DIY Natural Hair Barbie's: Take Two

Were at it again and since our last rendezvous i have picked up some pointers in hopes to better our future experiences with creating our natural hair dolls.  I picked a doll this time around with longer hair about mid-back length and with this length in mind i wanted to try a different technique to achieve a different curl pattern...

This Barbies hair has a coarser texture to it and before i began i snipped about 1/8 of an inch off to get the straggler ends removed.

Remember in our first trial run creating our own DIY Natural Hair Dolls (here) where i just parted and grabbed a small section of hair and wrapped it around the pipe cleaner in a downward spiral form without altering its state. See below an example of what the section looked like before i wound it around the PC. 

Notice that i did not twist the strand and i did not do anything but simply wrap the section around the pipe cleaner. This was meant to create the looser type curls. I illustrated this on the latest Barbie that i did so you could get an idea of how i did it differently this time.

Below you can see that instead of wrapping the section of hair as it was around the pipe cleaner, i twisted it prior to wrapping.

This was done in efforts of creating a different type of curl pattern more closely related to a full afro from tight spiral curls.  I decided to wrap the twisted sections around each pipe cleaner differently also. Last time i began at the very end point of the pipe cleaner and just  wrapped the hair around it until the hair "ran out" where i would then wrap the PC around the hair twice to secure it in place and then clip the extra end piece.

This time (as you can see below) i bent then pipe cleaner in half evenly and set it over top of the twisted section of hair that was going to wrap onto the pipe cleaner, so that each even side was on the right and left of the twisted strand. I then twisted the two sides of the pipe cleaner around the base twice forming a nice secure base and the wrapped the twisted section TIGHTLY around the now unified pipe cleaner sides.

  

Exactly how i wrapped it the first time around except for there being two pipe cleaner sections i am wrapping the section around instead of one. Notice how there are the two end pieces remaining of the pipe cleaner. I just twisted them around each other twice securing the ends so that the pipe cleaner will stay on. I also parted out more sections this time for more curls that would be more tightly rolled.

I left those ends on and didn't plan on cutting them until i was done boiling the hair.  I learned a nice and easy way to cut the straight ends that are underneath the pipe cleaner as well as the remaining ends of the pipe cleaner without hacking too much or not cutting enough because you sure don't want to start separating the curls and realize you didn't cut enough. Its harder to go back and cut efficiently after you begin separating the curls or brushing out the afro.

I got out my "junk" medium sized sauce pot, filled it 2/3 the way full and let it boil vigorously.  Then I held the Barbie head first into the pot and let it boil for 8 minutes. This i did early in the afternoon so i planned on letting the Barbie sit and air dry all day after i squeezed the head numerous times to expel the water than was inside the head. THIS is VERY important to do so that mold doesn't accrue. Later than night i cut the pipe cleaner ends right above where i twisted the end pieces around each other ensuring that the straight ends were completely gone and the pipe cleaners would be easier to remove as i didn't have to un-twist all of the knotted ends of the pipe cleaners.

Here is what her curls looked like as i carefully removed the pipe cleaners from the hair by un-raveling each curl.

To me the resemblance is very close to two strand twists! I loved the unique and spunky curl pattern created! This time around the definition is very eye popping! A part of me wanted to just leave the style as is but figured HEY i want to achieve an afro so that Diva R could have a Barbie with a lovely full afro... So ill save the textured look for next time.

I decided my way of creating the afro would be to comb/brush it out. I began at the ends and slightly separated the curls so that the brushing would be easier. I held the Barbie in one hand and brushed the curls vigorously until i started to see the fro puffing out.... This was not as easy as it sounds (due to the texture and length of the hair) and using a comb was not a good idea either so i wouldn't recommend using a comb. Instead use a brush of some nature will give better results easier. Again no products are necessary in this creation.

Here is our beautiful fro-licious barbie <3

(The hair was straight as a board before with a slight coarseness to it)

I LOVE how cute and fluffy her beautiful fro turned out! I put a pony tail in at the very base of the head and finger fluffed the fro into its lovely roundness.

