How to use doll-sized decorative hair pins?

personally, i use human tutorials for doll styling because it's not much different you'll just need to adjust to the size really, but you could try styling a barbie's hair or something in the meantime if you wanted to practice?

i think it also depends - do you want to make your own wig or are you looking to buy and restyle a premade one? if you want to make one, I really like yarn for intricate styles because it holds the shape super nicely, and it's pretty cheap and easy to find all the materials and make. next i'd go with natural alpaca or mohair, those are just super nice and would also hold a style fine. Thing is with wigs you'll need to remember that if theyre not made to be able to be styled in an updo, you'll see the wefting/cap or have a hard time actually tying the hair up depending on the type of fiber ... for doll wigs, they're sort of 'pre styled' to accommodate that.

i'm sure there's other types of wigs (rooted wigs?) that can be styled up and down, but most i've seen or have can't be without seeing the wefting/cap/looking weird/etc

 

You can follow the human hair styling instructions except that you might need to adjust for the doll hair being too thick to compress down on a doll size head as much as human hair does on a human size head.

I personaly find that actual mohair works best as it can be styled like human hair can, using gthe same products (gel etc) and compresses well into doll scale versions of human hairstyles - but it's a very personal thing - experiment and see which you prefer.

Teddy

 

I've tried making updo hairstyles for my dolls with varying success. It's hard to keep heavy hair in place. I realized that I use hairpins, like bobbypins in my own hair so I checked them out for dolls. They actually do sell them, but more expensive than I thought they were worth. So I bought some twisted 18g craft wire and made my own. I used twisted wire because it grips the hair better and doesn't slip out as easily. Using pins like this helps recreat human hairstyles much more reliably.

 

Wigs that use wefts don't work well for updos unless the wefts were originally sewn with an updo in mind. Synthetic fur wigs, or mohair wigs(mohair rooted in leather), lend themselves a bit better to updo styles, because the hair can be coaxed in any direction. Lace-style wigs, where individual strands of hair have been looped into a mesh wig cap, would also style nicely, but are usually prohibitively expensive.