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La Dee Da Doll Customizing – Head Removal

I was unable to find very much information about customizing La Dee Da Dolls, so I thought I would go ahead and post some of my findings here. The first thing every customizer usually wants to know is how to remove the head and I am happy to report that removing the head of a La Dee Da is fairly easy. All you have to do is apply some blow dryer heat to the neck joint area until it becomes a little softer and more pliable, then you’ll want to gently pull out the head plug. The head plug is somewhat similar to Monster High head plugs in that it has a prong attached to the top of the plug. You can see this in the picture. Now here’s the bad news, the neck hole is really really small as you can tell from the picture. Because the neck hole is so small I don’t think it’s a very good candidate for rerooting. You might be able to do it using the reroot tool, but I have no idea how you could fit tweezers in the hole to pull out the old roots.

Looking on the bright side though, she can always wear wigs. Here I have her wearing a size 6-7 Kemper wig with all of her original hair tucked inside the wig cap. If you want to cutt off the original hair, I’m thinking a 5-6 wig ought to be a better fit. However I would like to point out that because of her cranium shape which is kind of like Blythe’s in that it’s not as rounded in the back as a normal skull, when you tuck all of the original hair inside the wig cap it can round out her cranium so it will not look weird. You can see the side view below.

So, this is as far as I have gotten with my customizing experiments on her, but I will be sure to post more info when I have it. Hopefully this will be helpful to anyone else who wishes to customize these dolls.

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Dollyhair Comparisons

So my dollyhair order finally arrived and I went ahead and shot some fiber comparison pics in the hopes that it might be helpful for other people who are trying to match colors and whatnot. Above is the Kohl Brown Kanekalon hair from dollyhair.com next to my Liv wig. It is a very very close match and will do nicely for patching up the bald spots in the wig. The fiber of the Liv with though is a little smoother and softer, but it is definitely not saran, and has that “dry feeling” like the Kanekalon, and is too fine a fiber to be the nylon. So I’d say it’s up in the air as to what kind of fiber this wig is made out of.

These are the two shades I am waffling between for my Draculaura re-root. On the left is Bitter Chocolate Brown, and on the right is Raven Black. Raven Black is of course a true match for Draculaura’s factory hair, but it’s not hard to match blacks usually. :B The Bitter Chocolate Brown is actually a bit darker than in the photo. It is as advertised as being the closest brown you can get to black and it does not have any red tones.

Next up is the Sherbert Pink comparison. As you can see from the pic that Draculaura’s hot pink streaks are a scootch bit darker than Sherbert Pink. It is very close though, so probably if you wanted to just add a few extra strands of pink in her factory hair, you could probably get away with using this color depending on how fussy you are. I actually bought this hair for a custom Twilight Sparkle I plan to work on after I finish Rainbow Dash who is coming along nicely by the way!

Lastly I bought some Hematite (on the left) and Pacific Ocean (on the right) nylon hair. This pic is fairly close to the true color, though in person I feel you can see the hint of plum in the Hematite more and Pacific Ocean has a touch more teal in it. I purchased these two colors with the intention of rerooting my Twilight Sparkle with them. Seeing Pacific Ocean in person though makes me feel that straight Hematite may work best for her reroot though. Originally I thought to mix the two colors, but now I’m not so sure. Anyhow all of those color comparisons are for another day as I am nowhere near starting that project yet.

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Dolly Find – Clearance Liv Wigs

I always knew about the Liv wigs as I had seen them in the doll aisle many times before, but I never bothered with them because I had always felt they were too expensive for what they were. However Target has started to clearance off some of their Liv wigs and clothing (probably they are summer goods), and at $4 the price became agreeable enough for me to try one out. I will go ahead and write up a review of sorts, but just be sure to keep in mind that this is my first experience with a Liv wig, and I have heard that not all Liv wigs are created equal.

So, first thing out of the box I was surprised to find that the Liv wigs are basically Kanekalon or Saran doll hair that has been rooted onto what amounts to a cheap non-stretchy silicon cap. The part that surprised me was the fact that in a way it’s kind of like buying a scalp. The fiber of the wig is soft and shiny enough, but unfortunately as you will soon see below in the picture that this wig is VERY THINLY ROOTED.

As you can see, there is an unseemly gap at the top of the wig where when the hair falls to either side it reveals a large bald spot. I am imagining that it is difficult to root anything in that area due to the peg which I will get to later, but still, I mean I’ve seen cheap $5 Barbies with better rooted hair than this wig.

Now here is the wig flipped inside out, you can clearly see how it is rooted, and you can clearly see the peg I was talking about. Again I think this picture illustrates just how thinly these things are rooted, but more importantly I want to focus on the peg for now. If you aren’t familiar with them like I was, the peg may come as a surprise. Apparently the Liv dolls and some Monster High dolls come with a slot in their head for the peg to fit and thusly it helps keep the wig on during play. It’s actually a pretty good idea for a playline doll considering how rough the younger girls play with their dollies. However it is obviously going to get in the way if you want to use it on a BJD or another type of doll that has no special slot. The good news is you can clip the peg off quite easily with a good pair of snips or household scissors.

