how to tame american girl doll hair

This one is for mommas of girls, well boys too, wait not just mommas either. This one is for all parents. Hell grandparents too! Anyone that encounters any type of doll with hair. So last night my four year old daughter came to me and asked me to brush her favorite dolls hair. Of course I said yes! Expecting her to bring me a Barbie or one of her other dolls that would take about five full minutes then I could go to bed. Nope. She brings me what I’ve come to call Dreadhead Dollie and this is why... See why? First off why the heck would anyone put this much freaking hair on a dang doll?! Seriously, the person that designed this damn thing must have been bald. Let me put this in to perspective in case you aren’t visualizing the actual amount of hair that is on this things head. Imagine my fist is smaller than the pony on her. Now yea I have small hands see. -> Now back to the point of this read. How to tame the mane. No it does not involve a weedwacker or any sharp objects other than some light scissor work. Nor does it involve purchasing any type of crazy expensive human hair product and actually the reality of it is that human hair products make the dolls hair WORSE, so much worse and its a total waste of money. You see doll hair is totally different than human hair, it is basically tiny strands of fishing wire like material and when you put human product in it it just sits there on the strands and the more you comb through it the product is stripping the (to be totally honest I have no idea what the stuff they use on these things) product that the manufacturer uses to give the doll that shiny beautiful hair we all want away. Don’t worry I will get to the how to I promise! This is valuable info! Not only is the manufacturers product being stripped but your just pulling all of that expensive stuff you just bought off as well. So not only have you ruined your kiddos favorite doll you’ve probably wasted enough money that you could have just bought a new doll. Yup, another lesson learned the hard way. My loss your gain. Speaking of Gain, and yes I am talking about the fabric softener product Gain. This has become quite the Hail Mary in my household, kind of like Windex ( I hope you know all of the Windex hacks, if not comment on the blog below and let me know so I can make a new one all about it) there is so much you can use it for! Stinky shoes, stinky carpets, basically anything stinky lol, also - fun fact if you put a bit in a spray bottle and use it like you do Febreeze it will also get rid of the static in your clothing and carpets (YAY for no more shock therapy when we open the doors or touch another human!) So yes, the secret in todays lesson is Gain fabric softener I am not sure if any brand would work or not. We can’t use any other one besides the original Gain due to sensitive skin ( I know it sounds totally insane but if I use anything else I end up with massive eczema breakout as do the kiddos) but you’re welcome to try and let me know. On to the good part. What do we do with this Hail Mary product you ask? Well first you want to make sure you have some tools, no I don’t mean literal tools I mean like supplies. Here’s what you’ll need: A cup (or less depending on dolls hair mass) of Gain or another brand softenerBig mixing bowl or sink A cup of warm water ( again dependent on doll hair mass) A sturdy and designated brush (never mix your brushes if you want to keep your mane tamed, we can chat more on that later) Hard surface for brushingTowel Once you have your supplies set up you will need to prep the doll. For Barbies I remove the head totally if possible, for big dolls I try to avoid getting any part of the head wet to avoid risk of mold getting into the “pores”. Next you want to mix the water and softener, making sure it is roughly equal parts into a bowl or sink large enough to drench your dolls hair in. I use our utility sink. Then you will take the doll starting with the ends of the hair and dip her hair into the mixture and start massaging it like you do your own when washing your hair. Continue to do this throughout the whole head avoiding the “pore”. After you have saturated the dolls hair you’ll want to wring it out but not rinse it, the mixture stays in. But you want to get enough water out so that you’re not drenched yourself when we being brushing. Now we get to the work, I hope your arms are prepared for this if you have a dreadhead like mine. While the doll sits to dry out a little more you will need to lay the towel flat on a hard surface. When your workstation is set you will lay the doll flat (attaching Barbie head first) on the towel with the hair laid out kind of like this: I already started brushing at this point but you want also section the hair off if there is a lot of it like dreadhead here. Now if your doll has long hair you are going to want to hold the hair down as you brush like so: This avoids the strands from pulling other sections in and the spring effect from happening (you’ll know when you encounter it what I mean). Brushing each section and moving it to the side when done you should start to see life in the dolls hair again! When you move the sections to the side try to move them downward as well, this will make the transition from laying doll to standing doll less messy. When you are all done with the sections slowly add then together, while it is still half wet it will get tangled easily again. I like to use a wide tooth comb for this step you don’t have to but it makes it easier. Once you have all the hair together again stand the doll up slowly and comb though as you do. There will be some long stringy strands that you want to snip off but you should have an end result like this! Gorgeous right? Yes I have total doll hair envy but whatever, this one has my dream color haha. Now that your Dollie is looking fabulous you want to wait to give it back to kiddo until it if fully dry, otherwise you will be back here reading this whole thing over again. Once it is totally dry kiddo can play with it just as before but with less worry that its hair will become dreadhead. Thats it, this process should only take about 10ish minutes (unless the dolls mane is as ridiculous as this one) then you’re looking at a solid 30). I gave mine to my daughter this morning with it’s hair in a braid and told her it had to stay that way until it was dry, she was so excited and did her adorable happy dance and she actually left the braid in all day! So there you have it, my long winded how to tame a dolls mane tutorial! I hope you enjoyed this read, have a fantastic whatever time it is when you’re reading this! Feel free to drop a comment or feedback as well as hop over to my YouTube for more how to’s and Ci’s moments, my YouTube channel is Crafting Unedited. See you there!