Wig Washing (mini tutorial)

So there is a character in Star Command named Red Mary. She is a pirate with red hair. As the costume designer (and now actress for Red Mary) I need to give her red hair. The nice part of this situation is that I already own a red wig. The downside is that the condition it was in was not one you want to see in HD video.

The wig pre washing. You can't really see all the tangles in the picture.

Thankfully all that was needed to restore this lovely wig is a bit of wig shampoo, de-tangler and a comb.

Supplies and wig

The night before I hit up Sally's for some wig shampoo, which would be the Revlon bottle in the above picture. Since this is my first time washing a wig with shampoo I read and reread the directions on teh bottle about 12 times.

Step one is to fill a basin (aka pot) with cool water and add a small amount of shampoo to the water. 

Step two is to submerge the wig into the water. This was kind of weirdly nerve wrecking as I would hate to accidently ruin such a nice wig. My nerves were misplaced and I knew it.

Step three is to leave the wig to soak for a few minutes and agitate gently. Considering it's winter and the water is cold, my hand was not impressed with this step.

Step four was to rinse the wig in cool water.

It looked like a drowned rat when I hung it up to dry.

Step five is to hang the wig up to dry. You don't want to put it on a wig head to dry as that will keep the base/scalp/net of the wig from drying fully or quickly. Also, I don't own a wig head. :P

While it was still very wet I did a small bit of combing just to get the big chunks separated so they could dry easier. As it dried I continued to come back and comb parts out. As well as to spray the de-tangler onto the wig.

Step six is to comb it out with the de-tangler when dry. As mentioned above I spread this step out. The bottom where the worst of the tangling ended up drying very quickly so i tackled that part first and then left the rest to dry before combing it out.

Finished product clean and combed and ready for wearing.

Front of wig on once it's dry and combed.

The back all combed out.

I have to say I am very pleased with the finished result and can't wait to get more use out of such a nice wig. And after all that not so hard but tome consuming work, I had to put it on and take some fun/funny photos.

Who's pulling on my hair?

Mermaid hair pose. This is how I always imagine mermaid hair when they're out of the water.

Hair mustache!

In non wig related news, I am kicking butt on getting my Christmas presents done and packaged. I have a stack on my ironing board ready to go to the post office. I also got some supplies I ordered for some bags. I'm hoping they turn out not to be a pain in the ass to make. I'll keep you all posted.

After this weekend I will have some more on set costume pictures for you all.