Felting Needles
How to Root a Berenguer
Doll with Mohair
With special thanks to the ladies
who have contributed to this page!!

PREPARE THE SCALP. Before rooting one of the Berenguer dolls, remove the hair paint first. You can use paint stripper to remove the paint. You know, the kind that stings your hands and you must use gloves to work with it. I've tried a couple of different brands, the liquid kind, and they remove the hair paint quickly and easily without any damage to the vinyl at all. However, to be CAUTIOUS you should test a small area of the vinyl first to make sure that the stripper you use will not harm the vinyl.

Some people use nail polish remover to remove the paint, but I've heard frequent complaints that the nail polish remover gums up the paint and doesn't work very well. Stripper is faster, easier and cleans up quickly.

MOLDED SCALP... I've heard that some of the reborn artists also remove the molded hair lines before rooting. I believe this is done with sandpaper. Vinyl can be sanded, but be careful not to sand anything except where the rooted hair will be or you might have problems blushing the doll in spots that have been sanded. Sanding the head is not necessary, that is personal preference.

IF YOU NEED HOLES IN THE HEAD... You can poke the felting needles into the Berenguer doll's head directly, but the needles will break more often. To save your felting needles from destruction, you may want to drill a series of holes in the doll's head first using the very smallest gauge drill bit, and then use the felting needles to fill the holes with doll hair. One doll artist told me this is what she does. Drill the holes in a circular/spiral pattern starting at the top of the head.

I have poked holes in vinyl using a big sewing needle heated over a candle flame. The needle goes through the vinyl fast and easy this way and melts a very small hole. The needle does need to be cleaned often or it will leave black carbon marks in the holes. I like this method because the holes are very small. (The needle isn't good for sewing anymore after it's been heated like this.)

I did this for the purpose of sewing the cloth body onto a vintage doll that had come apart. There are possibilities here for reborn artists: this is a way to sew the cloth body to the vinyl pieces of a Berenguer doll also, for a very professional look. I sewed the cloth body to the arm so my stitches did not show.

HOWEVER!! You do NOT need to drill holes in the doll's head. MOST of the reborn artists prefer to stick the needles directly into the doll's head without drilling holes first. This may be the most popular method because it is so natural looking. And, it's not hard to do. The reborners tell me that once they get the hang of it, they don't break the needles very often either. You will most likely break a lot of felting needles while you are still learning.

VINTAGE DOLLS! If you are re-rooting an old Vintage doll, they already have holes for hair plugs so that's not a problem.

ADVICE FROM TERRI...

At left is an example of a reborn doll with wispy hair, inserted using felting needles. Terri from the Dolls by Berenguer Yahoo Group did a very lovely job on this doll, using brown mohair with the felting needles. She said it took about six hours to root her first doll, while she was still learning. Now it takes her about two hours to root the hair like this on a doll's head.

Terri pokes the needles directly into the vinyl head, she does not drill holes first. She thinks that the purpose of using the felting needle is to get a natural look - and she says you can't get a natural look even with using the smaller dremel drill bit there is. She tried that. Terri says "Once you get the hang of it, you don't break that many felting needles. However, i'd rather break the needles and get a realistic look, than save the needles and have a drilled head. "

The needle goes through the head easily and the mark it makes can hardly be seen. It would probably work very well for rooting eyebrows but I haven't tried that yet. (You do not want to drill holes for the eyebrows.)

ADVICE from DEBBIE R. with PHOTOS from SHERRI...

I use felting needles and they work just great without making holes in the vinyl. You will get a more natural look without holes also, and it is so much easier to do without the holes.

Some people have success with short 2 inch pieces of mohair but I like to use mine about 5-6 inches long and then I trim the hair when I'm finished with the head.

Select a one inch wide hunk of your mohair. Plunge the needle in at an upward angle over and over again about 20 times. Push the needle in the direction that the hair will lie on the head. Then peel back the hair. A whole bunch of hair will be rooted into the vinyl scalp. If you get too much in one hole, just pull some of it out. I prefer a wispy look with only a few hairs in each hole.

You will see that your original inch of hair will get smaller, so just keep adding more hair to your hunk that you are using to root. Keep doing that all around the head until you finish. You can put more in where you see you may need it.

Around the crown area the vinyl is thicker, so if you heat it with a hair dryer or embossing tool, you won't break needles in that area. After you get the hang of it, you won't break as many needles. The last head I did, I broke only one needle.

Leave the hair alone for several hours. The vinyl will close itself around the hair and after a few days, its pretty much impossible for the hair to come loose on it's own.

SOURCES FOR DOLL HAIR

• SYNTHETIC MOHAIR. Barbie doll collectors might cringe at this, but the cotton soft hair on the heads of Barbie dolls is the same type and quantity as one synthetic mohair weft. I see piles of unwanted Barbie dolls at the thrift stores all the time so perhaps that is a source for synthetic mohair.
• REAL MOHAIR works well with the felting needles. The felting needles are able to grab hold of the fuzzy fibers easily.
• VISCOSE... appears to be almost identical to mohair and handles the same way for rooting. It is a synthetic fiber. Viscose has a little bit of shine, whereas mohair usually does not. Some ladies have told me that viscose responds to styling better than mohair does. In fact, mohair is very difficult to curl or style at all and it tends to stand up a bit on the Berenguer heads, so the reborners often use a head band to hold it down. Viscose can be manipulated more easily.
• SYNTHETIC DOLL HAIR. The inexpensive wispy wigs that I sell in the Shop are a good cheap source for synthetic doll hair. -- Look in the thrift stores for non-collectible dolls with good hair, or for ladies wigs.
• HUMAN HAIR. Human hair does not work very well with the felting needles, although some ladies tell me they have no problem rooting human hair with the needles. Maybe it depends on how dry the hair is. I use a small round file for rooting human hair. This is a brand new method and a new tool. I end up with wasted fibers when doing rooting. If I use a round file for rooting hair there is almost no waste.