Ever in need of a wig but it doesnt come in the right shade or color? Always wanted to try and mix your own dye to help save you money? Then no problem! Heres a guide on how to mix your own wig dye!

Pictures will be added later to help further tutorial

For more wig care info, please proceed to the Wig and Hair FAQs thread

A few quick run through on some Q&A's regaurding mixing and dying your own wig. I highly suggest you reading through this to help save you some money on the long run!

A tip on saving money: This tip can be a double edge sword really, it can either save you money or waste more money! it all depends on how you weight the pros and cons of it. But, lets face it, wigs are expensive! So why keep buying more and more wigs and taking up too much space? Wigs can always be redyed as much as you can! Invest in a light solid based colored wig (preferably white) so you can redye it any color you want. Or keep it as is!

Now that has been said, off to mixing your own wig dye!

Q: What can I use to dye wigs?
A: No, poster paint will not work for wig dyes! nor can RIT fabric dye or any dye meant for human hair! Most wigs are all made of synthetic plastics and when any other dye is applied to it, it will simply slide off and will obviously be a waste of time and money.

Now, what you CAN use to dye wigs are the following:

-FW Acrylic paint
-Sharpies/markers/pentelpens in assorted colors
-Copic Markers (or copic marker refills)



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The different techniques to dying a wig!

Tech. #1: The sharpie/marker/pentelpen method:

Simply run your marker on the wig by hand coloring each strand with your marker in hand until the wig is fully covered.

Let the wig sit on a foam head or any place that it isnt touching anything. I prefer to pin the wig onto a foam head or keep it hanging from a bottle of Soda or pringles to keep it from touching the ground or anything form of substrate or surface.

Wait a couple of hours, but I prefer to let a day or two pass (to let the color completely set). Wash the wig with COLD water until water runs clear. Running it under warm water will only wash the dye off! So if you planned on straightening your custom dyed wig, do it before dying the wig!

Then its done and ready to be worn!

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Tech #2: Mixing the dye!

What you need:
(either the following, pick whichever one you prefer to use)
--FW Acrylic paint
-Sharpies/markers/pentelpens in assorted colors
-Copic Markers (or copic marker refills)

A must:
-spray bottle
-alcohol (any rubbing alcohol works, preferably 70%)

----------Harvesting ink from sharpies/markers/pentelpens & copic markers--------

This is usually the tricky part, hence the reason as to why I prefer using FW Acrylic Paints or Copic Marker refills since they come in handy little bottles with droppers >D makes my life so much easier!

You want to 'harvest' or take out the ink cartridges from your markers by cutting the marker open with an exacto knife or breaking it open and carefully extracting the ink cartridge. Usually to successfully color a short shoulder lenght wig, you could run through several markers for both doing it by hand or by extracting the ink. And can be alittle bit more expensive as opposed to investing in Copic Marker Refills and FW Acrylic Paints.

After you take out the ink cartridge, place it in the spray bottle filled with the alcohol, the ink and alcohol should mix together and then your ready to spray your dye on your wig!

After spraying it onto your wig, let it sit for a day or two once again to let the dye completely sink into the dye (sometimes I prefer to mix the mixture in a stainless steel bowl just to get overal coverage since spraying sometimes creates the highlighted effect that not alot of us wants. But for overall coverage, I found dunking the mixture in a bowl and letting your wig swim in it, works alot better for overall and even coverage.)

After drying for a day or two, wash the wig once again under COLD water. Let it dry and the wig is ready to be used!

---------------Mixing wig dye using Copic Marker Refills/FW Acrylic Paints------------

This is a valuable techinque I learned from Hunny Bunny and has actually saved me alot of time and money as opposed to ordering wig dye from Katie Bair

Warning: gloves, clothes and combs etc. Anything exposed to the dye will permanently be dyed as this color mixture STAINS and the stain will remain. So always do this (if inside) with alot of news papers but I prefer to do my mixing and dying outside namely for the alcohol fumes can never be too good for you >D

Formula:

8 full squeezes of ink (into a spray bottle)
1 cup 70% rubbing alcohol

To darken or lighten dye, add 2 to 3 squeezes of black or white ink (of the same brand!) But FW Acrylic Paints and Copic Marker Refills comes in a variety of colors and Copic Marker Refills can actually be mixed with other copic marker colors to create your own color combination! You just need to purchase the special mixer.

The mixture is a one time use only but you can get alot out of the FW paints as well as out of the Copic Marker refills since they come in bottles and you usually dont end up using the entire bottle for dying wigs, long or short! Always do this as a one time use dye since overtime, the ink color will delude if it stays in the spray bottle with the alcohol too long. I refrigerate my ink mixture sometimes for a day or two ahead of time if I know I cant dye the wig the same day I mix the paint. But I prefer to do everything as a one time step so I'm sure I get the right mixture I need.

The formula should be enough to evenly coat one side of a medium-long wig. Longer wigs will need more dye. So do your own math since math and chibi-kun doesnt agree XDDD

After you’ve applied the dye to your wig, let it sit to dry for a few hours, I like to let mine sit overnight or for a day to be absolutely sure the dye sticks. Rinse it out in COLD water once again. Rinsing it out will also help get rid of the nasty alcohol smell. If smell refuses to go away, I have a little trick.

I apply a small ammount of hair conditioner onto my hands (yes, human hair conditioner) and run it through the wig and wash it off with cold water, it doesnt do anything to the wig but just makes it smell nicer and alittle bit smoother really :D

-----------------------Washing off wig dye out of a wig--------------------------

Mistakes happen or if you simply want to wash the dye off the wig and redye it a different color, its completely possible to do so! :D

Simply put the wig in a ziplock bag or in a stainless steel bowl and pour in alcohol (rubbing alcohol, preferably 70%) and the wig should wash off immediately. I prefer running the wig under warm water after letting it bathe in a bath of alcohol, not only does it help get rid of the alcohol smell, it also helps wash off MORE of the wig dye out of the wig! :D

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Hope you guys found this usefull! Feel free to ask any questions regaurding wig dying here!

^ question po! *raises hand*

what if you have a black wig and you want it dyed purple? o.O

yeah! chibi-kun thanks for the tip again! but doesn't this damage the wig?

@mistress

spray paint it... though it would look stringy... apply a thin mist layer, wait until it dries, comb, then repeat the procedure

@kula

coloring the wig - there is a big possibility that you might not be able to get the wig to it's original color again

wah! i need kasi brown and blue eh, (same length) pero sige, magiipon na lang ako. Thankies po, polence ^_^

@polence

as in spray paint? you dont need to mix it with alcohol?

no alchohol... unless your wig synthetic made out of synthetic fibers used in colored wigs.

I suspect that your wig is the full artificial cheap black wig available in Divi right?

You CANNOT dye a darker wig a lighter color. So if your asking on how to 'tint' a wig, its mostly impossible to attain a tinted color. I would suggest getting a dark brown or brownish blonde wig and dying it purple with sharpies or the wig dying solution I wrote down earlier.

It is totally possible to redye the wig over and over again. And it will not damage the wig at all. Though I would not suggest using spray paint. You can use spray paint on synthetic wig fibers since their plastic and should easily wipe off with alcohol. But I prefer going with good ol' sharpies/markers or mixing your own dye to get a nice even coating and it does not damage the textures of the wigs at all.

Sorry took me so long to reply, I've been away at a convention in San Francisco.