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How to Fix Frizzy Monster High Doll Hair

draculaura-final-makeoverI love, love, love Monster High dolls.  When I was younger I played with my Barbie’s until I was about 12 or 13. I loved to style their hair and clothing. I played beauty shop often and would paint their nails and cut their hair. I had my own sewing kit and would repurpose any old material from curtains, tablecloths and clothing to make homemade Barbie clothes. I wonder if my mother thought I would be a fashion designer when I got older. My creations would get traded with the neighborhood girls who loved my one-of-a-kind clothing. I would use what they traded me to make something else.

My favorite Barbie’s were the Barbie and the Rockers. I’m a child of classic rock. I grew up listening to Three Dog Night, Iron Butterfly, Ozzy/Black Sabbath and more. As a teen I was big on hair bands, vampires and pretty much anything supernatural. My Barbie’s started to resemble the rocker side of me as I got older and a lot less like the pretty pink packaging they came with. I also grew up reading Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe at a really young age. I think I was about 7 or 8 when I stumbled upon my first horror movie. A lot of this reflects in my interests today.

I’ve been collecting dolls all my life. Since I met my husband I have slowed down a bit. I do have some collectibles here, but my good stuff is packed away in my mothers attic. I vow that one of these days I will do something with that doll collection. For now, I find myself hanging out in kiddo’s room just so we can play with dolls.

True story: Kiddo used to not be a lot of fun to play dolls with. Thankfully she has gotten better within the last year or so.

When Monster High came on the scene I was SO excited. Finally, a doll that looked like how I would redo my Barbie’s.

Kiddo and I love Monster High. Technically I own two. Both are Draculaura. I just adore her. But, kiddo keeps watch of them for me. One of the dolls, Ghouls Rule, had some really frizzy hair as I received her used. She also had a few pen marks on her face.

This was my gift last Christmas:

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This is what she is supposed to look like:

956e742f4151268ce890b66a62a6997d

This is how I saw her on eBay:

draculaura

 

I just couldn’t pass up that gorgeous detailing on her face.  She was super cheap so I decided to give her a buy.

I’ve spent a lot of time rerooting and painting dolls for custom items in life. One of my favorite projects was saving a bunch of old Cabbage Patch dolls (cleaning & fixing) to give to the Children’s Hospital.  I would like to think at some point I could get back to that; but life often calls. For now we’ll start with the simple things – like hair.

I hate it when the dolls look like they stuck their finger in a light socket. A lot of times this happens because the dolls went in the bathtub or the child decided to put something in their hair. For Draculaura, her previous owner must have dipped her head in the olive oil bottle. It was yucky. The back of her head had this giant blob of oil and the pony tail had a ton of frizz like it had been burned.

Before I handed it over to kiddo, I wanted to try to make her hair look better. So, I set up my beauty shop and went to work.

I found the boil method on Pinterest. I’ve used detangler and other methods; but with that blob of oil I was afraid it wasn’t going to work.

See how ratty that hair looks? I wish you guys could see the oil blob. Gross.

before combing

 

draculara

It took me a little bit of time to comb it all out; but I there was success.

combed out

I turned on my faucet and let the water run until it got really hot. Then I filled a bowl with water. Since he has a lot of hair I picked a bigger bowl so all of her hair would be covered.

dipping bowl

Then I dipped her in it. (just her hair.)

draculaura beauty shop

I let her sit in the hot water for about a minute. I used my fingers to swish the hair and water around. Run through her hair to get out some of the tangles. When I pulled her out I used a dish towel to blog her hair dry. Run the comb through again and this time it was so much easier. As her hair started to dry it was curling back up a little bit. It was a lot smoother – virtually frizz free. At this point I wished I had used some pipe cleaners to twist her hair around. It would have dried with some nice curls.

Don’t you think she looks better?

draculaura after beauty

Once she was all done she made a great decoration for Elmer our Elf.

doll hair makeover with elmoer

 

See how easy that is?! I recently stumbled on some tiny Barbie rollers so I am going to go through the boil process again and try the rollers. I don’t have enough for all of her hair so I am going to use some pipe cleaners.

Kiddo was happy to find her with Elmer and add her to the Monster High collection.

I hope you enjoyed my first post on the new website. I have a lot of fun things planned here. Hope to see you again soon! 

~ Chrystal ~ 

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60 Comments

  1. My hair looks like that in real life LOL. Thank god for keratin! You did an awesome job on the doll 🙂

      1. what kind of brush can i use? im about to repair my clawdeen ghouls rule (it is awful!!!) and i dont want to make it worse than it is.

          1. ok , thank you so much ! this worked out sooo well and she looks really good !!

            Thanks!!

  2. It does look so much better than the way it was before. Usually when the dolls hair gets ratty it’s time to get a new doll. Now I can save them. Thank you.

    1. You are welcome. I am going to try using pipe cleaners cut into smaller pieces as curlers and wrap the hair around them next time I do it. See how the curls work.

  3. Wow–you really fixed up her hair!! I probably either would not have purchased her–or would have cut her hair off! I was not much into dolls when I was young except one baby doll I had.