 

(SIDE NOTE: This experience also caused a casualty in a sense. I was trying to do too many things at once and the Barbies arms got a little heat burnt :( I think it was this barbie being of a different feel, because of her being the wet suit barbie with this coating over the arms and legs is what the root of the issue was in causing the shrinkage of the arms) Lesson learned- Multi tasking isn't always a great idea...

Good thing is that in our household things like that aren't even noticed in a negative light so i decided to just hand her to Diva R and say nothing, as things like that do NOT deem something as being unfit for play or an anomaly so to speak.  

Here are some more views of our newly vamped Barbie :) I ended up clipping a few random straggler hairs i seen throughout...

Diva R was so happy and thrilled to have a "fluffy" haired Barbie she tells me that she loves the Barbies so much that have beautiful natural hair in all their varieties. In her own words of course.  She didn't even notice the arms as being off key. This and her other two Natural Hair Barbies are her FAVS and they tend to always be around in the mix :)

This doll took me longer than the last two i did because of how tightly i had to wrap the twisted sections around each pipe cleaner making sure that i keep a steady amount of tension on each section so that the twist doesn't unravel as i was wrapping it. It took me an hour to do this ones head entirely.

Next i am on the search for some Barbie children so that i can make some natural kiddies for her... The kid Barbies seem to be her fav anyways... But their hair is always real short or in un-even layers so we will see what i can find :)

I love doing this and creating some natural divas for Diva R to play with as the normal straight hair Barbies just don't cut it for us because this isn't a strictly straight haired world :)

God Bless.

Diva R's Mommy-Kim

My Re-Invention of the DIY Natural Hair Barbies ^-^

I had seen the post from the original creator of this DIY natural hair dolls and her Halo/Rotini Barbie styles. I think her blog is rather interesting and there are several intriguing aspects of altering Barbies. Id consider her the Barbie Master!

So i had in mind a thought that i would like to try this on some of Diva R's many Barbie's, as she doesn't really have big dolls with the fine type of hair suitable for doing this.  I have given her lots of my Barbies from when i was a little girl and of course she is showered with Barbies from everywhere else it seems. So late last night i decided to give it a whirl!

I had in mind that i wanted to try two different hair textures and create two different curl patterns. I used two barbies of two different hair lengths as well. I'm all about experimenting with everything :) Here are the two Barbie's i chose to "re-vamp" and supplies minus the boiling water, and rat tail comb...

I began by parting a small section with the rat tail comb... My idea was not to be perfect in particular with parting. So this section pictured below is the first one i began with, so you can get an idea of the size section i chose and then see the curl pattern resulting.

So I followed the directions to re-create the natural hair dolls. The way i understood it was to secure one end of the pipe cleaner around the base of the section that i parted and simply wrap the hair around the rest of the pipe cleaner in a spiral fashion and then secure the pipe cleaner around the end of the hair as many times as needed (1-2) and then cut the remainder off and repeat until whole head is done.

SO I did just that. Nothing was noted about how tight to do so nor really any other specifics on wrapping so i was winging it so to speak. I began with the brown haired doll and decided that i wanted her curl pattern to be in between kinky and springy curly.

Here are a few pipe cleaner wrapped sections, it should be clear as to how they are done by looking at the picture... I am holding my next section that i will be wrapping. I chose to wrap the hair around the pipe cleaners with a medium tension and left tiny spaces between  in efforts to create tighter type curls.

So at this point alot of different things are going through my mind and one of them is i wonder if i am doing these right... Something just didn't look right BUT i kept trucking because there's plenty of room for error and who knows how it will look until it is done! I went along and finished her hair and then moved on to the blonde haired Barbie, i noticed that her hair texture was different in an unexplainable way so i was kind of hoping that it would prove the same results. I decided to do the blonde Barbie's hair in slightly more spread out curls so i wrapped the hair more spaced out around the pipe cleaners.

