steam to set the hair as you work on your part thatch, which helps to discover any weak areas that may need more hair.

So, if your hair is already washed and the hair is exactly as you want it, you can wrap the head gently in saran wrap and pour boiling water over the head. You can see the before and after in the shots above. Keep in mind this technique is for SARAN FIBER!! Saran fiber has different temperature requirements from nylon or kanekalon. Saran can easily handle boiling water and in fact you pretty much need the heat of the boiling water to style it.

Anyway because I didn’t wash my saran fiber before rerooting the doll I decided I should go ahead and pour the boiling water directly on the fiber so it not only removes the film that is often on saran, but also sets the hair as well. One thing to keep in mind when pouring boiling water on unsecured hair though is you must be gentle and slow otherwise you could get some hairs out of place and that would be no good. In the future I plan to wash my saran so I can use the previous saran wrap method. Another thing you want to keep in mind is you shouldn’t expose the plastics to boiling water for too long. 20 seconds or so should suffice without worry of melting any fibers or causing frizzing.

I also found this nice little tutorial site for styling doll hair which helped me suss out some of these methods for setting the hair. I will leave you with that link here: http://www.dolls-n-daggers.com/Dolls/OOAKtipshair.php These tutorials also cover cutting dolly hair as well as how to style hair to be curly. Lots of great info!

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Rerooting Tutorials

While I’ve been waiting for my order from Dollyhair to arrive, I’ve been scouring the internet for any tutorials or general information I can find about re-rooting and the different kinds of fibers and such that you can buy. I figure I’d go ahead and make a posting and share what I’ve found so far.

Mohair and Alpaca related

My Monster Crush: This blog seems to focus on Monster High dolls, and this particular posting has information on making doll wigs out of feathers as well as re-rooting with mohair.

Wedge’s Mohair Tutorial: This is a image on flickr…look for the “BIG” link in the description to see the larger image. Anyhow this tutorial is Blythe centric and again focuses on how to reroot with mohair.

Mademoiselle Blythe: This is another Blythe focused blog, but this posting has a TON of information on the differences between mohair and alpaca, as well as an overview of rerooting and TONS of helpful links on where to find mohair and alpaca fibers as well as more tutorial links.

Saran and other fibers

The Manor: This specific posting has a lot of information and pictures to illustrate the differences between Nylon, Saran and Acetate doll hair.

Wide Eyed Girls: This site has one of my favorite nylon/saran reroot tutorials. It has lots of pictures and I think shows the simplest part thatching method for creating part lines n’ that.

Suppi.net: This link will take you to a search result page after searching for “reroot”. Has many different posts with random information on rerooting, BUT it most importantly contains information on good hair color matches for Monster High Draculaura complete with pictures and fiber names.

This is all I have collected so far. Of course Dollyhair, My Little Customs, and Restore Doll each have their own little tutorials section, so it would be a good idea to scour those too if you are looking for more tutorials. Lastly, if you happen to know of any other great rerooting tutorials or fiber information sites please feel free to post the links in the comments!! Any posts containing links though will have to be moderated by me first as a spam prevention, but don’t worry, they will get through!