Rooting Has Begun

Little Tanner is finally getting some hair. Hand rooting has begun. I have to say this is my favorite part of the whole process. Painting is fun and brings life to your kit but when you add the hair, your little sculpt really comes to life. 
I am not going to do a full tutorial on rooting. I will provide a link to a wonderful rooting tutorial that I follow. I am going to add some extras that I have found helpful through my rooting experiences.

Link to Rooting

One thing I would like to stress with the rooting process. Mohair. You need high quality, high premium mohair. You may pay more but in the end it is well worth it and makes the whole process of rooting a positive experience along with a beautiful head of hair on your Reborn Doll. 

Here is a link to some wonderful mohair. My Paisley and Precious Gift sculpts were rooted with this mohair. 

Lock You Out Doll Hair Etsy Shop

I decided to try my hand at processing my own mohair. I bought some 'raw mohair' and found numerous tutorials on the internet on how to sort, wash, dye and condition mohair to be used for rooting reborn dolls.

I am very happy with the results and rooting this hair is a dream. 

Here is the dyed mohair ready for rooting. I have cut a small piece from the bundle to work with. This particular mohair is curly. I thought little Tanner would look sweet with curly natural brown hair. 

We shall see.

I use an uncut 43g Single Barb Rooting Needle. 

I don't put the needle in any type of rooting tool. I use as is.

Before beginning any rooting, clean the tips of your needles with a little bit of rubbing alcohol. This will remove any dirt, grease or grime. If you don't clean your needle tip you will have a black holes for a while. So clean before using.

I hold the needle in my right hand, since I am right handed, I hold the needle like a pencil. I also make sure the little tail is pointing towards my right shoulder. If that tail is turned at all, you will not pick up any hair. 

The tutorial link I provided will show you how to actually root with the needle. So make sure you check the tutorial out.

To draw the rooting map on the head, I use a regular piece of white dust free chalk. I wet the tip of the chalk with water and proceed to draw the map on the head. You will have to redraw your lines from time to time. I find when I spritz my mohair with watered down conditioner the chalk lines do disappear. 

Just keep applying the lines. 

Here is what is called a rice sock. This comes in handy if you have a head that is super hard vinyl and needles are breaking or hair is just not rooting. I have taken an old clean sock and filled it with rice. You will need to heat it. Put the sock filled with rice into a microwave with a mug of water. The mug of water will keep the rice from burning and when you have burnt the rice the smell is horrible. I then heat the sock and mug of water for about 2 minutes. This heated sock is then inserted into the head to heat up the head and to soften the vinyl to make rooting easier.

I use a small batch of mohair to root at a time. Make sure you root from the cut end and as close to the cut end you can get. This will make for nicer rooting. Also will eliminate any tails that occur from not getting close to the cut end. You will see in the next pics a few tails that are sticking out of the rooted hair. Tweezers come in handy for that part. I pull the little tails out with tweezers.

I start at the back of the head, at the bottom and work my way up to the crown. If you look closely you can see a few tails that will be pulled out with tweezers. I will also make sure that I have no more than 2 hairs per hole. Any more will be pulled out with tweezers. More than 2 hairs will cause a 'Pluggy Look' and that is what you don't want.  The hair in this picture was dampened water that has a little bit of conditioner added. Any human conditioner can be used. Some people use Baby Conditioner. As you can see by wetting the hair I have lost some of my chalk lines. I will go over them with the wet piece of chalk.

Once I get all the hair done. We will then have our first haircut. 

Up close of the hairs. Again a few tails can be seen. 

I will take my tweezers and pull the tails out. 

Also if I have more than 2 hairs, those will be removed as well.

My next entry to the blog should be Tanner with a full head of hair.

Happy Reborning and Rooting! :0)