Sourcing Hair

Banbury Postiche

The hair available from banbury postiche include Asian, Yak, synthetic and crepe. They are a large wig making supplier that stock a range of supplies.

This is my most possible source of hair as although they do not sell european hair I will potentially be buying asain hair anyway.

Professional Hairdressing and Wigmaking Materials (no date) Available at: https://www.banburypostiche.co.uk/ (Accessed: 7 October 2015).

Stranded

'With over 10 years experience in both ecommerce and the hair and beauty industry, we take pride in being positioned to offer you the biggest range of hair extensions at the most competitive prices' Stranded specialise more so in extensions for personal use. Therefore I will probably not be ordering from this company as their products are pre made.

Experts in Hair Extensions, Hair pieces and Additions. Stranded Hair. (no date) Available at: http://www.strandedonline.co.uk/ (Accessed: 8 October 2015).

Pak Cosmetics

'Specializing in African and African Caribbean hair and beauty products for today's Fashion conscious consumer. Established just over 27 years ago, our family run destination icon for millions of African's and African Caribbean's all over Africa, Europe and the Caribbean who regularly rely on PAK Cosmetic Center's for hair extensions, professional hair products, specifically developed for Afro consumers.'Pak cosmetics offer pre made wigs and extensions which would be more helpful for deconstructing a wig and refronting it rather than what I am hoping to achieve making a wig from scratch.

UkR Hair

This company sells Asian, European, Uzbek, Asain hair, Bleached hair and Hair Extensions. The company does not advertise the prices of the hair available there is a contact form to fill out to request quotes. I imagine the hair is expensive as the prices are not advertised and the quality of the hair is good. The website is great for information about the hair which is really useful to me.

Wholesale natural human hair: European, Uzbek, Bleached Savic hair (no date) Available at: http://www.ukrhair.com/ (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

Hugo Royer

Hugo Royer primarily sells high qaulity European hair but does not sell Asian hair.

They stock swiss wig lace along with wig making tools and materials. If I choose to use European hair instead I will most likely source my hair from this website as it is good quality.

Hugo Royer International Ltd Hair Merchants - Hair for Research - Swiss Wig Lace (no date) Available at: http://www.royer.co.uk/main.php (Accessed: 12 October 2015).

Budgeting

European Hair Vs Asian Hair

Above I have shown a screenshot from the Hugo Royer website showing the various prices of the european hair they supply. If I were to buy european hair I would purchase it from Hugo Royer as they sell premium quality european hair. The prices are much higher than asian hair however they do not supply asian hair at all so I would have to source this some where else.

Part Synthetic Vs Real Hair

Length of Hair

The picture above shows a screenshot from Banbury Postiche's website indicating the various length and ranges in prices to buy asian hair. Similar to Hugo Royer the website only stocks one type of human hair- Asian. I am swaying towards using asian hair for my project since the cost is much cheaper and I do not need blonde hair as I will be using brown.

Narrowing down costs:

European Hair 150g = roughly £210

Asian hair 250g= roughly £130

Decision:

This is a huge difference in cost since I would be getting almost double for almost half the money buying Asian hair. Since there is no real reason in particularly using European hair it makes sense to choose the cheaper option of Asian hair and avoid paying more than I need to allowing more budget to be used on various other research aspects of the shoot.

The pictures above are of bulk European hair that the university have, I wanted to see the hair so that I could determine what length I would need to purchase. The hair above is 30cm in length, although it is European it still gives me a basic idea about what length I require. Banbury Postiche sell Asian hair in lengths 25cm, 30cm and 35cm, having seen the 30cm I will be purchasing the 35cm costing £130 for 250g of hair. Since I am making a wig (roughly using 250g) and creating a hair sculpture within it I will need another bulk of hair. Ordering 500g of hair will be more suitable since this gives me some extra hair to be testing on throughout.

I did consider making the hair out of part synthetic and part human hair to cut costs and since I am involving a hair sculpture I thought it might be easier to use sythetic also. However, I looked at this part synthetic and part human wig. The overall appearance of it was messy and the texture was not great, I ended up wondering how on earth I would style something that had two different heat limits. I want to be proud of the wig I make and the overall quality of it therefore I have decided to make the whole thing from human hair. The quality will just not create the standard I am looking for doing part synthetic I would rather spend the extra money.

Change of Plan!

Having had a tutorial with Carolyne on the reasoning for making a wig I have realised it is not necessary for me to be constructing a wig since in particular I am waiting to hear back from an alternative potential model that has much longer hair than my current model. I would still need to add hair since her hair is quite thin and I need to ensure the hair flows into and onto the hair frame.

I began thinking about ways that I could add hair to incorporate into the hair frame, ways that I could do this include making a half wig which would sit at the back of the head, a switch or a diamond mesh however they are best suited to create a ponytail style. I am looking to style the hair upwards so I need to think about how the hair pieces can be incorporated in that way. The most suitable hair piece would be hair wefts, these could be clipped in directing upwards in the hair so they sit correctly in an up do.

Since the hair needs to be quite long and also cover the hair frame once made it made sense not to order human hair but instead order heat resistant synthetic hair that is much longer and much cheaper. In industry it will be important to stick to budgets and keep costas at a minimum so there was no reason for me to spend unnecessary money on human hair when synthetic hair will work just as well. Kat showed me some of the packets of synthetic hair that were at uni and I decided that this was definitely the best option.

I found a company that sell the hair called Stranded, I was originally going to order the coloured hair from them however they were out of stock in the colours I needed. Instead I sourced a different company called Diversity Hair. I bought these three colours from the company to make my feathers with for the hair frame. The Henlon synthetic hair is slightly different to the Kanekalon hair but is pretty much the same.

The rest of the hair for the extensions I bought from Stranded as although they did not have the coloured hair I needed they had a better range of natural coloured braiding hair. They also had it in different textures, I ordered the silky braid rather than the other braids as the hair was quite frizzy in the others and this was not what I needed as it had to match Laura's hair. I ordered the two shades above to match laura's natural hair when mixed.