Dyeing a Synthetic Wig for Le Paon

One of my current projects is making a cosplay of Le Paon from the series Miraculous Ladybug (it's a fan interpretation of the character made by olga alexsandrova since she hasn't officially appeared yet), and because my hair in no way matches hers I needed to get a wig.

I started off by finding a bob style wig in the approximately right blue and ordered it online (I'll add the feather in later). However, like usually happens with buying online the colour of the actual product didn't match the image so it was time to get colouring.

What I used:

• Wig
• Ipoly dye (blue)
• Hot water
• Bucket
• Rubber gloves
• Wig head (covered in plastic)
• Various tools I could use for mixing
• Combs

To begin I mixed the iploy dye into just enough hot water to fully submerge the wig (mostly boiling but with a little bit of cold added so I could briefly dip my hand in without buring - I didn't want to risk damaging the wig with pure boiling), and once thoroughly mixed put the wig in.

I constantly kept 'irritating' the wig (moving the fibers with my tools and hands) until the water got to lukewarm (this dye is meant to be used in constant boiling water so once it gets cold it no longer does its job properly and I couldn't boil the wig). After this I just had to rinse it out to remove any extra dye and the colouring was complete.

As you can see in the image this dying method does make the wig quite messy and tangled, so after it was rinsed I put it onto the wig head I'd covered in plastic and carefully combed out the knots to make it neat again. I did this one layer of 'hair' at a time starting from the outside to make it much easier .

I had to be very gentle with the comb though to not pull out any fibers. I started at the tips and worked my way inwards till all the knots were out. After this I did also give it a quick brush but that wasn't really needed.

And that was it for now. I still need to style it and add the feather but the colour now matches the dress fabric I have and the image much better. =)

I'm hoping to finish this cosplay over the upcoming Summer break so I'll be sure to share more progress here soon.