    1. I was very picky about my dolls. I had a Cabbage Patch that I got when I was 9. It was my birthday present from my Grandma. I still have that doll and she sits on top of the China cabinet and I dress her for the seasons. I liked Barbie because she was my escape from a bad childhood. I carried that doll collecting hobby with me through life. I have a lot of dolls in my moms attic but no where to really put them. One of these day’s I’ll have a home office of my own and display them again. It makes me happy that I can share some of my doll making and fixing experiences with kiddo.

    1. I know! I would take them in the bathtub and they would get gross. Who knew that just a simple run of some really hot water could have fixed that.

    1. I believe any doll that has the plastic synthetic hair would be fine. I used to use homemade detangler (conditioner mixed with water) and that would work for some dolls but it wouldn’t last. The hot water resets it.

    1. Oh I know I do. It’s very OCD for me every time I go into her room. Last night I had a pile of her Barbies and went through all of them and put clothes on the naked ones and combed their hair. I told her Santa would not want to see these all a mess or he might think shes not taking care of her dolls and not give her any for Christmas.

  4. Oh, how I wish I had known this when I was playing with my Barbie dolls. What a great tip…easy and cheap! Thanks for sharing with the Home Matters Linky Party. Pinned and shared.

    Merry Christmas!
    ~Lorelai @ Life With Lorelai
    #HomeMatters

    1. Thank you so much. I wish I knew when I was younger too! I already played beauty salon with my Barbies and Jem dolls, this would have made life so much easier.

  5. Wow, this is great! My daughters have a lot of dolls with really frizzy hair. I’ll have to try this out and see how it works. Thanks for this!

  6. You remind me of myself when I was 7 or 8 years old. I would always bathe and wash the hair of all my dolls, but for some reason I never get to fix their hair properly. I must be doing something wrong, lol. While you, you are so good at it and your Monster High Doll is just so lucky to have you as her owner. I’ll share this post with my mommy friends and mommy cousins – coz their kids are doing the same stuff I did with their dolls.

    1. Thank you for the shares. I just stumbled on the boil method myself. I was getting frustrated because the detangler method just wasn’t working out!

  7. These dolls are absolutely gorgeous. My girls both got one for Christmas and I can’t get over how pretty and unique they are. My girls just love them too!

    1. I am Monster High obsessed. I just love them. We don’t have many. I think maybe 10. But we play as a family – even my husband plays with us. It’s quite comical.

  8. Awesome transformation hahaha. I thought that was a real woman lol. But that doll looks great after she have a rebonded hair very nice and my daughter love this tips because she really love her doll bbut its hair so freezzy.

    1. They do get frizzy fast. Their are some dolls we can use detangler and just come it out but others need a boil treatment.

  9. My 6 year old niece has a couple of these dolls and she just loves them. I will have to show her this next time she is over.

  10. Wow! Never thought of washing the doll’s hair. I did love combing their hair when I was little. Good job! She did look a lot better. 🙂

    1. Thank you so much. I am a thrift store girl so I love to find bargains to make new. MH is like $10-$20 so anytime I can find them cheaper and fix them up, I am sold.

  11. This is such a great way of making dolls hair smooth and nice again. My Barbies hair was always going ratty, I could have used this tip back in the 90’s haha 🙂

  12. You really did do a great job with her hair! I like that you redid the Cabbage Patch kids for the children’s hospital. What a cool thing to do.

  13. Wow! What a cool idea – I’ve never seen the results of this before. I remember coming across a pin and wondering if it really worked! It’s like magic!

  14. This is an awesome tip!!! I will definitely putting this to use with a bunch of my princesses dolls!!! Thanks 🙂

  15. Neato! My daughter is really into her dolls – this is great way to touch-up ones we find at yard sales and online auction sites. Thanks for sharing!

  16. Wow I definitely had this problem with my old dolls. Their hair would be a total hot mess! Thanks for showing us a solution!

  17. O.M.G. This is the first time I’ve seen a hair tutorial for a doll. And it was insanely cute/entertaining! 😀 Sounds like a mini-adventure, with some patience and creativity required. Kudos on a success re-vamp – she’s a pretty doll!

    xo,
    lauriel
    EyeForElegance.com

  18. What an interesting post indeed! I love dolls and my girls have barbie girl dolls. If the doll’s hair gets sticky then we think its time to change the doll. But this idea really helps to save money. Very helpful for doll lovers. Thanks for sharing.

    1. If kiddo wasn’t in my life I am not sure if I would know about them or not. I’m a big kid at heart when it comes to dolls and collected them for the longest time. I like to go down the toy isles just to see whats new.

    1. I have used detangler and used the fabric softener mixed with water trick. I have even used hair conditioner mixed with water. I find the boil method works best on the Monster High dolls because of the type of hair used. It also sets really well in homemade doll rollers.

  19. What a fun post idea, I bet many search this out. I know that when my daughter was younger, I was always on the look out for was to keep Barbie hair non-frizzy or at least fix it … great post!

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