So about 40 minutes later and two heads done here are the Barbies with the pipe cleaners in place.

You can tell that i wrapped the pipe cleaners different widths per Barbies to present different results and i used less pipe cleaners on the blonde haired Barbie.

Here is the back view...

I did this on their DRY hair and i used NO PRODUCTS and i suggest that you do not use products. I did make sure to comb the hair's until they were knot free because you don't want a knotted mess there after.

I will explain at the end of this post how to do this EFFECTIVELY...

So here goes the fun part ^-^

I grabbed a medium sized sauce pan since i didn't know what to expect with this experiment.  I prepared a towel next to the stove and a water bottle full of water. I filled the pot 2/3 full of water and turned the heat high so that it would boil. I let it Vigorously boil and then i BENT the Barbie's legs backwards (see below) and i submerged the head into the water, this i read, is supposed to be done for 10 minutes consistently.  I did the leg bending because i noticed right away that it is very uncomfortable holding the barbie straight into the pot as the boiling water is beneath my hand... ALSO this proved to be rather safer, another good idea is to use tongs to hold the Barbie in. Its best to bend the legs backwards versus forwards because of the Barbies awkward body positioning when bent forward.

 

Here is the Barbie head in close up form submerged...

You can see that i submerged mainly her hair and just a tad of her head. THEN a light bulb turned on in my head and i thought HEY i don't want to stand her for seriously 20 minutes straight holding barbies into a pot!!! This is where the water bottle came in handy. I thought Hmm could there be a safe way of propping the Barbie to relieve me from standing there?

Here is what i did...

This is a NORMAL Barbie, not the kind with the weird gymnastic or fashionista legged Barbie, just your standard every day Barbie. This pot height and size was perfect for my idea! I just clamped the legs onto the water bottle far back enough so they would stay in place and wah-lah! This worked amazingly!!! It stayed and there is no worry of fire, melting or danger at all! The water bottle should be FULL of cold water and as you can see its also not right on top of the stove cover. THANK GOD for my light bulb ideas! The barbies legs will NOT clamp like this if you bend them forward...

Here is the Barbie's hair as 10 minutes concludes as i am removing her from the boiling water.

Can you notice the "film" in the pot?? I will touch on this also at the end...

I went on and did the blonde hair Barbie's hair the same exact way BUT since she was a Maternity Barbie i couldn't do the water bottle holder idea, due to the difference in hip/leg structure :/ I chose to use the tongs ^-^ I also let her hair boil for 10 minutes which i learned should have been just a little longer since her hair was wrapped in thicker sections...

So here is where the towel comes into play (hand towel of course).. I folded this twice and laid the Barbies onto the towel i noticed their heads were filled with water :( THIS was not touched on at all in the aforementioned posts but me being a quick thinker i resolved this dilemma quick. I just simply squeezed the heads with the towel wrapped around each repeated over a 30 minute period in a few angles so that i could be assured that the heads were not retaining water!! This would lead to MOLD build up if not remedied and that is not going to happen in our house! This is VERY important to pay attention too because there is no way to avoid water building up in the Barbie heads during boiling.

Id say even blow dry the head for a few minutes as your squeezing if your REALLY worried about it.

I left the Barbies laying on the towel over night and un-did the pipe cleaners the next early afternoon this took all of 15 minutes with my being super careful!

Here are the results PRE-clipping of the straight ends and what the pipe cleaners looked like as i un-raveled them.

This is where the scissors come in... You need them to clip the straggly or straight ends left on each curl. Here is an example of my mediocre clipping job... You can see the twisty curly-ness already *_*

Here are the Barbies with their self-created curls, i finger separated them to my liking. I knew there were a few ways i could do this but this is the method i opted for first.

You can see the difference in results and me personally i was thrilled with the brown haired Barbies results the most!!!!!!

Here was the BIG TEST... Praying that Diva R LOVED THEM...

She was in HEAVEN and fell in love instantly! They went every where with us and they are her new BFF's! She is utterly amazed and loves these more than any toy she has.

