As the beauty trend of wearing wigs begins to grow in popularity, so will the number of people who want to customize and alter them for their personal style.

Many hair dye enthusiasts dye wigs to wear instead of dying their real hair because they want to have more options. Natural hair color compliments a more extensive variety of clothing compared to not-so-natural dye colors, so having choices is ideal. Anyone new to wigs or hair extensions will at some point be curious about how their stylist might handle treating and dying them, or even how the hair would react to box dyes. Could these products damage our expensive real hair wigs? Would they be able to retain the color or take any in at all?

Human Hair Wigs

When you’ve decided to buy a real hair wig, you’ve thought about how to take care of it and how to keep it looking and feeling at top quality. This means that damage and stressing of the wig is likely a concern, and many wig-wearers fear using dyes, whether professional or store-bought, for this reason.

Not to worry, human hair wigs react the same way to any dye that your actual hair would! In fact, you can do anything to the wig that you could do to any standard head of hair, including cutting, heat styling, dying, and chemically processing it. If you’re still not too sure or if you want to do a color test without dying the entire wig, a strand test is the next step to success. As the name implies, take only a small section of the hair and dye it to see how it looks and how well the color takes to your wig. It’s always important to be cautious of the process’s effect and to make sure the tested color is the exact result you desire. You can also lighten the human hair wig to change the color, but be aware that using a professional stylist for this will have a higher likelihood of leaving the wig less damaged by chemicals than if you were to do it at home with box chemicals.

Synthetic Hair Wigs

Synthetic hair is not made to take any color from regular hair dyes. If you have been experimenting with box dyes on synthetic wigs or extensions, you have most likely been disappointed that almost none of the color stayed in after rinsing the dye off. This is because real hair has a biological structure that allows the dye to seep into it. The synthetic fibers of which most cheap wigs are made lack this ability. If you’re looking for a way to prepare a costume wig, the bold and vibrant colors of fabric dye are going to work best because the fibers that make up many types of fabric are the same that go into a synthetic wig.

Bottom line

If you intend to dye your wigs, your best bet is investing in a quality human hair wig and use box dyes or a professional to get the job done. You’ll be happy with how real these wigs can look with hair dye and how versatile they can be.  If you feel more comfortable consulting someone before making this change, contact us here at Allusions today!