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How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 7:18 pm
by IKickShins
Originally posted on the old HH board by Idiotic. Rescued from Google cache.

this is a wig i completed over three days, so y'all get treated to seeing how much my nail polish chipped during that time...

you will need:

-1 synthetic fibre wig - i usually get mine from eBay but costume or joke shops have them, too. if you pay a little more you'l get more hair on the wig base, which is a good thing. i pay anything from £7 up to £30 depending on what i need. you can't guarantee that the fibre will seal well on all synthetic wigs, but i've never had too much of a problem
- 2-4 bags of KK jumbobraid for dreading
- mix of foam/plastics if desired
- needle and thread or cable ties
- scissors


pick your colours and decide what's going to go with the base colour of the wig. if you just want a wig in a solid colour, only use KK that matches the base wig.

so, here is your wig. isn't it just lovely:

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i usually work on a table top with everything i need to hand. lay the wig flat on the table and start by taking a section of hair from the front at the top. an inch or so is usually fine, more if you want thicker dreads etc:

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backcomb the section. it's easier than making single dreads as the section is already attached to something so there's no foot holding or hangers involved!

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finished and backcombed section:

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continue on around the wig until you've dreaded all you need to. you can either dread all the wig (i will usually leave the fringe loose) or only dread sections, leaving some loose hair inbetween. i prefer having bits of loose hair as it adds to the completed wig's texture.

the wig now looks like this:

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i usually take a minute now to trim the wig into the sort of shape i'm after. so, if i'm going for an a-line wig (as i am here) i'll chop it into a rough a-line to give me a shape to work towards. i LOVE how the wig looks at this stage and always kinda want to keep it that way!

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now we're going to add onto the wig. lightly backcomb some KK jumbo. take a backcombed section, poke a hole in the very base of the section with your finger and thread through the backcombed hair:

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fold the new hair back over onto itself so it forms its own little backcombed section:

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grab both it and the original section on the wig and twist together. keep twisting until you've got the shape of the dread you want:

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i then loosely tie the dread into a knot to keep it out of the way til i've done the whole head:

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carry on until you've added hair to all of the sections you wish to. you don't have to add hair to all sections but it helps provide coverage for the wig base if you make your dreads fairly chunky this way. here's all the bits knotted up:

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you're ready to steam/handroll/whatever your dreads. unknot one dread and make sure you get any flyaway bits for that section tucked back into the dread. twist and steam, continue for all sections. here's halfway through:

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all steamed! this will do fine, you can leave it here if you like as you should have pretty good coverage and a good-looking dread wig:

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however, i like to make some SEDs to attach to the wig to add some more of the accent colours. this also helps provide coverage at the back of the wig, where the hair is always thinner. you can use DEDs too, i used to but find that SEDs work better for me. DEDs work best if you're making a solid colour wig. some of the ones i used on this wig:

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the brilliant thing about wig bases is that they're made of mesh, that you can sew/attach/knot all kinds of stuff into:

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*tuts over state of nails*

attaching dreads - i used to sew my dreads onto the wig base. you can use rubber bands by rubber-banding new dreads onto either the loose hair or existing dreads. rubber bands are faster than sewing, but i don't believe they look as neat, lie as well or last as long. sewing is nice and secure but takes longer. but now i'm a TOTAL convert to cable ties. i buy them in discount stores, they are super fast and probably the most secure method of attaching stuff to a wig base.

so, thread a cable tie through the wig base mesh:

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thread the SED onto the cable tie, loop up the cable tie:

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pull cable tie tight and snip off the end:

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done! carry on with all your dreads. i hold up the wig inbetween attaching dreads to make sure i'm getting the colours fairly even or covering up any thinner parts of the overall wig. it usually involves lots of squinting and will probably give me wrinkles.

you can also poke plastics/ribbons etc through the mesh and knot them off:

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ta-daa! you now have a wig with a good thick coverage of dreads plus a few accents for interest. tidy up the fringe and loose hair, snip off a few scraggly ends and you should be done:

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but i like to add a few foam and plastic bits'n'bobs to the back of a-lines just to emphasise the shape.

get a few strips of foam and short lengths of plastic/rexlace/tubing together:

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i then attach these in bundles to the back of the wig in exactly the same method that i use for dreads using cable ties, except i don't snip off the end of the cable tie itself, as it provides a lovely spikey bit!

so this is my finished piece:

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side:

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back showing foam etc better:

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hope you all give it a go and post pics in the wig forum

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 11:28 pm
by plum poison
that is a fantastic tutorial, i will be using that technique when i make my leopard print set for a photoshoot (if it turns out ok!?)

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:07 am
by candycovered
that is amazing ! <3

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 9:25 pm
by Marshmallowmassacre
So glad that this tutorial is up again, I missed it!

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 11:18 pm
by [Tank]
This is a tutorial of epic win, glad it's back ^^

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 3:07 am
by runningwithlola
This is a really nice tutorial, thanks.

I'm about to start my first dreadwig (ok, I'm thinking about starting it lol) and I want to ask you two questions.

1. why do you seal the dreads after they're all attached to the wig? Why don't you seal each one as you go? Is it easier that way for some reason?

