Follea

As a person with hair loss who wears wigs for that purpose, I strive to always have them feel as natural as possible, and as much as “ME” as possible.

I probably get more questions about this wig than most any other due to how natural it looks. Where this wig started and where it is now are two very different places due to age and the evolution through time with coloring and also a perm. I recently got this piece back from my beautiful friend and and Master Wig Stylist, Sophie Hafner and before even putting it on, I decided to film a bit to talk about it, then put it on for you, and also share some pics from the life it’s had from 2015 – Present. It’s been colored several times, and permed in 2017.

In this video in addition to showing the renewed wig, I also discuss the reasons I think that contribute to this being such a natural looking piece (Spoiler Alert: cut, coloring, perm – and also due to the age, it has less density, which adds to a very imperfect natural look).

I think once you are ready to move on to a new piece, you may want to consider renewing your existing one and have it as a new look/style for the wig rotation. I actually was fairly convinced that this wig had reached the end of its lifespan, but turns out I was wrong, she’s got some more life left.

Initially when I started wearing wigs in 2012 I wore them out of the box, with just hair cutting (which in itself is magical for a wig), but once custom coloring entered into the equation, my wig wearing life enhanced 10 fold with how natural the pieces looked and came to life. Here is the video, I hope you enjoy!

Sending much love to all!
XOXO
~ Y

{ 1 comment }

I reflect back on my hair loss journey, and if you asked the 21 year old scared girl beginning to loose her hair in 1999, if she could ever imagine life with and after hair loss, she (me) would have said, “NO” and then cried uncontrollably… as I always used to do… daily. Impossible to process, and yet here I am. I’ll be 38 years old in 2 months and this affliction stole over a decade of my life. I am not making use of hyperbole when I say that. My 20’s came and went, and all I had were memories of devastation and a complete feeling of being helpless, powerless and destined to exist in a state of forever suffering. Paralyzing.

I’ve written a tremendous amount on my blog about my hair loss, finding my acceptance… removing the shackles of hair loss and taking back my life.  This change came for me in 2012 when I started wearing hair and realizing, that while not perfect in the respect that it’s not growing out of my head… it was perfect enough. I could go out and portray myself to the world, as I wanted to be seen (the way I looked before my  hair loss) and feel good about myself again. It was a process, it took time. I cut my hair super short (buzzed in back, long in front) so I didn’t have to see my hair fall out anymore and I could have a cute edgy hair cut that I could wear, one where people would think I just was just so bold to wear a style like that, not knowing I do it out absolute necessity. Since my hair loss began when I was so young I never really got the opportunity to do anything fun with my hair… cuts, colors and styles etc., was not an option. I was just praying it stopped falling out. [click to continue…]





{ 18 comments }

What’s better than an awesome wig? An awesome wig with a color touch up! Wigs fade, the color lightens or whatever… I don’t know the technical mumbo jumbo other than the color changes over time. I got Natalia (my Follea Lifestyle 5030) in May 2012, and she had lightened up to the point where her color just wasn’t working as well for me, so it was quite clear she needed some color-love. I took her to see Vicka at Follea and explained to her how naughty Natalia was, and how her color just wasn’t right for me anymore.  I didn’t want her to be a totally different color, I just wanted to get her as close to the original color as possible. Vicka suggested that would best be accomplished with low lighting the entire wig, and it indeed proved to be a great suggestion because Natalia is looking slamming hot! I am sooooo happy with how the color came out.

It’s really just a subtle difference, but it makes a huge difference in how it blends with my bio hair and looks against my skin color. I feel like I have a brand new wig again, it’s awesome! After seeing how supa fabulous Natalia came out I’ve decided to take Anya back to Follea, so Vicka can work her color magic on her as well. I’ll be looking forward to her updated freshened up 2013 color 🙂





{ 10 comments }

Took Mila (my Follea Aero-2 Wig) to my circuit training class for the second time. We both survived, and I brought the camera along to share with you how she looks when she has been worked out!  A little over a week ago I made my first attempt at wearing Mila to the gym, I posted about it on Facebook, and I was a bundle of nerves wondering how she would hold up, if she would slide, how it would feel etc etc etc., the list goes on. I made it through that workout just fine, but decided to fine tune Mila’s look for optimal heart pounding endorphin raising, serious cardio blasting circuit training.

For today’s workout , I pinned the front bang area hairs to the side because they got sweaty plastered on my head last time.. not great. Also, last time I left my hair down for way too long, perhaps I was just enjoying being one of those gals at the gym on the treadmill with her hair down and swishing all around, or perhaps I knew that the ponytail isn’t Mila’s best look in my view, maybe it was a little of both. Either way, once my neck started sweating the hair got a little stuck together in the neck area, and Mila just wasn’t looking as cute as when she walked in… poor girl. Eventually I put her in a looped ponytail but it was too late, the sweatiness had taken over.  This time, from the start of the workout, I put her in the looped low ponytail and it was just sooooo much better and I felt so much more confident wearing her to the gym today. I think as with anything else, the more you do it the more confident you will get with it.

So ladies I’m happy to report, that with the assistance of the WiGrip, that Mila can pretty much do anything, including sit-ups, pushups, treadmill, squats against the wall… and oh, so much more.  

Happy video watching 🙂

P.s. I make a comment at the end, that it was a long video — and really this video isn’t that much longer than my others, but I had a whole separate six minute first part I recorded this morning before I left the house, I decided it would make the video too long so I cut it out.





{ 14 comments }

Howdy Everyone!

