How to Apply Crepe Hair

Today we will be learning how to apply crepe hair. I may have to explain a bit more that crepe hair is a fake hair used in make up applications to make facial hair, werewolves and any number of other characters.  For our example, we will be making a beard.

So to start off, here are the materials we are going to need:

• Crepe Hair
• Spirit Gum (or Prosthetic Adhesive)
• Hair Spray (not pictured)
• Scissors
• Latex Brush (optional)

Here’s a quick note about crepe hair before we get going. Crepe hair is typically is made of wool, and comes in a tight braid. So when you first unwind it the hair is very curly. I prefer to work with it straightened out. How to do this is very simple, but does take some time. Simply unbraid all the hair, and run water over it in the sink or shower. Then once all the hair is wet, hang it over the shower curtain to dry over night. The weight of the water will pull the hair straight. You can speed up the process with a hair dryer, but it’s not quite the same effect.

Also I should point out that there is some crepe hair from cinema secrets witch is more of a plastic material. It is already straightened in the package. I’ve worked with it before and it is nowhere as nice a the wool hair.

So here is our model before we do anything to her. You need to be sure that any kind of make up you plan on applying such as simple base, beauty, werewolf or demon make up is applied before you begin working on the hair. Once the hair is on, it’s incredibly difficult to apply make up under it.

We’ll begin by applying Spirit Gum adhesive to the chin which will be our starting point in the process. In other “how-to” series I will make mention of being sure to tap the Spirit Gum with your finger or brush to work air into it before applying an item to it. That is NOT recommended when using crepe hair. Mainly because the crepe hair is light enough that it doesn’t need to full strength of the adhesive to stick. Also the less your fingers and brushes have adhesive on them, the less hair is going to stick to things you don’t want to have hair on them.

Prosthetic adhesive is an other good alternative to use for crepe hair, and tends to create less of a mess because it will most likely require less dips back into the bottle. Just be sure to wait till the adhesive is mostly clear before you begin to attach hair. I know a lot of people who like to use Liquid Latex as an adhesive. I really do NOT recommend that at all. It will have a discolored area under the hair, and will have a larger chance of failure as the application goes on.

In our image I’m using a Latex Brush instead of the brush that is inside of the Spirit Gum bottle for a couple reasons. As the bottle runs closer to the bottom it is harder to reach the adhesive with the built in bottle. Also as you add more Spirit Gum to other areas of the face stray strands of crepe hair will stick to the brush and end up in your bottle of Spirit Gum. The Latex Brush can easily be cleaned off with a wet wipe in order to prevent that. The brush attached to the bottle cap will only get worse and worse. You can use a normal make up brush to apply the Spirit Gum with, but it will most likely be ruined in the process. The Latex Brush is designed to apply adhesives, bloods and gels and be cleaned off easily afterword.

Now for the hair. Since our model is blonde I picked out some blonde crepe hair. Actually picked out two different shades that can be seen in the first image. Most likely your hair isn’t one solid color. There are subtle color variations, and that can be mimicked by getting different shades of the same color and mixing them together.

Choose the length of the hair you want and cut off a piece from the long strand.  You will want to pull the hair a part so it doesn’t  clump together and try to get a bunch that is spread pretty even. And if you choose do the same with the other color and mix them together.

For the first bunch of hair you are attaching you don’t need to add a ton of hair, will be adding more later to make it look full. You will want to start at the bottom of the chin/jaw and work your way up. That way there is room to add more Spirit Gum and more hair.

Now you can pick a direction to go an continue applying spirit gum and crepe hair along the bottom of the jaw line. Then work your way back by adding hair higher up to add more layers and depth.

Also once we have a couple layers of hair layers down we can use some hair spray to help to hair stay together a bit better. We don’t want to have clumps, but we don’t want to have flyaways, or hairs that were not stuck on very well falling out. This will help everything stay clean and looking nice.

Now after a while some of the hair that was applied might not be sticking at the top of the hair like we would hope. The randomness of the height of the hair is great for the cheeks because it adds a lot of natural look. But you’ll notice I have some hair  that doesn’t look like it is attached, and some other that is attached, but the top of the hair is over her lips. We can get in with a pair of scissors and clean that up.

And then we continue applying Spirit Gum and Crepe Hair across both sides of the face, and do some clean up in the process we end up something looking like this.

So now it’s time to work on the mustache. The hair we cut for this will be much shorter then the hair we cut for the rest of the beard. Since this is a pretty full beard it can still have some length. If it was just a mustache alone, then it would need to be be all fairly short hair, and slightly more controlled application.  With the full beard we can apply the Spirit Gum to the upper lip, and attache the Crepe hair and blend it in with the rest of the beard.

Now we need to take a tep back and look at the beard as a whole. Look for hairs that might not be attached well and fix those with a little strategically applied Spirit Gum, or hair spray.  Also look at the length of the beard to see if it is even all the way across. You can trim and clean up the beard with a pair of scissors.

Once any needed clean up is completed you will have a completely finished beard that might look something like this.

After that go ahead and do any final touches you want to apply to your costume, and you are ready to go out and rock the town.

Oct 26, 2009 | Categories: Make up | Tags: beard, bearded lady, circus freak, crepe hair, crossdressing, demonstration, facial hair, how to, how to apply crepe hair, Make up, spirit gum | Leave A Comment »