Restyling Snow White's hair

Although most of what I do to fix dolls is cleaning and restringing, sometimes I will restyle their hair. I did this on my 1952 Madame Alexander Snow White.

The first thing I did was to strip Snow White and wash her gown. While her gown was soaking, I washed her hair as well. Then I slicked it down with conditioner to tame it and make it easier to brush. After getting the knots out, I left the conditioner in for a little while before rinsing it out.

I decided not to use those pink rubber rollers from the 1950s, as I don't like the stiff, crimped curls that they create in saran hair. Instead, I opted to allow the hair to retain its soft wave, which didn't really wash out very much during her "bath."

I didn't know how Snow White's hair would have been styled from the factory, but after looking at some pictures I decided it would be most authentic to do it like Madame Alexander's Alice in Wonderland from the same era. Alice's hair along the browline is held back in a little piggy tail on each side, and then both are combined into one a little lower down.

I also decided to tie each side with thread to match her hair, since that is the way Madame Alexander dolls came from the factory.

Here are the results:

Although it's not perfect, it's considerably better than the played-with look she had when I got her!