In this section I thought I would give some information about how I care for my Sasha dolls.  In the links section I include links to many very useful sites where you can find further information about this. 

HAIR CARE AND STYLING

Hair Problems

• When I buy a brunette doll, I think very carefully about washing the hair.  Many brunette Sasha dolls suffer from "falling hair".  This is when a chemical reaction over time and possibly poor storage and lack of ventilation, causes the hair to become brittle and break off at the scalp or just fall out of the rooting hole.  We have two dolls with this condition, both are late 60's brunette party side part girls.  We treat these dolls with a lot of respect and tend to have them more as beautiful Sasha ornaments on display rather than playing with them. If you don't like collecting up your Sasha's hair every so often you can always take the extreme action of cutting off the remaining hair and re-wigging your doll.  I have one doll in our collection who was re-wigged due to falling hair.  There is no cure for falling hair.  Falling hair doesn't just affect brunette dolls but it is much more prevalent in them, some of the early red haired dolls are also affected by this.

• Another problem you can encounter with a doll is hair cutting by a previous child owner.  Again in our collection we have a couple of dolls who have gone through this.  Patsy is a brunette girl from the early 70's who sports a rather fetching bob.  Marianne, a blonde girl from 1970, has a chunk of hair missing from her fringe.  In her case, I very carefully trimmed some hair from the row behind her bangs/fringe to a slightly longer length than the rest of her remaining bangs/fringe to cover the cut area.  This worked very well and she is a beautiful doll.  There are some very talented people who are able to re-root small areas of fringe when it is missing and this is also an option.  Jane had some missing hair in her bangs at the front re-rooted by Susanna Lewis.  Sometimes, though, there is too much damage done and the only choice is to remove the remaining hair and to re-wig.  I have heard of the odd person who has re-rooted an entire Sasha head.  This is a labour of love as it is an extremely slow and time intensive job.

• Re-wigging a doll is a scary process.  I personally find it very stressful as I really hate to remove the hair from a waif and try only only to do it when it is really necessary.  That said, once your doll has had the hair removed and is standing in front of you with fine stubble all over its head, it opens up a whole new world of fun.  I find it very difficult to name waifs because they change their look every time they change their wig.  I have collected a selection of different wigs which my dolls look lovely wearing.  There are two sizes of wigs which fit the Sasha/Gregor waifs.  The Monique wigs sized 8"-9" and the Global Doll wigs sized 9"-10".  Sometimes you can be lucky and buy an original Sasha doll wig, as some of the Trendon Limited Edition dolls wore wigs.  ABCeta still have some Pintucks and Prince Gregor Wigs available.  Although I have never had to rewig a baby or toddler sasha I believe that size 7"-8" wigs fit them.  There is an enormous array of doll wigs available for your doll.  I choose not to glue the wig in place on my waifs so it allows me to change their looks.  If you are having problems getting the top of the wig to sit neatly against the crown, you can use a piece of double sided sticky tape on the top of your dolls head to help hold the wig in place.  Wigs are made from several different types of fibre, the most common are modacrylic, human hair, mohair and synthetic mohair.  My personal favourites are modacrylic wigs which have a nice feel to them and are very easy care.  Human hair wigs need a bit more care, careful conditioning every so often, but look and feel very natural on the doll.  I have dyed human hair wigs using hair dye successfully.

Hair Washing

I think very carefully before washing a brunette dolls hair and only do it if really necessary due to the possibility of the dolls hair falling after washing. 

Several of the sites will give more detailed information about washing the Sasha doll's hair.  As most of these sites are based in the US it isn't always possible to find the products that they mention easily. 

Most Sasha dolls have rooted nylon hair.  The exception to this are the Trendon Limited Edition dolls: Pintucks, Kiltie and Princess Sasha who have human hair.  These dolls along with Prince Gregor and Velvet have wigs.

