Thursday, August 19, 2010

Wig Review: Milano Band Fall 12/14 Makeover

Posted by Unknown at 9:48 PM

Back in September 2009, I bought a Milano band fall from one of their "out of town" distributors.  The color was a 12/14, which looked like a dirty blonde but not that reddish.  The hair looked thick and nice and so I decided to purchase it.  I believe it was $950 because it was on sale or something.  Anyway, it has been a pretty good piece.  The few problems I had with it: cap size too small and color oxidizing to this weird shade, I fixed.  This post is not only a review of a fall, but a story of how I optimized my wig.

So here it was.  My dull fall, turning into a dry oxidized piece...

Before
My review:  This wig is fairly typical.  It has machine wefts.  It is a fall, so there is no skin top.  The hair on the crown is sewn in to fall backwards like a good fall too.  The hair on this wig was much nicer than my first Milano full wig.  It never knots, which is a plus.  It is definitely treated hair and far from "Virgin European".  Because it was treated and dyed and probably originally partially Chinese, the blonde hair oxidized pretty fast.  Let's see... I worked in an office and probably only experienced 5 hours of direct sunlight in this wig per week, and it got pretty badly oxidized within months.  My definition of badly oxidized is: the top turned a mono-chrome shade of blonde while the under-layer remained darker.  The cap being too small was always uncomfortable so I decided to do something about it.

FIRST I took care of the color.  I bought a box of light ash brown dye and weaved low-lights through the entire sheitel using the technique pictured below.  Note in the picture how the base color of the wig started to look really red.  I chose an ash shade to minimize the redness.  Then I rinsed the wig and applied conditioner and let the wig dry.


Okay, a few weeks later I decided to re-wash the sheitel and to set it in curls.  The other reason for me to wash it was to stretch the cap.  Because it is constructed of machine wefts, it is quite a durable piece.  While wet, I placed the wig on the styling block and used 4 T-Pins to stretch the four corners to its limit (near the ears, and near the back corners of the neck area).  The stretching was a GREAT success, it fits extremely comfortably now.  Then I let the wig air dry and curled my wig as per the instructions in my video.

A week after curling the wig and spraying with just a quick drop of hairspray.  Here is a picture of the finished product: dyed, stretched and curled a week after the set.  It does hold curl rather nicely, eh?

On a side note, I integrate about a 3 inch x 3 inch section of my bangs into a "bump" over the front when I wear my fall and have told that the hair is a "perfect match".

RATING:
Weight/comfort: C before stretching / B+ now
Hair Quality: B
Skin top: N/A
Durability: B+
Appearance: A-
Cap Construction: B

Overall: B

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

A wonderful transformation! May be risky for someone less experienced in playing with do it yourself color but bravo!

Rose said...

It looks great! Which brand dye did you use? Maintenance tip: Back2Natural colour replenishing conditioner restores ashy colours that have gone reddish due to oxidation.

I don't understand the weaving technique, could you explain how to do this? Last time I dyed my piece the hair was coloured unevenly and the cap was stained. Thanks!

Unknown on August 21, 2010 at 11:21 PM said...

It is a technique used for applying lowlights or highlights. Instead of using a highlight cap, I separate the hair into very small sections and then use a fine pick to weave through the sections to grab "every other half cm" of that section. I then place it on foil, apply the color to the small section and close the foil to keep it separate from the hair I do not want to color.

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