Plastic hair by Pepi's
Aconite Azrael2393 Mike Aconite Ceri
Aconite Mike Spacebaby Aconite Lolly


One of the most recent hairstyles to spring up is that of plastic tubing. Well, I say 'tubing', but there's not much limit to what can be attached, really - foam, feathers, aquarium plants, pipecleaners.. you name it, I've seen it on someone's head in London. This is a technique developed and performed by Pepi's, who have salons in London and Tokyo.

The technique is pretty straightforward, although time consuming. The clients hair is braided and wrapped with synthetic hair (as with silky dreads). Pepi's just use plain old jumbo braid to do the wraps with, and finish the end off by heavy application of a hair extension clamp.
Plastic tubing (or whatever!) is tied around the wrapped dreads and various points along the length of the wrap (click here, here and here to see close-up pics).

The plastic that Pepi's use is custom-made for them in Spain. They won't sell it to you, although Silver AJ will and goes on trips to Spain to buy the stuff in bulk - contact her at aj [at] silvercyber [dot] org [dot] uk] if you want to place an order for her next trip, or if you want to buy some of what she has in stock.

They've used a variety of plastic in the past - solid in combination with some flat strip plastic which seems to be rexlace, but these days they use very lightweight hollow plastic of varying diameters. They've also started to just braid the plastic tubing into the hair instead of doing the wraps, and then the tubing-braid is used as the anchor for more pieces of tubing.

As with the silky dreads, this can get heavy with all that plastic. If you do your own version of Pepi's hair, bear this in mind - it's heavy.

Of Pepi's, Aconite says: "I've been to Pepi's three times now. The hair cost is totally varied depending on how much hair you have, what you want done etc. so its impossible to put a price on it. The waist length plastic can take up to 6 hours to put in on chin length hair, and longer the longer your hair is. I've seen it done similar on waist length hair, but that took 14 hours! It lasts three-four months. You can have it touched up, during which they will wrap more fake hair to the root, and add more plastic to the root, which extends the length of time the hair will last. Its heavy, and can be awkward to sleep on, but looks fantastic"

DIY plastic
EmmelineMay
Niklas
Gnat* Atropa* Lisa Agent5 Sharon Bathory

Black
Ballerina

Mystery
Italian 		Leila Fairy Kyronfive Bathory

Meouch
 Atropa* Beautifully
Chaotic		 Fairy
Valkryie
Rachael
Jessie
Kathryn
Kyronfive
Atropa
Electrokitty
Jen
Atropa Kyronfive Leila Ammy l0ra Mia

Not everyone can get to Pepi's.. and it seems there are ways and means to do your own plastic hair - Click on each pic above to find out how each of these DIY plastic styles was done.

Some of the above are wigs. Some are attached to their wearer's heads. Bear in mind that attached plastic is as itchy as braids, but is also heavier. If you have wraps, it's also hard to wash. If you have fine or fragile hair and find pulling extensions particularly annoying, attached plastic hair may not be very suitable. It certainly isn't for me! But you can still do impressive things with a wig to have plastic hair.

There is no "set" way - all of these styles were done by experimenting. It seems that the easiest way to attempt this on yourself is to emulate Lisa, and braid your hair with some jumbo braid.. then tie pieces of plastic at various points along the length of each braid. You could also try braiding the plastic straight into your own hair to make the 'base braids'.
When you add the pieces of plastic, try to put the majority of the plastic at the top of the braid - if you evenly space it out, it can look very bottom-heavy and a bit bare at the top.


Leila's plastic fringe wig
Leila has come up with a really good idea for something to add to the front of your head when wearing a hairpiece - she calls it a fringe wig. As you can see from the pictures on the left, it does an excellent job of covering up that tell-tale section of real hair that always gets exposed when you have your hair in any sort of hairpiece or ponyfall. The plastic would go well with just about any sort of hairpiece: loose, braids, dreads, wool or yet more plastic. To find out how to make one, click on the picture!

General plastic advice.
I've already warned about the weight, yes? Good. I'm not joking, it can be really heavy, so don't go too overboard to start with. Perhaps you could make a plastic hairpiece to wear at first, and just add plastic extensions to the front of your hair. If that doesn't get too uncomfortable after a few trial days, then go ahead and "plastify" the rest.
If you want to know what kind of plastic to use, Rexlace seems to be one of the cheapest and easiest things to find, and it's easy to tie into knots. It is sold at various online craft stores and costs £2-3/$2-3 for a 100-yard spool. If you do a google search for 'Rexlace' you'll be able to find plenty of craft suppliers who sell it.
The holographic version is called 'Rex britelace'. You'll need about 400-500 yards of rexlace for a full head of plastic .

There is also a type of hollow plastic, more similar to what Pepi's use, called 'pony lace', made by the Maxwell-Wellington company. The advantage of hollow plastic is that you can get a lot of volume with less weight than rexlace, so it's well worth seeking out if you want to have plastic hair without the heaviness.
I haven't been able to find a cheap online supplier of this yet, but at least you know what to look for by name.
S'ghetti and 'noodles' are another two types of plastic, both of which are solid and cylindrical, which you can find at online craft shops. Pony lace, s'ghetti and noodles will recreate the Pepi's-style plastic very well, particularly if you use plastic of various diameters.

As mentioned above, you can also buy lightweight hollow plastic from Silver AJ.

Don't be afraid to hunt around for cheap plastic - hardware shops, gardening centres, bike shops, electrical components shops.. all have plastic that you can adapt and use in your hair. Mire found that hollow brake cable covering from a bicycle shop was ideal for using in hair and Lily has used barrier tape from a hardware shop.

As for other types of plastic, have a look at some of these:
UV Light Technology (UK) - UV-reactive plastic in many colours, £1.30 per metre, less for bulk orders
RS Components (UK) - search for 'PVC sleeving' - about £3.50 for a 50 metre roll
Gemini Stage Lighting & Equipment Co., Inc - sellers of Wildfire UV tubing
ATP - sell polyeurethane tubing in a variety of colours, widths and lengths

There is no limit to what can be attached to your hair this way. The hardest part is finding a way to attach it. It seems that once plastic gets past a certain thickness, it gets very difficult to tie in a knot - so that makes it harder to keep in place.


* - denotes strongly recommended!

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