Why Won't The Straight Hair
On My Lace Wig Hold A Curl?
(and other lace wig hair questions)
"Why won't the straight hair on my lace wig hold a curl?"
A lot of folks ask questions that start with "Can I wash my lace wig with...?", or "Should I dye my lace front wig with...?", or "Can I wash my dyed lace wig with...?".
Due to these questions we figured it would be an idea to put all those lingering lace wig washing questions in one article (well, if we're being completely frank, they're in several articles so if you're deciding whether to dye your lace wig or you're think surmising about shampoos for lace wigs, we have you well and truly covered.)
We'll work on the basis that we're talking about human hair lace wigs and not synthetic lace wigs (because anyone whose anyone knows that synthetic lace wigs can only be heat styled if they're heat resistant and even then it's not a dead set guarantee that they'll curl or straighten in the exact way that you'd expect... but that's another article altogether).
If it's human hair, it should curl, right? Right?
Yes and no...
Yes, yes that doesn't sound very helpful but what might be a helpful way of thinking about it, is to think about human hair on a human head:
How many times have you heard people talking about how their growth hair doesn't hold a curl or a wave or a curl; or that they left the salon with a fresh new 'do and within hours the hairstyle flopped?
That's the quirk with human hair... it's human hair; not a person-made product but a person-created product.
Each human hair wig whether lace cap or traditional cap has its own set of genetic characteristics and because of this, no two human hair wigs are 100 per cent identical.
This is why you can buy a silky straight lace wig and it will curl fine and then you can buy another and it won't curl as well as the first.
There's no easy way around this other than to remember that the hair came from a donor, took a number of years to reach the lengths that you now wear and that at least you have a bonny human hair wig to wear (oh and bonny means pretty).
"Why does the straight hair on my lace wig get waves after washing?"
Natural Straight Hair (slightly wavy)There are a couple of pointers here as there are a couple of types of (naturally occurring) straight hair textures:
- Silky straight textured hair
- Natural straight textured hair
Believe it or not (and many don't even though it's totes true) the silky straight texture is frequently achieved through mild chemical processing.
Whoa, whoa wait a minute, before you start throwing your wigs and hair extensions at the monitor, let us explain.
There is hair that is naturally bone straight (and therefore labelled silky straight) and then there's hair that is naturally slightly wavy and it's this slightly wavy human hair that is chemically processed (relaxed) to make it super straight and it also goes by the name of silky straight.
The image to the right shows raw human hair - the donor had dyed the hair some time ago and grown it out which is why it's lighter at the bottom). The hair is basically straight but it does have some light natural waves.
However instead of chemically straightening the hair, some manufacturers (unbeknownst to the retailers) simply heat straighten the [lightly wavy] hair and list it as silky straight; wearers only discover the slightly wavy truth once the hair bas been washed for the first time and the straight hair extensions and straight hair wigs become slightly wavy when wet.
This is (in part) why a number of retailers now list slightly wavy (unprocessed) straight hair wigs and extensions as natural straight (because the suppliers have advised that the hair is naturally and fundamentally straight but it can have slight waves especially after coming into contact with water).
That's the meander through "my lace wig..." questions over.
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18/03/16
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