Rococo Pompadour Curls Wig from Arda Wigs Iron Wig challenge 2014 with hot Glue wefts Tutorial

Rococo Pompadour Curls Wig

This was the wig I did for the first freestyle Round in the Arda wigs Iron Wig competition. I had NEVER done a true foam core before and I'd been dying to make a Pompadour style wigs for years so I wanted to try out these methods. ;)

Also, if you interested in this wig I have if for Sale HERE if you like to add it to your collection. 

What you will need for the wig!

Detangler spray

Gator hair clips

bobby pins / T-pins

Candy Corn Candy Striper and Maroon Curly Clip. (this was Supplied by Arda) I recommend 1 wig and 2-3 packs of wefts for a Pompadour style wigs. The bigger the wig is the more hair you will need. ;)

Hair Sheers

Hair Razor/ Feathering Razor

Hairspray (Got2B Glued brand for hold)

Aleene's Tacky Glue and Aleene's Tacky Spray.

A straightening iron

Toupee Clips

Hot Glue Gun (dual temp needed)

Silicon mate (you can get cheap baking ones at the dollar store)

Sheet Insulation foam (for the base)

Retractable box cutter utility knife.

Matching shades of acrylic paint.

You can purchase your supplied from Ard Wigs (with international options) or Arda Wigs Canada.

Aleene's Tacky Glue (spray & glue), Got2B Glued, Mane n Tail Detangler spray

Candy Corn wig and Curly clip

Step 1: Strip the wig down.

When you creating a new structure for your wig silhouette, I found it useful to remove all the wefts off of the wig base where you will be placing the new foam base piece.

In this case, the wefts in the wig from the back to the crown were removed and I only left part of the bangs/fringe in the front and temples/sideburns.

I use a seam ripper to un-sew the wefts to the lace and elastic base.

I also cut the mesh of the curling clip into smaller sections for use.

Step 2: Prep your Wefts!

Candy Corn weft and Marron sections from Curly Clip mesh.

Now that you wefts are harvested you're going to take a few hour to comb through with a detangling spray. Then after the wefts have no knots in them, take a straightening iron to smooth out your weft.

Arda wigs state that a normal straightening iron works on their fiber type. Here a tutorial on Strengthening their wig if you want to read it for temperature range as well. ;)

https://arda-wigs.com/straightening-a-heat-resistant-wig/

Now you can use these for a new wig!

Step 3: Priming the bangs.

I added a Marron/Red wefts to the top of the bangs crown to add a red lager to the bangs. I glue this one because this area is going to get covered by the Pompadour BASE.

Then I set the wig bangs in plastic curlers and poured boiled water from a kettle to set the curls after they cool and dried in place.

 

Once you they are done drying, remove the curlers.

Step 4: Build your wig Foam BASE!

NOTE: If you have a dual tempuratur Hot Glue Gun I tend to swap between  the low and high seting with a dual tempo glue stick. The reason for this is that Ardas Wigs fiber type doesn't fuse with the glue on a low setting and the foam MELTS with the Glue on the hot setting.  

It's a tricky thing but I found myself setting it to high first to heat up the gun, but turn it back to low so that the glue was at a medium hest for 1 to 2 minutes and repeat the process as the glue stick got to cool.... what can we get a medium heat setting on these. lol

You are going to need to measure the diameters of your head from above to get a general size for your wig base.

I made a Duct Tape wig head for reference and sizing match for all my wig projects so that my updo will fit my head. ;) This wig head is what I measured for myself to get the general dimensions I need for the bump.

Rought foam base and utility knife.

Build a cube with layers of insulation foam cut to the width you want the wall of your base form to be. Because the thickest sheet was only 2" sheets that were too small to carve down to a dome shape. I needed to cut slabs to 3.5" wide and stacked them to create a thicker wall. You can also just stack a 12" x 12" squares but I wanted to keep this hollow and minimize waste.

I also make sure to have a solid square at the top for the crown.

Indie of foam core rough block 

The next part I didn't get to take photo's of because stopping to take them would have distracted me from carving with a super sharp knife. I basically use a utility knife full extended (as seen about in the first photo of this section) and use that sharp knife to carve the base structure my taking corners off the side of this tall bump.

It wasn't 100% smooth when I was done carving but good enough for covering in layers of hair. You can also use a sanding mouse to finish your base off but please do that outside or with a mask. You don't want to breathe in the plastic particles...

The small gaps you can fill with scrap foam which you can see in the photo below, but the most important part to get smooth is the top/crown because it will be cover in a few less layer of wefts sometimes.

