Lucie Minty
Specialist Practice
Creating Dreadlocks
To experiment with creating dreadlocks for the wig I made samples wefts to test and experiment with different techniques of creating dreadlocks and materials. I made the sample wefts out of the same hair used in my wig (human and horse hair). I was aware that my wig had a lot more human hair to horse hair so ensure my wefts did to.
After trying out many different techniques of ways to hold the hair weft in place I found attaching it to the doll head using extension clips worked the best and was most secure. I tried matting the hair and really intensely backcombing the hair because knew from my research and speaking to people with dreadlocks they are created by the hair matting. With this technique it didn't hold in place and lost a lot of length and didn't look like or have the same effect as a natural dreadlock.
I went online and searched youtube videos watching tutorials of how to create dreadlocks in hair extensions. This was really useful and I found two techniques I could test out.
I found the technique which worked best for me and I found most effective was a twist and pull technique. Always twisting the hair in the same direction I would twist the section of hair about 3-5 times then separate the hair into two sections and pull them away from each other and I would keep repeating this. This technique matted the hair in a secure way. From research I found that a metal tooth lice comb worked the best so used that to back-comb the hair securing it after the twist. This technique create a really good realistic dreadlock texture but the weft of hair i created was too small making the dreadlock too thin. So when I create more wefts I am going to make them longer with more hair so I have more hair to dread making it thicker.
I made this weft much longer which worked a lot better. To create this full dread lock was very time consuming as you had to do it in small sections to ensure the dread lock was secure and wouldn't just come undone so took about 2 and a half hours. The dread lock was much thicker which looked a lot better and more realistic. I still wanted the dreadlocks to be slightly thicker so it would stand out more on camera and have a more dramatic effect. This technique I used to create the dreadlocks above used a lot of hair and to make a thicker dread lock the obvious thing would be to use more hair. I didn't want to waist hair as I was using human and horse hair which is very costly. I also too into consideration that when I dread the hair on the wig I don't want to waist the hair using big sections to make the dreadlocks leaving not very much hair on the wig to style.
I then created another dreadlock sample, I created the same length weft as my previous sample and used the same technique but to thicken the hair and make the dreadlock bigger I tried stuffing it with crepe hair. I started by trying to twist big sections of crepe hair in with the human and horse hair but this didn't work very effectively as the dreadlock kept coming undone and the crepe hair was very obviously a different texture and colour.
I then tried using the crepe hair in much smaller sections and rather than twisting it in with the hair I carefully stuffed it in the middle of each section of the dread in-between when I would twist and backcomb the hair (bellow).
Twisting the hair around the small sections of crepe hair worked a lot better, although it was more time consuming as I had to hold it in place while twisting and ensuring it stayed in place while I started the next section the final effect was much better.
In the image to the left it shows the improved thickness of the sample dread locks.
Dreadlock 2 (just human and horse hair)- Is very thin.
Dreadlock 3 (human and horse hair with crepe hair in the middle)- Is much thicker and has a much better over all look.
I was really happy with the effect of the dreadlock stuffed with crepe hair but wanted to try out using some other materials to see if they would give an even better effect.
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I visited various hair stores and arts and crafts stores where I couldn't find very much which I though would work well with the hair to give it a thicker appearance and texture when dreading it. I found a product called Oasis floral hobby which was basically fake moss which was cheap and had a soft texture which I tried applying into the middle of the dreadlock. This also worked surprisingly well and made the dreadlock much thicker.
After my surgery tutorial with Sara and showing my other dreadlock samples it was suggested that if the hair was curled it could make dreading the hair easier, so I tried curling the hair first. This sample I tried adding black wool. I found it very difficult to work with to start and found it was obviously a different texture to the hair so was harder to disguise within the dreadlock.
Wool Dreadlock Extentions
From my dreadlock research I really liked the effect of the wool dreadlocks I took photos of so had a go at making some myself. I plaited the hair to give me a base to wrap the wool around and then very tightly wrapped the wool around. This took time to cover all areas with an even thickness and to get the wool dreadlock to the thickness I desired. I started by making them with coloured wool which represented different aspects but I found the colours to be too bright and over powering so I covered them all with black wool then I wrapped sparsely colours of wool and thread for a more subtle effect.