Doll Hair Part 1: Mohair Bouclé

Background

One thing I loved most when I saw my first Waldorf-style doll was the hair. It had beautiful, soft, curly hair that looked so natural — not like the standard artificial hair on usual store-bought dolls. I really wanted the same for my first doll but had no idea where to start.

After some research, I concluded that it was most likely mohair bouclé, so I headed to Amazon (big mistake) and bought the only one that seemed to resemble what I wanted for about 18 Euro. (Big, big mistake - go to a specialist shop like Meaningful Crafts, Wollknoll or something similar and get it for half the price) It was from De Witte Engel (DWE), which seemed like the correct choice since their doll fabric is very well-known and used by many makers. After it arrived, I was surprised; it seemed fluffier than I’d imagined, but I gave it a try anyway. For this type of doll hair, I didn't really find a tutorial on how to do the wig (or probably I was just looking for the wrong terms), so I was improvising again.

The "Blind" Crochet Phase

I started to crochet the wig cap from this yarn, but huh... it wasn't fun, I must admit. It's like crocheting totally blindly. It certainly didn't help that I had just "learned" crocheting the day before after watching two entire YouTube videos, so at this point, I had obviously mastered the craft.. :D.

When I was halfway through, I got extremely unsure whether it was the right method. It was very puffy, and I couldn't imagine it looking good after attaching the long hair strands. I know that’s kind of the point, and a lot of people brush mohair wig cap out to get that cute look, but it was not what I was looking for. After going back and forth, I ordered a standard wool yarn in a matching color and made the wig cap from that instead.

Surprise

Once it was done, I started to add the hair. And add it, and add it... and no matter what I did, it just didn't look right. I needed to add a lot of hair so the wig cap wouldn't be visible, but because this type of yarn is so bulky, I reached a point where the cap was still showing but the hair was so large it looked stupid. (See second picture below)

At this point, I wanted to give up and just leave it as it was. I had already spent hours and hours working on it, but I couldn't stop there. I went back to "Version 1," finished the original mohair bouclé cap, and started to attach the hair there... and wow. As bad as I thought it would look, I was just as surprised by the result. It seemed very unlikely (at least for me as a total noob), but it worked out quite okay. Because of the fluffiness of the wig cap, I needed to add way fewer hair strands; even with just a few, it looked full and well-balanced. The wig cap melts into the hair, making it look full and beautiful without the added volume—a perfect balance. (Third picture below)

Looking Forward

Although the hair turned out decent, it was not exactly what I imagined in my head. This DWE bouclé is very good - but probably not for making wigcap, only for adding long hair. From what I see, DollyMo Mini Loop yarn is closer to my expectations, so I’ve already ordered a few colors of that.

Another thing I don't love with the DWE mohair is that even after a few weeks, it started matting. After reading up on it, I learned this is due to the mohair-wool ratio. I’ve since ordered some other mohair bouclé with a higher mohair and lower wool percentage, so theoretically, it should be less prone to matting.

Other than the curly look, I also wanted to try a straight hair look, so I bought some Kid Silk Mohair yarn (not bouclé). I’m currently working on a doll with this hair; it’s not as difficult to crochet, but still not super straightforward - and I think the crochet is still the easy part. As this yarn is very thin, it will take hours to attach to the cap, but let’s worry about that in a few days when I get there.

In conclusion: DWE mohair bouclé was fine, but probably won't be my favorite. Next time I use DWE, I will probably try a combination and do the cap from a matching color of mohair; maybe that would be the best of both worlds or a total failure, we will see. But that’s all about the DWE mohair for now - in my next doll hair post, I will show the "silk" hair approach.