Once you're done carving it's time to paint your base to match the weft colours your going to use.

I painted my base based on the pattern of the wig colour I knew I was going to do.

The paint I used was cheap Acrylic to also seal the foam and protect any elements in the Aleene's Tacky Spay or the Got to Be Hair Spray that might dissolve the foam.... spray paint dissolves foam.... Like WICKED WITCH melting.... so avoid that. lol

Now you need to do a finally fitting of your wig base to your wig head. I still am using the framework from the original Candy corn wig to pin to my pre-drawn head template on my custom wig head. The foam base also needs to fit the curvature of your own crown of your head.

So I carve the curvature of the crown and also carved the inside of the Foam Base to fit more snugly to my wig head as well. You don't want the shape to bulge to far out from the wig base when doing this style.

Remove this Foam BASE for now, you need to do more work on the wig base.

Step 5: Stabilize the wig base.

With the wig base straps pinned into my custom wig head, I use cheap felt to wrap the base structure in and sew into the wig straps. Because this wig will be soo structure the last thing I want is the foam base to pop out of shape accidently while trying to put the wig on once it's finished styling. I used a cream colour felt to match the white the one shade.

It does not have to be pretty, it just needs to cover the back.

Step 6: Creating WEFTS with Hot Glue!

The crown button skin top use for this original wig hair has no wefts in the original wig, so I'm converting the hair to wefts.

Because the original wig has a finite amount of weft I need to create new ones based on the final wig length that I need to salvage as much of the hair as possible. I start by sectioning off the hair at the end of the wefts and comb it smooth.

Once that is done I use that comb to section the hair out into even part. As seen above, I use a large gator clip to secure the hair before cutting off the new weft section above that clip.

NOTE: This method only works with a thin amount of hair as each individual strand of the hair need to be fused to the hot glue otherwise these strains will fall out.

With that clean weft line I created, I gently remove my comb and lay the new weft down on a silicone mate. With your hot glue gun set to high temp if it's a dual temp gun, runs a single bead line at the top of the weft hair.

Fold the silicone mate over and press it down and into the hair/glue. I like to push the glue back to the edge of the weft fringe.

Hold the matte in place until the glue is cool to the touch through the matte. If you try to remove that mate while it still warm, the glue will still stick to the silicone and stretch.

You should get an even smooth line of glue on your one side.

Flip your weft over and you should see your exposed hair on the other side. You need to seal this again with a line of hot glue and press down.

Now you wig fiber are seal into the hot glue creating a new weft. I use these wefts for the inner layers rather than the finishing edge on a wig because they will be hidden by the smoother sewn wefts you can buy a bundle of or harvest from a wig. A sew weft give you a nice small edge to hide under the band of the wig rather than these larger patches of hot glue.

Step 7: Cover your Foam BASE

I started but covering my finishing wefts to the inside lip of the Foam Base to use latter with hot glue. Flip your wig up right.

I started with the orange side because I knew I was going to  cover these with the red and white sections over the top at the new crown. I glue down more wefts to the Foam Base about 2" from the bottom of the Foam Base.

I made sure the hair was still smooth and use Allen's Tacky Spray on the Foam Base first before laying the weft down into the glue. This way the Glue doesn't cake the hair surface that is exposed and all the strands as mostly stuck to the foam base.

TIP: I found it easier to apply small 1" wide sections of the wefts hair at a time as I glued them down. I would also use scrap letterhead paper to hold over the area's that I had finished already laying the hair down so that none of the spray glue would get onto my nice clean hair surface. These sheets I would have to throw out every 3 to 4 spray as they would get very sticky. ;)

I repeat this process 3 more times to cover the side with wefts.

I then add the finishing wefts from the base lip; Again take the 1" section of weft, comb it out smooth. Cover the clean hair section in letterhead sheet paper, Spray the area where you are going to lay that section of hair down with the glue then pull and lay the hair down.

At this point, I was also using my one clean hand (as the other hand was covered with glue from holding the paper sheets to mask my wig off.) To lightly press the hair down into the glue as well with that clean hand.

Because they're going to be extra hair at the top of the crown I use a pair of shears for hair to trim the tips down to the center at an angle that would be under my next shade layers of yellow and red.

I repeated the above process with the yellow.

I repeated the above process with the White section. Now at this point the White section tail I trimmed and styled the tail into a center point so that I could it tuck it nicely under the next section which is the front Red.

I repeated ALL the above process with the with the Red. But this time, I did not use the finish lip layer of hair, that will be done later as I will use this hair for both the front of the bangs and the front of the Pompadour.