Rooted Nylon Hair

I wash nylon rooted hair in the wash basin, I carefully fill the basin with warm water and I wrap a hand towel around the dolls neck and pin closed so that water will not get inside the doll.  I then angle the dolls hair into the wash basin and wet it thoroughly.  If the doll has very frizzy hair, I will use some John Frieda Frizzease shampoo to wash the hair.  It cannot defrizz the hair because the hair is nylon but it can help to smooth the hair.  If the hair is reasonably soft and silky, I use original fairy liquid (green) to wash the hair.   After the hair has been thoroughly washed and all the suds have been rinsed out of the hair, usually takes several rinses, I condition the hair.  I like to use the fabric conditioner Comfort Pure (for sensitive skin with no added perfumes).  In a small jar I mix some up with a ratio of one part conditioner to 5 parts water.  I screw the lid on and shake the bottle vigorously to mix.  Then I massage some of this mixture onto the dolls hair.  I usually leave my doll lying on a towel for about 30 minutes, sometimes longer if the hair isn't as smooth.  When I come back to the doll, while she is still lying on the towel, I carefully brush her hair out using a wire bristled wig brush (I have some of these for sale).  Then the hair is thoroughly rinsed with warm water.  I usually give a final cold rinse. 

Hair Drying

I gently wrap the hair in a towel and squeeze to remove any excess water. 

At this stage you can style your Sasha dolls hair if you wish using a selection of items: white pipe cleaners work well, small pieces of white cotton and hollow rollers in small and medium sizes all give your Sasha a very pretty and natural curl to her hair. 

I then dry the dolls hair using a hair dryer on a low heat setting.  Sometimes I use a diffuser on a medium heat setting.  To make your Sasha dolls bangs/fringe lie nice and smooth and flat, I have cut a 20 cm piece off the legs of a pair nylon tights.  I like to use the nylon tights because when I have carefully pulled it over the dolls head, I can see how the hair is lying and it is stretchy enough to allow me to reposition any hair that I need to.  I then gently dry the fringe area using the hair dryer on the low to medium setting.  I find it needs the little bit of extra heat because it is drying the bangs/fringe through the nylon tights.  Once the bangs/fringe has dried I take it off and gently dry the rest of her hair from a distance of about 8 inches I find that this allows the factory curl to come through.  You can keep the piece of nylon tights over the dolls head if you want the hair to be smoother and dry all the hair through the nylon.  If I am going to do this, I usually will have dried the hair at the back of her neck before hand.  Then after blow drying I will leave the stocking on for a few hours before removing, if she has problem bangs it may need to be left on for longer. 

Once her hair is nice and dry you can style it with all sorts of accessories, Claire's Accessories shops often sell Sasha sized hair grips and I like their non tangle elastic bands as well.  Below you will find some photographs of different hair styles that the Sasha's can have.  They are so very versatile and you can have so many different looks.

HAIR STYLING GALLERY

Emma - Soft flicked ends   I used medium sized hollow plastic rollers.  When her hair was still damp I just put the rollers in all the way around her head about about ear level.  I dried her hair on the low level with the diffuser on the hair dryer.  After the rollers were removed the hair hung beautifully with softly flicked ends.
Emma with rollers in				Emma from the front		Lovely back view of hair
NB The mouse slippers are knitted from a design by Christine and I learned to crochet so that I could make these cute slippers.
Miriam - Curly hair style   For this style I divided the hair in half above ear level.  The top part of the hair was rolled onto small sized plastic hollow rollers.  The lower part of the hair was divided into 6 sections and wound onto flexible sponge rollers.  These held the hair reasonably loosely.  Her hair was then dried on the low level temperature with the diffuser attachment on the hair drier.  This hair style resulted in lovely soft curls.
Miriam with small rollers and flexible rollers		Showing the rollers from the back			Miriam afterwards from the front			From the back with the hair in a partial ponytail held by a clip
Ballet Style - Ponytail   Lots of us have a special doll that we hope to get someday.  Mine is an 1960's red head ballet girl.  In the meantime this is my version.  Angela is happily modeling the look for me.  The hair is swept up using the brush into a top knot at the crown where it is held with a non tangling elastic band and then a small white ribbon is tied in place with a little bow.
Ira - plait, loose & wavy or ponytail   Some of the later Gotz dolls such as the Limited Edition Ira have very long hair which gives lots of scope for different hair styles.  Here I have shown her with her hair in its plait/braid in the same way she would have worn it leaving the factory.  The next two images show her with her hair unplaited and allowed to hang loose and wavy.  In the final pair of photos she has her hair in a beautiful long ponytail.
Jane - Full Centre Part Some of the 60's Frido Sasha dolls were made with full centre parts.  This allows their hair to be worn in pigtails or short plaits.  Jane has this style of hair.  It is very versatile although she has very thickly rooted hair.
Coming soon: - Photographs of waifs in different styles of wigs.