2. What is that white that you used? My wig's color is about that.

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 3:17 am
by IKickShins
You can seal them before you put them on the wig as well. This tutorial isn't the only way to make a dread wig; its just how Idiotic made the one in the pictures :)

I'm not sure which shade of white she used.

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 3:52 am
by runningwithlola
Oh, I missed the part that said it was by Idiotic. Sorry!

Thanks. I just figured there must be some advantage to sealing them all at the end, but I have no experience making dreadwigs so I don't have a clue what it might be. Anybody know?

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 4:05 am
by AntaresJB
I don't think there's any particular advantage to sealing at the end. I make dread wigs in a similar manner but I keep my wig on the wig head while I do it, and I use a latch hook to add extra hair by looping it through the wig base itself, not through the backcombed wig hair. I work in rows from the back bottom to the top, just like you would if installing dreads on your own head, and I'll usually backcomb one or two rows, then seal, then backcomb some more.... I find if I do more than one or two rows of dreads before sealing, the backcombed hair tends to get in the way and the dreads stick to eachother, then I have a hell of a time untangling them to seal them.

There really is no one specific way to make a dread wig, tutorials are a guide but it takes some experimenting to determine what works best for you. I made a few different wigs before settling on my current process. Good luck! :)

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 9:38 am
by IKickShins
I don't seal mine all at the end, but I do seal them in batches. I'll do a few rows of backcombing, then seal, then repeat until its done. The advantage is that if you're doing them one at a time, you have to keep heating up whatever you're using to seal them with (or leave your steamer on while you backcomb), but if you backcomb them at once and seal them at once, the sealing goes a bit quicker.

I use the same logic for braids or twists and heating up the braid sealer. I usually do a bunch of braids at once and keep them ends together with bobby pins, then I seal them all at once so I don't have to leave the braid sealer on.

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 6:12 pm
by <<Miss_Sami>>
This is fantastic and just what I was looking for! Off to Asda to buy my cheap wig I go! lol ^_^

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 4:13 pm
by V1RU5-KID
omg thanks for this (:
might try it out

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 11:52 am
by V1RU5-KID
oh, what method of sealing did you use?

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 3:43 am
by Somber
This is great! I LOVE it!!!
:i2:

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 1:31 am
by Lady J
Great Job there! Thanks for sharing it. :)

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:57 pm
by elliss_seven
runningwithlola wrote:Thanks. I just figured there must be some advantage to sealing them all at the end, but I have no experience making dreadwigs so I don't have a clue what it might be. Anybody know?
It sounds easier to do it all at once but if you're dealing with at least 100 dreads or more, I find it's much better to just do it in parts. A big of a project as a dread wig doesn't seem so rough that way.

I like to backcomb a couple dozen dreads at the time & just steam them once to move onto backcombing some more. So I don't have to deal with tons of messy bc-ed dreads getting all tangled with each other.
After I've gotten a good portion of dreads backcombed & steamed once, I go through & steam them again (to seal the ends better most of all).

I do what AntaresJB does & loop hair through the netted base [with hemostats].
Though I did come across this WONDERFUL/helpful tutorial before I began getting into wigs, I don't agree with using cable ties .. unless your dreads are puffy enough to totally cover them up.
Individually sewing dreads is incredibly tedious but I hated seeing the plastic ties within the wig. Then again this might not bother everyone.

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2009 8:30 pm
by Jazmin
wow thats cool :)

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2009 3:39 pm
by Somber
I recently did a wig project, and for my next one I'm hoping for a smaller look, not so many dreads.

I know in this tutorial there's a lot of other accents, like foam and so on...
But how many dreads would anyone recommend to get full coverage without it being too full?
I'm terrible at figuring these things out, and generally like to learn from experience. But I don't want to waste a lot of money on an experiement I might not like in the end.

Help? :i10:

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 1:55 am
by IKickShins
Depends on how thick the dreads are, whether you're mixing in any other materials, and what you consider to be 'too full.' The best way to do it is just keep adding dreads until you like how it looks. Make sure to try the wig on your head and look in the mirror rather than relying on the wig head, as sometimes a wig can look amazing on the stand and end up sitting weird on an actual human head.

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:06 pm
by Squidgy
I wish I had some spare time to create a dread wig for myself in tiem for Halloween... I have been banned from wearing dreads at the moment and making a wig would be perfect right now...

I will definately have this tut open when I do get round to making a wig!!! :i2:

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 12:24 am
by pixychick
this is a great tut!! thanks so much!!

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 11:27 pm
by MadamRooRoo
cool tut, i think i will have to have a go on a wig i brought for halloween which i never used in the end (fingers crossed it works lol)

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 6:15 pm
by Stilldawn
Anyone else dig the way it looked all knotted up? Lol. I couldnt pull it off but I think it looked pretty cool just like that.

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 9:04 am
by Flower In Furs
This was a great tutorial!
I've never made a wig before at all, I mostly make cyberlocks and dreadfalls (ima noob :i6: )so i am really excited to start a dread wig!!
Thanks so much it was very informative!

Re: How to: dread wig out of a party wig **VERY photo heavy**

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 10:55 pm
by Angelfire
Sweet, I just got a black and pink wig on eBay, I will put my pics up on show offs when it's finished :)