CoolPiece

INFORMATION

Sections below address:

RESIZING STOCK UNITS

* Ready-made stock units cannot be returned if they have been resized.

Measure the length and width of the bald area on your head to be covered. Length is from where you want your hairline, to the back where your growing hair remains. Width is above the ears, across the top, from the borders of your real hair.

Method One:

If the stock hairpiece is longer or wider, or both, use hairpiece tapes to mark out a smaller footprint to match your measurements. Make it a bit bigger because you can always repeat to make it smaller. At the front, place the tape behind any empty lace or excess membrane that you want to trim away and then measure from there. The advantage to this method is your tapes will always be perfectly aligned along the edge. Use a sharp razor blade to go along the guideline formed by the outside edge of your tapes.

Method Two:

If you have a template, attach the stock unit over the top with tape, aligning the front edge, Then use a razor blade or scalpel to reduce the size around the sides and back, from underneath. Not using scissors means you cannot accidentally cut the edge hairs short. Or measure the length and width and attach tapes to the bottom to make a cutting edge guide.

If you happen to still have a universal shipping mold, while it is not your own head curvature, you can trim one to make an excellent resizing template, that is more rigid than a tape template.

To resize you will need:

BASE MATERIALS

Information about the base, or foundation of your hairpiece or wig. This is the fabric or membrane to which the hairs are attached.

Various Materials described:
About density and base materials:
Base Materials and designs
(Currently unavailable for custom orders) Super Fine Swiss Lace (Note: Maximum density is XL-L)
Most popular: Swiss Lace (Note: Maximum density is LM)
French Lace
0.02 mm to 0.03 mm knotless polyskin (Note: Maximum density is XL-L) a.k.a. NG membrane
0.03 mm to 0.04 mm knotless polyskin (Note: Maximum density is LM). a.k.a. NG membrane
0.05 mm knotted polyskin a.k.a. Mirage
Swiss lace front and center with polyskin back and sides
French lace front and center with polyskin back and sides
0.05 mm polyskin front, 0.08 mm polyskin back and sides, with a French lace center
Your own custom design (Many legacy materials such as nylon monofilaments, thicker polyurethanes, silk, double layers, and more are no longer offered).

AFTERCARE:

RESTORATION

When an older unit has developed rough texture it can be revived a few times with warm water deep conditioning, and with refreshing hair trims, in which the worn ends of all hairs are cut shorter.

CURL AND WAVE (WAVELENGTH)

Seems simple, but it is not. Please read the following information about curl and wave.

The wavelength below is shown in centimeters. 1.0 cm is sometimes shown as 10 mm.

Wavelength or curl size is a literal measurement of a wet curl. if you have hair with some length and wet a section, you can measure your natural wavelength. If not just remember 1 cm really is 1 cm.

Wavelengths of 2.5 cm and longer are achieved with a water-based perm and wavelengths or 2.2 cm and shorter are achieved with a chemical perm. Chemically permed hairpieces should never be brushed or combed. Condition deeply and lift with a pick if necessary, but brushing permed hair will make it frizzy hair.

The hairpiece factory does not perm hair. These days it already comes in set wavelengths from the supplier. This means that we offer curl right down to the base. For looped membrane type bases, very curly hair is not offered as the technique becomes impossibly difficult.

Here is the list of standard perm-rod sizes. The descriptive names beside each (eg. light curl, very wavy) are not standardized and for visualization only:

The following wavelengths are provided as chemically permed hair. This hair should never be brushed or combed out or it will be permanently frizzy. You cannot order these wavelengths on membrane type bases.

The following wavelengths are provided as “water-permed” hair.

HAIRSTYLE AND DIRECTION

Freestyle is generally forward but can be styled many ways including back. The crown is not defined but it is somewhere near the center line, and there are no gaps or partings. Freestyle is the most popular choice and can be used as a starting point for most hairstyles

Pompadour Freestyle as seen here on Sean Connery and James Dean, is similar to Freestyle in that there is no defined crown and the hair on top comes forward, but then at the front it elevates. With long hair length this creates a Rockabilly look, and with short hair it gives a neat top with a fashionable spiked up hairline. There are many variations possible with a Pompadour Freestyle unit.

Spiky usually means all the hair stands up and is directed away from the scalp. It can look punky or it can look militaristic depending on the amount of texturizing product applied, and on the length of the hair. With curly hair, it can give an elevated riot of curls. In actual fact, the factory treats spiky orders in much the same way as freestyle orders, because the spiky effect is not part of the manufacturing process, but rather part of the wearer’s haircut and styling.

Center crown, left crown and right crown have a defined crown. All the hair is directed away from one point, either in the center of the crown or to one side, and therefore you will always see bare scalp at the crown point. We usually boost the density a bit at the crown point so it does not look too bald in that spot, but if you don’t like that spot to be there, get freestyle instead.

If you order back, or comb back or brush back or flat back, all the hair will be back and there will be no crown.

Left part, right part and center part feature an open parting along which you can see the base or the scalp through the base, depending on if it’s lace or a skin base. The parting really has to stay in the same place where the factory puts it and it should not be moved to either side afterward, because special knotting and density considerations are designed into the hairpiece.

The generic style illustrations above are for descriptive purposes only and do not depict actual hairpieces. The style/direction you order is your starting point for the final hairstyle that you and your stylist create. Hairpieces come uncut and unstyled and always need to be cut-in.

HOW TO MAKE A TEMPLATE (mold). The key to custom ordering.

For small units under 7 inches long, then length*width is usually good enough. Larger sizes will fit better if a template is used. Note of the length times the width exceeds 500 square centimeters, you are in the large category.