It’s get your eyebrows waxed Friday, at least for me anyways, those little brows of mine where getting crazy so me and Anya (Follea Lifestyle wig) wandered our way to the brow king in Beverly Hills to get those babies fixed up. This was my second brow waxing with Damone at Damone Roberts, and he did yet another fabulous job on giving me some sleek brows to go with my supa sleek hair 🙂

While brow talk is fun, I know you gals care less about the particulars of the brow wax, and more about how it is wearing a wig in a situation where someone is that close to your face, am I right or what?  For me,  it’s totally fine and I’m pretty comfortable with it at this point. I have sort of gotten into the habit of spilling the beans whenever someone is going to be in that close of a proximity to my face (waxing, facials) but there have been times I’ve gotten waxed and never said a word, and I’m almost positive the person waxing had no idea, I sort of just take it on a case by case comfort level basis. I think the only thing to be mindful of, and this goes for the dentist chair too, is that if the eyebrow waxer is very close to your hair and pressing against it with their leg as you lay back, you need to be VERY careful when you sit up. There have been a few times I felt like I almost left my wiggie behind on the chair as the leg of the person had trapped “my” hair, LOL. Can you imagine? That’s the stuff wig nightmares are made of, so there are small things like that to watch out for.

This video update also discusses my hair cuts plans and provides a closer look at Anya’s hair color almost a year after I originally got her. Upon watching the video back, I realize it’s not really a true color representation, she appears lighter in person than she does in the car, but it’s a pretty color just the same.

Happy Brow Friday!

XOXO





{ 4 comments }

You know me, sitting in traffic with an iPhone in hand is a recipe for yet another car video update 🙂  xoxo





{ 5 comments }

Hi everyone, I did a car cam update yesterday whilst on my way to meet a friend from The WHLP for lunch. I’d like to say it was a short quick update, but I don’t know what it is with me and my babbling issues, once I start talking about my hair, I just can’t shut up. LOL. I find that the car is the easiest place to give updates, because I’m usually stuck in traffic doing nothing 🙂 Last Thursday I made a trip to Follea, and found myself a new beauty to bring home. She deserves a post dedicated to all her loveliness, so this will just be a little preview of my golden princess…. Tatiana. She’s been the star of my week, and all my other girls have been sitting on the bathroom counter darting dirty looks at her as she leaves the room each morning 🙂

In other news, I definitely think I’m going to have my hair stylist gal come over next week to cut more hair away from head. I wanted to do it before, but even more now after I saw the video because you can see my short hair behind my ears at times in the video and it’s more obvious with Tatiana than my other girls because of the stark color contrast. So adios to more of my follicles next week, they have trip to trash can ville in store for them. C’est la vie.





{ 13 comments }

Here is the video footage that was taken this past Tuesday whilst I was at Follea getting my lifestyle wig cut-in. This video provides a much better view than my previous one of Anya’s new haircut and also includes a “How To Properly Block Your Wig” clip. The importance of blocking your wig (attaching it to a head) prior to washing it is to prevent inversion (hair coming through the inside of the cap) and also to make sure you don’t tear your cap. We’re learning together, because I really didn’t know why I was suppose to put the wig on a styrofoam head before washing it, but now I do. 🙂





{ 12 comments }

Today was a great day, Vicka from Follea, snip snipped Anya (Lifestyle Wig) into supreme pure yumminess. She was awesome before, but even better now. I did take some video while there (of course) and I’ll hopefully get that up in the next few days, but for now I just wanted to do a quick video showing my new haircut and talking about the importance of getting your wig cut-in to fit you. It makes a difference, a big difference.  I think it’s important to make sure the person you have cutting your “hair” is skilled and has experience in cutting wigs, I personally wouldn’t want to chance it with a regular hair stylist, even though I have read that many people do, do that, it would still worry me.  The lighting in this video below is horrible so you’ll see the end result much better in the next video I put up.

Also, just a note, Vicka did tell me that it is REALLY important that you use four pins (2 at the sides and 2 at the nape) to properly block your wig prior to washing it. As you saw in the first video of the wig washing series, I only used 2 pins, but that’s because I only had 2 pins, I lost the rest quite some time ago. I do want to make sure I provide the correct information, so the next video will show a wig being properly blocked (secured to the mannequin head). Remember, I’m new to this too, I’m definitely not an expert by any means, just a girl living life, one wig at a time 🙂





{ 17 comments }

Here we are at the end of the series, part four. It was originally only intended to be one 5-6 minute clip of a washing wig demonstration, 4 videos later here we are 🙂

I have been getting some questions about the hair specs, so I’m going to clarify it all below. I probably at some point should have a page for my “girls” that gives this info to those interested in knowing what I’m wearing.

Neither of the two wigs in the videos are lace front, I do own the Aero-2 lace front, but she (Mila) sat this one out. I’m not sure what kind of front these wigs are considered, standard maybe? Not sure. I do place all of my wigs slightly behind my hairline, which helps to make the hairline look very natural, because even if you only have a little bit, the little you have on top and sides just helps to blend the wig in better.

The wig on my head (Natalia) in the video is the Follea Lifestyle-2 medium length wig, which has an overall length of 15″ and a layer at 10″ – The color is C5030 and the cap is all hand-tied.

The wig I’m washing (Anya) and at the end wearing, is also the Follea Lifestyle-2, but it is the long length. It has 19″ overall length and a layer at 14″ – The color is also C5030 and also all hand-tied.

So there it is, I titled this post “Freedom, Follea Style” because these wigs have given me back something I had been missing for so long… me, after just having written some of you gals back a little while ago, I’m reminded of that point and so happy about the place I’ve reached in my hair loss journey, and lets face it that title is better than “String Her Up and Throw Her On.” 🙂

And with that, I leave you with Part Four. Happy Friday! Cheers! Who has the wine?

Part Three: Changing The Part on Anya and More Wig Talk From My Kitchen

Part Two: Caring For Your Human Hair Wig

Part One of The Wig Washing Video Series





{ 15 comments }