All Things Curly

We’re so pleased to offer 5mm curl nylon doll hair and can't wait to expand our selection! 

Curled doll hair is manufactured  as a single strand of hair coiled inside a small plastic tube.  We tried spinning this hair like we do for our straight hair but weren't happy with the results.  Although the hair bounced back after being stretched, it wasn't quite as pristine and bouncy as it was right from the tube. 

It was also harder to get a consistent strand length.  Any change in speed while spinning causes the hair to become more or less taught, which changes the final length of each strand when the hank is cut.  We know consistant strand length is important to our customers.

I played around with the hair and was really enjoying rerooting it onto my dolls straight from the factory tubes.  That made me think YOU all might enjoy it too! ^_^

Each factory tube contains different amounts of curled doll hair. We cannot offer evenly measured amounts like we do for straight hair without opening the packages and altering the strand length and coil by spinning it.  Instead we weigh each tube and tag its color and weight. (The plastic tube weight has been accounted for an is not included in this measurement)  This ensures you get pristine, factory fresh, virgin curled doll hair.

This is where things are a little trickier than straight hair, because it really depends on how you reroot your plugs.  Rerooting heavily will require more than you would use for straight hair.  Rerooting lightly could require less.

Our first reroot, we experimented rehairing every single plug.  We had a final settled length of around 3 inches and a total hair weight of 2oz. The doll shown is Barbie Looks #7 Tamika in our  Annatto 5mm Curl.  For a Monster High doll you would need to double this amount and for a Rainbow High/OMG doll, it would need to be tripled.

You'll note, 2 oz is twice the amount we recommend for a calf length Barbie reroot with straight hair.  The volume here is insane (and we love it! XD)

We tried rerooting every other plug (aside from the partline) on our next doll.  Barbie Looks #7 Tamika again, but now with Cashew Later 5mm Curl.  This took us about 1.5 oz of hair for her final relaxed length of about 3 inches.  However her hair still has massive, crazy volume. 

Other stores recommend 0.5 oz for a Barbie, and this is completely possible, but the final relaxed length would only be around 1.5 inches and you would need to reroot every 3rd or 4th plug and/or forgo rerooting a partline. 

Once again, remember to double this amount for a Monster High Sized Doll or triple it for a Rainbow High/LOL doll.

It will take some trial and error for you to find out exactly how much you'll need to reroot for your own particular style, thickness and length. (It did for us and we're still trying different options ^_- ) If you are looking to know exact amounts of hair for your project would be upset at running out or having any left over, curly hair from Shimmer Locks may not be your best option.  But if you want to let loose and go wild trying different styles, thicknesses and lengths, you'll have a lot of fun with us at Shimmer Locks. ^_^

This is the first  time we have ever worked with precurled hair so we are still learning and haven't practiced using any techniques yet.  The lovely Natalie at Custom Doll Hair Au was the first doll hair supplier to work with curly hair and devlope a technique.  She creates a section of hair, smoothes it down to the very ends, then recurls the section around a chopstick and slides the chopstick out once the new "mega curl" is formed.  We can't wait to try this out but are running out of vacation time to have fun with our reroots. ;)  The following image tutorial is the properly of CustomDollHairAu and is being used their permission.

We hope this helps, but if have any questions feel free to contact us anytime!