The Pain of Styling Doll Hair

One of the things most doll collectors have to deal with is styling doll hair, especially if you buy second hand. Sometimes the dolls you buy come very ratty and in need of some TLC, just like my ghoul Howleen over here.

I bought her from the same seller that sold me the Freaky Field Trip Gigi Grant, which was excellent condition hair aside. This one did have a stain and the neck is a liiittle bit loose on one side but other than that she's like new. The hair is a mess though, you can't even see her ears xD. I got this doll for 6 euros, so zero complaints! I'm obsessed with Howleen.

This lady also gave me these Monster High playset furniture for free! She's such a sweet lady for real.

This is her after the first clean up. I use dish soap to clean up her hair and body, and I usually use a toothbrush to scrub the bodies and face (I advice to be very carefull with the face paint when you have a First Wave doll, the paint will come off even if you're very gentle!). I didn't brush her hair at all until I conditioned it very thoroughly, then gently brushed with a detangling brush. She looks great but I felt like she needed her hair styled.

Now, I know this looks like waterboarding torture, but it's actually part of the process of curling doll hair. I use straws to do that, and you can see a tutorial on that method in this video. I first secure the straws with bobby pins, then set them in boiling water for a few seconds, and in ice water right after that. I advice leaving it longer than 12 hours, depending on how fast it dries. If you really want to speed up the process, you can use a hairdryer but ONLY IN THE COLD SETTING AS IT CAN MELT THE DOLLS HAIR PLEASE I BEG YOU. KEEP IT FAR AWAY FROM THE HEAD.

Straight out of the straws, this is how the curls look. They definitely need styling.

Hair after I carefully separate the curls in halves by hand. As you can tell, super fluffy still.

After a lot of fucking around, using elastic bands to make it less poofy and a lot of stress, here's the final look. Lemme tell you, the OCD tendencies really hit me when it comes to the flyaway hairs, but there's not much you can do about them tbh. Even with the best of styling, there will still be some. What really matters is that she's clean and beautiful again, I'm so happy to add her to my collection as my second Howleen doll!

Bonus Round

This is my Signature Robecca Steam doll that I also fixed last night using the same process. Although this time I went very hard and used watered down hair gel to really define the curls and keep them in place, as well as make the eliminate most flyaways. With this one I was lsoing my  shit over because I was trying so hard to make her perfect, but I think she looks very nice in the end. I've seen a lot of people use hair gel on dolls, but I would advice you always check out whether or not it is ok to use certain products on doll hair. Remember it is synthetic and doesn't react the same way human hair does!

One of the most beautiful Monster High dolls to ever exist imo. "Santa" brought her to me for Christmas, I specifically asked for her XDDDD.

At the end of the day, straightening doll hair will always be my favourite, even if I've burnt my hands with boiling water countless times. Look how cute Fangelica is with her hair down :'>.

When I'll finish styling all my dolls, I'm planning to make a loooong blog introducing my collection to all of you! It will be my pleasure to share it.