So, with the peg out of the way, the first thing I wanted to do was to try it on my Slinky Neko tiny as I had heard that Liv wigs worked well on Lati Yellow and Pukifee sized heads, and my Slinky Neko girl has a similar sized head with a 5.5 inch circumference. As you can see from the photo, the wig did not fit at all. If the cap had been at all stretchy it probably would have, but the caps on the Liv wigs are surprisingly stiff and unforgiving. So the thing to keep in mind here is that for Pukifees, Slinky Neko babies and other tinies with close to a 5.5 inch head circumference, these wigs will absolutely NOT fit. I am wondering though that perhaps if the doll had a head closer to 5.25 inches then maybe the wig might work, but 5.5 and above, no.
On the bright side though, these wigs work very well on the Monster High dolls. This wig even fits with Draculaura still with her default hair in, which you can see below.

So, here’s my final thoughts on Liv wigs. Initially I was disappointed by their poor quality, but for $4, I mean what can you expect really. The fiber on the wig is quite nice and the style is also pleasantly modern. For now I’ve decided I will be working with this wig and I ordered a hank of Kanekalon which I hope will match well enough so I can fill the wig out more and cover up bald spots. Most people won’t do this I realize, but I’ve been in the mood to reroot lately so it doesn’t bother me. In the end it comes down to this, for a play wig for young girls, this is an excellent bargain. For a doll collector who expects high quality out of their goods, this wig is horrible, a fixer-upper if you will. If you like a fixer-upper, then by all means go for it, if you don’t, then stay far far away, lol. I still however would not pay full price for such a thing…clearance only for sure!!

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New Kemper Wigs and Eyes Arrived.

I ordered a handful of Kemper’s mohair doll wigs last week and they arrived today, so I had some fun trying the different colors and styles on my MSD gals. The wigs I purchased were the Giselle mohair in medium brown in both sizes 6-7 and 2-3, the 2-3 being for my Brownie which I will get to later, and lastly I ordered the Raven mohair in medium brown and carrot colors, both size 6-7. Above, Sona is wearing the Raven medium brown, and I love how it looks on her, though I was tinkering with the levels of the image in photoshop so it appears a bit darker in the pic than it does in person. Yara is wearing the same shade, but in the Giselle style, and lastly my Unoa Lusis is wearing the Raven wig in carrot, though again the adjusted colors make the wig appear more red.

So, here are my overall impressions of these wigs. First of all the 6-7 Raven wigs fit both Unoa and my Dollmore Kid Sona very well with no problems, but I was really kind of sad to find that it was difficult to get this style of wig to fit on my AE Yara. 🙁 It seemed like the room was there in the headcap, but perhaps because of the shape of the cap or the shape of my Yara’s head, the wig just kept popping right off. I really wanted Yara to be able to wear the Raven carrot mohair, because she was really the doll I had in mind when I ordered it. I am however going to maybe play around with the wig and perhaps add some velcro to Yara’s headcap to see if perhaps it might help any. What’s weird is that the Giselle style wig is just a scootch bigger in the wig cap and therefore can be worn by all 3 dolls, however I just wasn’t as fond of that one. The chocolate color, or medium brown shade as listed on the site is a really gorgeous dark brown. I don’t think anyone would be disappointed by the shade of dark brown, and the Raven wigs are especially soft. Both Sona and Lusis look really good in the medium brown Raven wig, so it’s going to be difficult to choose which gets to wear it. ^^; As for the carrot color…I guess I was hoping for something a little more red like in the picture I took, but in actuality the carrot mohair from kemper is more of a natural redhead, copper sort of tone. I may consider experimenting with dying the wig, but that will have to wait for later.

Last but not least my little Brownie Haha got a new wig too, and oh I just find it super adorable. The wig she is wearing the the Giselle mohair, medium brown in size 2-3. When I first saw this wig in it’s package I had a squee moment because I could already tell it didn’t have that odd bulk that a lot of tiny wigs can have, but then when I tried to fit it on her I realized that it was going to be problematic. ^^;; I’m not sure if the size 2-3 in this style is just a skootch small or whether it’s just a matter of headcap shape and dealing with such a tiny head, but the wig wanted to pop off. Because I really loved the wig I spent some time gently stretching it, and I added a small piece of double sided tape to my Brownie’s headcap to help the wig stay on. Just doing this apparently worked because the wig fits her fine now. I’m so in love with this wig because I feel that finally I have something that looks natural for a tiny doll her size. It’s not overly bulky, and the hair is fine enough to be passable scale wise. I’m still curious how the 3-4 might fit a Brownie, but I’m so pleased with this wig that I don’t foresee buying any new wigs for her for a long time. 🙂

So, there’s my adventures with Kemper wigs for what it’s worth. I do love their mohair, and their acrylic eyes also surprised me with how nice of quality they are, especially for the price!! So yay! Another good order fulfilled by Kemper. 🙂

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New Photoshoot

Ash’s new wig and cargo pants arrived a couple days ago and I just now got around to snapping some new pics of him. The wig and the pants both came from Sunny’s World. Overall it was a really good transaction and the pants are especially wonderful for the price. The wig is a really great color and matches Ash’s face-up really well, but I was a little surprised to find that the wig is a little thin. I think since Ash kind of has a big head compared to other SD13 sized boys, that a fuller wig will be better. Other than being thin though, the color is great and it’s very soft and manageable.

Anyway if you’d like to see all of the new photo’s I’ve uploaded, you can find them in my flickr. You can click the flickr icon in the right sidebar to go there, or here is the link as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tsukiyonomiyu/