My Experience With Dying Synthetic Hair

For Zenkaikon, I decided that I wanted to cosplay as Koga from "Inuyasha". I have my costume all set. The only thing I needed was the hair. I have a black short wig, and a light brown ponytail hair extension clip. So, instead of having to waste money and buy a black ponytail clip extension, I decided to dye it. For this, I watched a ton of YouTube videos to prepare myself. It looked simple enough, so I went ahead and tried the method that seemed the easiest and cheapest, which was mixing acrylic ink with 70% rubbing alcohol. I got some black FW ink (which was commonly used in the videos) and some rubbing alcohol (mine was the green one since it was the only one the store had in stock at the moment). I mixed those two together in a .99 cent plastic spray bottle and sprayed the synthetic hair outside on the driveway because I was scared to make a mess in my house.

Once I sprayed it, I let the hair soak up the black for like ten minutes, which was stupid. I should have let it sit for a day because when I washed it off, most of the black washed off with the color, making the hair a medium brown color. Then, I did it over again and drenched the hair in the black solution, leaving the hair soak up the color for 24 hours. Again, a lot of the black washed out. The hair did go a little darker to a dark chocolate brown color, which doesn't help me because it still does not match the black wig. Maybe if I dried the hair before reapplying the black solution it would have worked better. I don't know. Or, if I had done it right the first time, then I wouldn't have as much as a problem. Who knows?

At this point, I was frustrated and decided to buy a black ponytail clip extension from Amazon. I didn't want to have to clean up another mess, and since my parents have new flooring, I didn't want to chance ruining it and have my ass kicked. Plus, I didn't want any of the ink to rub off onto my costume. I would be pissed if that happened. In conclusion, this method somewhat works. The hair did get darker, and if I knew what I was doing from the start with the addition of time and patients, I'm sure it would have worked 100%.

I hope this helps anyone who is trying to dye synthetic hair, and I recommend doing a little research before you attempt it, so you don't fail like I did. I should have spent the time and done that instead of watching three videos. Haha. Oh well.