Items required:
Making the Template

Establish how much of your remaining hair has insufficient surviving density and needs to be covered by the hairpiece. This may not be an obvious line, but aim for where the density just looks too low at the sides and back.

Draw your new hairline on your skin from temple to temple using a grease pencil or washable felt marker. If you will be using tape at the front of your new piece, use the same shape tape as a stencil for this line. Don’t be a wolf man, the center front of your hairline is at least four fingers above the bridge of the nose.

Temple pairs:

The factory charges one price for any size up to 500 square centimeters, based on length times width. This is one reason why we ask for a template to be made a certain way for temple pairs. The other reason is that a small triangular template can be in any of three directions, or six if it’s flipped. Therefore the way to do this is to make a bridge template, and we can cut off the bridge later.

Using a cosmetic pencil or washable marker on your skin, draw in your area of coverage at each temple and connect them with a thin stripe (the bridge) a few millimeters wide. Make the template to that shape and cut it out, and mark the front edge with an F. Mark your left with an L and your right with an R and write the word top on the hair side.

Sending it in:

This type of tape-template can be folded flat and sent in a flat envelope.

REMOVE-CLEAN-ATTACH

There are so many different ways to do any of this, but here are some useful tips for beginners or people not doing well with their usual methods.

Removal

Cleaning

Attachment

ALL ABOUT THE HAIR

Available types of hair

Indian Human (default)Our long staple of Indian supply will hopefully remain reliable, and we continue to source this from long standing partners. Our source remains as ethical as it always was, which is individual hairs harvested from voluntary hair brushing by people inside India, later chemically processed into top grade product for wig making. No pony tails cut off, no religious tonsuring, no prisoner hair, no cadaver hair, no drain hair, no involuntary harvesting from donors under questionable circumstances. We see evidence that it is still the same Indian hair.
SyntheticOur synthetic “hair “is Kanekalon® type K7 Modacrylic Fiber, which is a permanently self-extinguishing, melt-resistant “hair” with a limiting oxygen index of 28, and is a modern variety of a basic product invented in Japan in 1957. Wave and curl can be set or reset in hot water rather than with chemical perms. We cannot bleach the knots so when brown or black it is not ideal for lace bases (which have exposed knotting). Synthetic gray can brightly reflect UV “black light”. When used with care it will outlast human hair. It is always available and is unaffected by the politics or regulation of human hair supply.
Legacy typesWe can not currently guarantee the authenticity or ethical source of the following hair types:Remy Indian, European Remy, Virgin hair, Chinese straight, Yaki Texture, Mongolian, Russian, Indonesian, Brazilian. We are therefore not making them available.


Colors and pricing

As of 2020, some lighter hair colors carry a surcharge. The custom order form will add $30 for colors #22R, #30R, #60RYH, #613. Human gray costs +$30 also. This is due to shortages that became apparent in 2020 and may change when we resume mass production of custom units.

Black hair and lace

If you want jet black color #1, please note that knot bleaching is ineffective on color #1. We advise that you choose a membrane base rather than lace if you want #1 black, or go with color #1B if you insist upon lace.

Gray percentages

These are literal percentages, so e.g. if you have 20% gray, one out of five hairs is gray etc.

For custom orders we offer 5% increments in six zones, so you can get more gray at the sides and temples and less at the back. But while this may seem helpful, it can lead to some disappointments and we encourage you to keep it simple.

In stock systems, there is usually 20%, 40%, 50% 65% and 80% gray available. Some colors have fewer choices, and #1B has extra choices.

As far as the eye is concerned, we humans cannot easily see a great difference in gray percentage, beyond “a little, half, and a lot”. So custom orders that vary by 5% or 10% between adjacent zones can get a bit silly.

60RYH white hair

When you receive this highly processed human gray hair, it might look like a pale yellow hairpiece. This is just a starting point and it is not ready to use yet. Shampooing with a blond (purple) shampoo will make it white, then you may need to apply a toner to get your desired shade of gray, (or bright fashion color if you prefer). If you are confident you will not be in UV black light (eg halloween/nightclub), synthetic gray is easier to manage.

Because the donors are brunettes, human gray is very over-processed and it does not feel nice and it does not last very long. Consider a yak/synthetic blend for better results.

Knot bleaching (lace hairpieces)

At the factory we bleach knots enough to help hide them, but not so much that the hair sheds too fast. It’s a narrow target range and we usually hit the sweet spot.

Knot bleaching

White or blond knots and post-production dyed hair

We decline to provide this service. The factory will not do it and there are several reasons. Results usually disappoint. Just a millimeter or two shy of base level and the first length of hair above the base retains the transparency of the blond or white color and this ruins the look of short haircuts. Conversely, if we go a tiny bit too far, the knots gets dyed dark and the base gets stained and ruined. Then there is a large financial loss, a long delay during a fresh start remake, and we destroyed a beautiful new piece.

However, our factory knot bleaching is great, even for #1B darkest natural brown. #1 jet black does not respond to bleach so we suggest you do not pair black hair with lace bases.

General

Highlights

Spot highlights are areas of a lighter color hair interspersed with the darker color hair. They can look like stripes because the hair is all one color from knot to tip. They are named for the spotty color that results underneath the lace. These highlights have alarmed some clients so we discourage ordering factory highlights.

Even highlights are just a color change. e.g. color #2 with 50% even highlights in color #4 will look the same as color #3. You can potentially get a wrong color by guessing these. It is better to provide a good color sample for custom matching.

Real highlights are done afterwards by your stylist/colorist. They can be expensive but this is how to get correct expert highlighting and they will not have to go all the way down to the knot, so no stripes.