Diversity Hair Blog

Video Tutorial #3 How to Backcomb Synthetic Hair for Dreading.

June 30, 2011 – 12:07 pm

#3 How to Backcomb synthetic hair, ready for making dreads.

By Jenna | Posted in Tutorials | Comments (0)

Video Tutorial #2 What are Synthetic Dreads?

June 30, 2011 – 12:05 pm

#2 What are Synthetic Dreads? and what do i use to make them?

By Jenna | Posted in Tutorials | Comments (0)

New stuff in June

June 26, 2011 – 8:56 am

We’ve relaunched and added a whole load of new stuff to the website. Here is just a bit about what we’ve added.

First of all we added ‘Angelina Fibres’. These are irridescent, sparkley synthetic fibres in a variety of colours that will fuse together when heat is applied. They can be added to many craft items, but they look really great when incorporated into synthetic and roving dreads. Why not give it a go…

Then we have the ‘Merino 64s Wool Tops’. A type of wool roving that is unfelted, extremely soft and can be used for many knitting and felting crafts. It is also perfect for making roving dreads. You’d need about 300-500gms of it to make a full heads worth of dreads. It comes in loads of different colours and can also be dyed if the colour you want is not listed. We have Tutorials of how to do this in the ‘Tutorials’ section of this blog

We’ve also added a couple more brands of ‘Kanekalon Jumbo Braid’ into the ‘Synthetic Hair Braiding’ section. Since many colours of jumbo braid vary from brand to brand, we felt by bringing all the best brands together you get the best range of colours. We have colour charts for each brand on its relevant page, and we also spent time creating a full colour chart of every colour jumbo braid in every brand, all in one, so it is easier to compare colours and pick the ones you want to work with. Our colour charts are all made by us and we have adjusted all colours to be accurate to the best of our ability. We hope this makes things easier for everyone.

View the colour chart

We also have weft clips, thread and more rubber and elastic bands added…

We’ve still got loads more great stuff to come We hope you like the changes to the site so far… any suggestions, products requests or questions… let us know!

By Jenna | Posted in Product News | Comments (0)

We’re baaaack!

June 19, 2011 – 1:41 pm

So, you’ve probably noticed some changes to the site, yes? Well, for one, we have stock! I know, amazing right? Finally after months of blood, sweat and tears (don’t worry none of it got on the stock we have a brand new website, fully restocked and overflowing with new products.

We have spent the last 6 months hunting down the best quality products and brands and over the next couple of months will be adding more and more of these to the site, along with tutorials (which can be viewed on our blog here in the tutorials section), and keeping this blog updated with the goings on here at Diversity Hair HQ.

Its been a tight squeeze with all these deliveries coming in, but we’ve made the best of it. We have a nice cardboard box fort from which to conduct business (just need to find a way out again o_O).

Anyway, i guess since this is our first blog post, we should do some sort of introduction for those only just discovering us. Ok, here goes…

Diversity Hair was born in 2001 unofficially (then known as ‘Spookylocks’) when Jenna, the ‘boss’ had a go at making some dreadlock hair falls for a friend for a festival. After that, she practiced and practiced and started offering more friends dread hair extensions and braids, again to practice. She completed three Prostyles Ltd hair extension courses, qualifying her as both an extensionist and a trainer for Prostyles Ltd. In late 2003 Jenna officially started business, taking on clients for dread, braid and loose extension installs and soon changed her business name to ‘Diversity Hair’ to better reflect the diverse nature of the business, catering not just to the alternative scene, but to anyone with a love for hair extensions. Liking to make things difficult for herself, she completed her Hairdressing training in 2005 and added hairdressing services to her business. In Late 2009 after planning for years the retail side of the business was born. It grew faster than expected and now in 2011 we find ourselves in a position to relaunch and do things on a bigger and better scale. We want to give anyone and everyone the chance to be as creative as we were back when it all started and offer all the supplies to create your own hair extensions, wigs and accessories, as well as supplying all the usual ready made clip in extensions and hair.

We hope, no matter how you found us, or what you were looking for, that you find something to suit you… and don’t be shy… if you want i to stock something, tell us!

Until next time…

By Jenna | Posted in Updates | Comments (0)

How to make hand felted roving dreads

June 19, 2011 – 1:38 pm

You need:
Towel
Washing up liquid
Rubber Gloves
Roving
Bowl
Freshly boiled water

Add a small amount of washing up liquid to your bowl & add the boiled water

(boiled water is best as the hotter the water the easier the fibres will felt together)

Add your roving dread. Only one at a time at this stage, as the heat from the water could cause the roving to felt together.

Allow to soak for about 30 seconds.

Prepare the towel – fold it in half, & keep the bowl within close reach.

If you haven’t already, put on your gloves.

Pull out the end of your roving & roll it between your palms, the lie it on the towel & roll it back & forth. A lot of water will come out of the roving (hence folding the towel in half)

One finished dread.

Continue doing this until all the roving is felted & allow to dry somewhere.

Once your dreads have been felted, you can put them all in to the hot water for their second/third feltings.

You don’t need soap for the final felt.

Wring it out, that’s perfectly fine to do & then palm roll like you did for the first felt.

Examples of finished hand felted roving dreads…

Tutorial kindly provided by Sarah Watson of http://saspiedoo.bigcartel.com

By Jenna | Posted in Tutorials | Comments (0)

How to make single ended roving dreads

June 19, 2011 – 1:27 pm

You will need:
Roving
An old cushion
Needle felting handle
Felting Needles (a Standard needle is fine)
8mm knitting needle, or dowel.

Separate your roving as you would for Double ended dreads.

Then take one section & split it again (so if you split your roving in to 3 to make DE’s, you should have 6 sections)

Lightly palm roll the middle.

Wrap it over your knitting needle.

Twist the top

Place the cushion between your knees, or however you find comfortable. Using your needle handle, lightly felt the top around the loop.

Needle felting will cause the roving to stick slightly to the cushion, gently prise it off.

Here you can see the loop & where the Single ended dread has been needle felted.

Then, you want to hand felt, or machine felt your dreads.

Once your roving is felted, it will look a bit like this (these were machine felted)

As you can see the holes have closed, however they’re still slightly visible

Using a knitting needle etc, feel for the hole you made before felting & push it through.

Continue adding them until you have completed them all.

This is what they should finally look like.

Tutorial kindly provided by Sarah Watson of http://saspiedoo.bigcartel.com/

By Jenna | Posted in Tutorials | Comments (0)

How to Dye Merino wool roving

June 19, 2011 – 1:11 pm

What you need:
Roving (this is unfelted, you can use felted roving if you want)
Acid dye
Vinegar (this is the acid)
Water
Gloves

Add half the vinegar & the same amount (1:1 ratio) of water to a bowl, then add your roving. It may float, so squish it down.

Leave to soak for an hour

After an hour, get some dye – it’s a powder, be careful not to spill any. Place some in to a jug.

Colour strength depends on how much powder to use, less is lighter, more is darker.

Add vinegar

Then add boiled water (newspaper to stop any splashes as it will stain)

Transfer the dye to a pan & add more boiled water

Add the roving

Leave to simmer – try NOT to stir the roving as this can cause it to felt up. If you’re dying dreads you can stir them as they’re already felted.

You’ll know it’s done because the dye is soaked in to the roving, leaving the water almost clear. (whereas beforehand the liquid was a solid colour).

Allow to cool, rinse in water & dry. Ta-daaaaaa! New coloured roving, ready for dreading.

For graduated colour/tipped roving dreads, dye ready felted dreads by following this tutorial but only letting the ends of the dreads drape in the pan.