Kanekalon? Saran? What?

[Lokiholic]

I've been reading what I can find about playline dolls and I've been running across criticism of the various types of doll hair that can possibly be used. I was wondering: what is the real difference? What dolls have what sort of hair? I've noticed a difference between the Moxies and the Monster High/Livs, which I think have the best hair of what I own. Do the Moxies have kanekalon? What's so bad about kanekalon, anyway? Is there a way to tell what kind of hair the doll has before purchasing it?

I'm so lost.

[Evelien]

I'm not sure how to find out what kind of hair a doll has before buying it (Google?), but if you cut little pieces of hair you can find out by burning it and/or dunking it in water. The different types of hair will react differently. I tried it once, it's fun

I'm not sure about the difference in quality, I do know that saran hair is favourite for most but I don't really know why..

I do know that I prefer saran hair for (re)rooting my dolls. Nylon and polypropylene are a close second and third. Kanekalon is my least favourite to work with, I used it once and gave up very fast, now I just don't buy it anymore.

If you're not rerooting and you want to know the hair type for styling your doll's hair, you should know there are different advised temperatures to expose the different types of hair to. For instance, on type - not sure which - only holds a style if you boil it, the other can't handle boiling and will hold a style at a much lower temperature.. if this is the reason you're interested in the different types of hair, I suggest you do a google search because I don't know the details from the top of my head.

But my question to you is, why do you want to know? ^^ This will help when trying to answer your question

[Wardah]

With MGAs different doll lines with rooted hair it depends on if it is a basic doll or one of the more expensive non basic dolls. The basic dolls tend to have nylon (and not the same kind of nylon Hasbro uses for My Little Pony hair either) and the more expensive dolls usually have saran. As far as the Moxie Teenz wigs I am not sure but Moxie Teenz can wear Liv wigs once the tab is cut out and Livs have prettier wigs anyways.

[Lokiholic]

Well, for one thing I want to avoid hair like the Moxies have, because it suuuucks (The 'I Am...' line, if that makes a difference). It's not the gel, because overall it feels like crap. If I knew what it was/how to avoid it, that would be awesome.

I'm also just trying to figure out how to follow the threads I've read in other forums. I've seen a hatred for kanekalon and love of saran. I can't figure out what the consensus is for nylon or anything else. And when I try researching I find things for regular adult sized wigs. :/ Or companies that make whatever material it is. I sort of want a chart that goes from best quality/most expensive to worst quality/cheapest and the pros and cons of the different kinds (holds colors well when dyed, has less flyaways, holds curls well, whatever).

I guess I'm just generally curious? I'm still curious about everything, since I'm such a n00b.

[Evelien]

Hmm, as far as pricing goes, I don't think saran is that much more expensive than kanekalon... I just didn't like to work with kanekalon, it didn't bend and flex the way I wanted it to when I was trying to make knots and stuff, it's very stiff and gets frizzy easily.
Lately I've only used saran so my memory of nylon and polypropylene isn't that great anymore, but I used nylon for my very first rooting project and I don't remember it being annoying at all .

Link to the picture galleries of my favourite dolly hair shop: http://www.retrodolls.co.uk/apps/photos/
It's a British store though. For Europe it's the best as far as I know, for the US you'd have to look elsewhere, but the colours they'd have in stock would probably be the same, so these photo galleries are a good source one way or another.

I could do the Moxie experiment if you like. I'll gladly burn some hair . Just not now, it's after midnight.. and tomorrow I am swamped in study work. I'll get back to you on this one.

[Lokiholic]

With MGAs different doll lines with rooted hair it depends on if it is a basic doll or one of the more expensive non basic dolls. The basic dolls tend to have nylon (and not the same kind of nylon Hasbro uses for My Little Pony hair either) and the more expensive dolls usually have saran. As far as the Moxie Teenz wigs I am not sure but Moxie Teenz can wear Liv wigs once the tab is cut out and Livs have prettier wigs anyways.

Really? I had thought that Moxie Teenz had bigger heads. Hmm... That will be handy information when the new ones come out. Thanks!

[SillyLilPuppet]

Dollyhair has an explanation on their site of different hair types, and has a good selection of different hair and tools too. http://www.dollyhair.com/kindsofhair.htm
I've only worked with MLP nylon and saran for rerooting, but have a lot of dolls and cosplay wigs made of kanekalon. Dolls with kanekalon are totally different textured than human wigs and extensions made of it, its the super fine fluffy light hair found on a lot of newer play Barbies. It looks really nice right out of the box but goes fluffy pretty quickly with too much brushing or rough play. It withstands heat pretty well though and I've managed to de-frizz some with a ceramic flat iron on its lowest setting. The human kanekalon is reeeeally stiff though and sticks out something awful on dolls (I rerooted a pony once with clippings from a cosplay wig- had to pour a teapot of boiling water on it to get the hair to lay flat)
Saran is what they use on a lot of collector Barbies, and it is pretty soft and looks nice without much styling. A lot of vintage dolls use it too, and you can see on some how well it holds up once its styled on them. Its supposedly harder to style though, to get curls you pretty much have to boil it.

[Lokiholic]

That is EXACTLY what I was looking for! Thanks so much!

[Kd_Bunchanumbers]

Urgh, I loathe MGAE hair in general. Their nylon is cheap, cheap, cheap stuff and thus always terribad in styling/maintaining it. Their saran haired dolls aren't always well done in quaility control, but quite nice after a few boil perms and cuts.

Kanekalon is pretty awful to work with as it goes dull when touching water, breaks much easier and goes frizzy easily. On the up side, it's the easiest hair to make bangs out of, curls much better when boiled and yeah. I'm quite annoyed a majority of Liv wigs use kanekalon since there's some pretty fantastic colours I wanted to try rerooting with :C

Saran is the best to work with if you just want long straight hair that doesn't frizz as easily and you can do lots with. HOWEVER, I find it's pretty terrible to cut doll bangs and to keep curls in and all that since it'll just straighten and stick out eventually.

The Moxie I picked up seemed to have awful nylon hair so... yeah.

[Lokiholic]

Urgh, I loathe MGAE hair in general. Their nylon is cheap, cheap, cheap stuff and thus always terribad in styling/maintaining it. Their saran haired dolls aren't always well done in quaility control, but quite nice after a few boil perms and cuts.

So it's an MGA thing? I'd test it against the Bratz I have, but both of them had their hair cut super short by my cousin. I just really hate the hair, and I'm not really that attached to the faces - I bought them to steal the clothing for my Monster High brood. (Also, MGA needs to stop lying to me and showing me Lexa with glasses.) Hmm. Maybe if the face goes well on the one Moxie, I'll reroot her with something from dollyhair.com. I find the thermal hair fascinating.

The Liv wigs do come in great colors, but even in wig form it can be a bit much to handle. I have some curly wigs that I just can't control. I put it on a doll's head and it looks like it's going to eat their faces. Since water will dull it, should I not try to use water to tame it?