Step 8: Attaching and Blending the Pompadour Base!

Realign the Pompadour  Foam Base onto your wig base. Line the inside lip of Pompadour Base on the matching Sides and Back of the wig base with hot glue and press into place on the wig base. You want to leave the front alone for styling reasons but this with hold you structure in place nicely for wear.

Next, you need to expand your wig base with matching felt panes. You want these to line up with you Pompadour Base so that your colour match as well. I Hot Glued the top of the felt panels into place.

Then trim the felt down to the wig base hairline and glue the ends down to that band.

Step 9: Sew in your Sideburn hairline.

You want to do this by sewing your clean wefts into the inside of the wig baseband so that they fold from under the band and upwards once you style the hair there.

Step 11: Adding Wefts to you wig Base.

For this section, I like to pre-style the weft with Hairspray so that they lay flat in one direction. Because the felt is not a solid structure like foam, I need the hair to lay more like panels in this section before I apply them.

I glued down this first panel to the sideburns. 

Then add my second panel to the lower section.

Now that I have my working hair I'm again taking a sheet of paper to mask out the clean hair areas and use the Aleene's Tacky spray to lay down small sections of hair.

This hair is just the filler layer to Blend the wig base into the Pompadour base.

The other side.

Step 12: Quick tip Hide your outside wefts tracks!

I personally started to do this with permanent marker (Sharpie is cheap) and picking one with a similar colour to the wefts your matching. I'm showing orange here but I also match the yellow and red later on as well.

I run the marker over the raw weft seam done in a tan thread and the hot glue ones as well.

Step 13: Continue Laying the Filler hair down.

I found with the white being a transparent colour by nature I needed more wefts to both will the longer area and make it more opaque.

I repeat Again the same Step 11 and Step 12 for the Yellow sections.

Step 14: Finish off the Final back Hairline

At this point, you're going to sew in your White and Yellow hairline wefts like you did in Step 9.

This hair has to be tangle free and smooth for it is the final finishing layer to the back of your hairline and the most visible layer to the wig as a whole.

Next, you need to Heat Trian you hairline a bit by pulling these section of hair up straight against the Pompadour and using your hairdryer on high  along the base to the wig and hold in place while it cools. The reason for this is to create a softer curl from inside the wig hairline up 180 degrees and around the band. This will take time but it adds a polished look to the wigs final hairline. You can speed up this process if you hair dryer has a cool setting to use after you heated up and hold the hair in place, blast it with the cool setting to cool the hair down faster.

NOTE: Make sure that you don't have the hair dryer to close to the heat resitain fiber. It will cuase the fibers to ripple under the heat and set in waves.

I could have done with a touch more wefts but I was running out of supplies at that point. I reiterate that you will need more wefts then what 1 wig can 1 pack can offer.

Now that the hair has been trained, like before take smaller than 1" section of hair and pull them up. Use the paper sheet to mask the clean areas and spray into the section you want to layer the hair down so that the spray stays in a small area. Do this all the way around the hairline and you will get a smooth looking back.

The final tips of the white hair were long enough to reach the crown of the Wig. I use the Aleene's Tacky Glue to Glue down the final tip of the hair to create as close to as smooth dome as I could and let that dry overnight.

Repeat the same layer process with the front of the Pompadour base. But I also horizontally divided the hair here so that the other half stayed with bang area.

The Tips of the Red I styled into a point with hair spray and glued the underside of that section down onto the crown.

At this point, I did a final seal of the whole Pompadour bump with sparay to stop any loose hairs from sflying away.

Step 15: Style the bangs!

At this point I have some scrap wefts from the different colours lefts over and glue those into the Pompadour Base gap at the front I left open. This was to fill out the side bang area with a few more shades from the wig. 

I then set the side hair into mini foam curler and poured boiled water over them to set the shape. Leave these to air dry complete.

Ater everything was stabilized I took the wig off the Custom Wig Head to sew in my Toupee Clips to the inside and temples of this wig. I used four large ones for easy clipping this wig onto my head. You can and should do this at the start of Step 5 but I forgot.

Next, I pinned the wig on a display model and style the front bangs into a tube-like shape, I want the ringlets of colour to still be divided instead of a solid smooth tube. 

Finally, take you side ringlets out of the curlers starting from the bottom and work your way up. You can fluff them out to have more volume if you want.

Finished!

FINAL NOTES: You might want to build your Foam BASE to cover the whole back of the head rather than just creating it for the hight. You will end up with a much smoother finish over all look to the wigs.

I hope you found this tutorial useful in any of your future and varied Rococo / Pompadour wig adventure! ;)