How cool HUH? This is super easy and i will teach you how!

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Gather your Barbies/Dolls of choice

2. Grab a comb (optional), a pair of scissors, your choice amount of pipe cleaners, a pot that YOU WOULD BE WILLING TO PART WITH, water of course and your stove. (the water bottle and towel are up to you)

3. Part your first section ( the smaller the section the kinkier the curls, the larger the more curly or wavy they will be)

4.Grab your pipe cleaner and take the very end of the pipe cleaner and wrap the end around the BASE of the section as close to the scalp as possible and do this as TIGHTLY as possible to prevent slipping. This should be done 2-3 times

5. While pressing your index finger and thumb(optional) onto the pipe cleaner on the scalp to hold it in place begin to wrap OR roll the hair onto the pipe cleaner until you run out of hair TIGHTLY, do NOT do this loosely or the hair will not curl up

6. Now wrap the pipe cleaner around the very ending of the wrapped section 2-3 times to secure the pipe cleaner onto the hair (how many times you wrap it around the ends should depend on the thickness of each section)

7.Cut the remaining pipe cleaner and discard, do this until finished

8. Bring your pot of water to a boil and dip the head into the water holding it in the water for a solid 10 minutes, the thicker the sections i suggest holding it in a few minutes longer.

9. MAKE SURE you squeeze the heads very well to drain excess water build up which WILL happen

10. Leave the Barbie's/Doll's sit over night/day depending on when you do them and removed the pipe cleaners by hand with some caution so the curls stay in neat form

11. You have your VERY own Natural Hair Doll's that YOU created at home <3

NOW here are some UNDISCLOSED bits of IMPORTANT information to consider and know when you are thinking about doing this...

*When choosing a pot to do this with make sure you choose one that you are ok with throwing out. I say this because during this process there are particles emitted into the pot as well as a film. This was concerning to me because the water changed color i could see the particles which could be pipe cleaner but seemed there was a more chemically type presence also.

*When i say chemical i mean unusual, uncomfortable, and evidently not normal. The aroma resemble carbon monoxide or carbon itself. It really got to my throat as i was finished. It was clear that this was coming from the pipe cleaners in some fashion. This smell wasn't filling up the house nor was it smoking it just stayed within reaching distance from the pot. Its not potent but it is present.

*I'm really in tune with things like that and it was not hard to notice besides that. As i swooshed the water around in the pot before i cleaned it out the smell REALLY hit me in the face then.  This is why i am saying choose a pot you are fine with NOT cooking with there after.

* As for the film present, this was like a whitish grey evident film which just swirled around the pot... Unlike any normal type of film it was like a metallic film. As i washed the pot it really smelled like burnt carbon. I said well darn i wish i would have been warned about this so that i would have used a junk pot because that one wasn't junk that i used :( Now it is...

The good thing is there was nothing left on the Barbie's heads, no scent no particles and no discoloring. So it must be the pipe cleaners causing this i am POSITIVE its not my pot nor stove. Just an FYI and this shouldn't deter you from doing this, it should just act as a stepping stone so that you choose the right items to use and use the right type of judgements so that you don't ruin a perfectly great pot or be alarmed by some odd scent/visual...

I must say that I'm not thrilled with the blonde Barbies results and her hair didn't really curl up at all :( This i attribute to the looseness of my wrapping on her hair... Thats why i urge to twist them on as TIGHT as possible... Reference here to see a Z pattern style way of wrapping the hair onto pipe cleaners with a twisting method prior too wrapping also for a different textured look :)

I am so glad to have seen this because i also have the problem of finding any great look-a-like dolls and barbies for Diva R... Next mission is to find a Doll/Barbie with matching skin shade and curls as Diva R! This will be like finding a needle in thousands of hay stacks...

I will be doing this in a more variety of ways so i will post the new Barbie hair transformations as i do them :)
Please let me know if any clarification is needed.

God Bless

Diva R's Mommy-Kim