Straightening A Synthetic Wig?

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• Princess_Exodia

  I've seen a few tutorials on straightening synthetic wigs with hot water and I wanted to know if anyone has tried this themselves. I have a wavy wig (not fully curly) that I need to be straightened. I was thinking about using this method since it's the safest. The last thing I would want to do is melt the hair fibers. It wasn't an expensive wig but it's perfect for what I'm using it for and it's decent quality. The wig in question: [IMG]http://i60.tinypic.com/350a03q.jpg[/IMG]

• animenerd93

  What's the quality of the wig fibers? Is it heat resistant? If it's not most of the times people do it by gradually raising the temperature of the water so that the fibers don't get damaged

• Princess_Exodia

  I want to say that it's fairly heat resistant but the item info doesn't really tell me much (I purchased it from Amazon. It's a nice wig, thick and it was easy to cut and adjust. But I have no idea about the temperatures the fibers can withstand. I thought the water method would be the safest since it is a gradual process. Should I attempt it or leave the wig as is? I don't want to do any irrevocable damage.

• animenerd93

  as long as you do it slow there shouldn't be too much of an issue. if you have any of the scraps from what you cut you can test on that first

• CapsuleCorp

  Hot water straightening definitely works. Yep. Done it a bajillion times. The only real difference between heat-resistant wigs and non-heat-resistant fibers is that the heat-resistant ones can take a higher level of heat than the non. Only the very cheapest monofilament wigs (party city wigs, e.g.) will react poorly to heat, and even then, if you're using hot water, the worst that would happen is that the fibers would kink and frizz and that might turn into permanent damage. If the wig is any better quality than that, it should straighten just fine with hot water. If it doesn't relax at all, or doesn't relax enough, after the first round, you can try heating the water a smidge more and doing it again. Either way you won't get chunks of melted plastic. I've done this so many times, it used to be my go-to prior to heat-resistant wigs being a thing. I still use primarily natural-colored wigs from New Look, not heat-resistant fibers (I don't like 'em much), so by now I've gotten pretty adept with using a hair straightener on its lowest setting. When in doubt, though, hot water is a good cheap and easy substitute.

• Princess_Exodia

  [QUOTE=CapsuleCorp;4949221]Hot water straightening definitely works. Yep. Done it a bajillion times. The only real difference between heat-resistant wigs and non-heat-resistant fibers is that the heat-resistant ones can take a higher level of heat than the non. Only the very cheapest monofilament wigs (party city wigs, e.g.) will react poorly to heat, and even then, if you're using hot water, the worst that would happen is that the fibers would kink and frizz and that might turn into permanent damage. If the wig is any better quality than that, it should straighten just fine with hot water. If it doesn't relax at all, or doesn't relax enough, after the first round, you can try heating the water a smidge more and doing it again. Either way you won't get chunks of melted plastic. I've done this so many times, it used to be my go-to prior to heat-resistant wigs being a thing. I still use primarily natural-colored wigs from New Look, not heat-resistant fibers (I don't like 'em much), so by now I've gotten pretty adept with using a hair straightener on its lowest setting. When in doubt, though, hot water is a good cheap and easy substitute.[/QUOTE] Thank you! The wig was cheap to buy but it's certainly not cheap quality. The majority of my wigs are heat resistant (I've gotten them from everywhere including eBay and wig shops) so I've never had to use this method before. If all goes wrong (which I sincerely doubt that will happen) I do have a back-up wig that I used for this cosplay a year ago. Thanks again!

• Synaster

  I have a hair straightener that heats up after being plugged in, but hasn't been switched to the "on" position. I've been able to use it to help straighten out frizzes in a $10 Wal-Mart wig I was detangling. I haven't once had any fibers melt together. At least, not yet.