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PO Box 5 • Nemaha, IA 50567 Phone: 712 636-4416 • Email: • Website: nemahaweb.com/wigweb |
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About Us Marlys Waters has run the The Wigweb,
an online wig sales business, since 1993. She had been involved in wigs and hair
styling periodically since 1964. In August, 2009, due to rising costs of
shipping costs, she was unable to maintain her wig inventory so held a complete
inventory liquidation sale through eBay. Be sure to visit the New and Used wig
pages to view the wigs that were sold through her final inventory sale.Marlys also runs a web design business www.nemahaweb.com but never lost her love of wigs and hairstyling. And now for a little wig history. |
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You still here? Want to see more useless information? The useless information below is not to sell anything, only to show a little more history. Here we go. . .  Marlys Graduated from American Beauty Academy in Des Moines in 1964 but specialized in wigs, running several wig shops in the Des Moines area over the years. In 1993 after moving back to her hometown of Nemaha, her love of hairstyling rekindled and she renewed her association with wig wholesalers from which to buy new wigs. It wasn't long before she needed an outlet for these wigs and The Wigweb was started.
 Back in the Des Moines years she sold wigs out of her home, in flea markets, and finally opened up a profitable but short-lived retail store in Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines around 1975. It was a small cubicle about 8' by 10'.
The first weekend it opened during Thanksgiving weekend, it was so busy selling wigs it took two persons to fit wigs on customers and a third person just running the cash register. This was the era of the pre-curled "Shake and Wear" synthetic wig explosion. The sales slowed to a comfortable rush for the year, then started to decline the second year when fewer ladies were wearing wigs for fun. Marlys sold the wig shop, then took some time to gather some college credits in her second love - computers.  Follows are some black and white photos of human hair wigs in the "Big Hair" era.
 Their styles held a lot of teasing and hairspray which allowed the style to last for months between
restyling. Offering wig re-styling services kept many beauty shop owners busy during the human-hair wig days.
Many wig shops had plenty of wigs for sale but needed experienced stylists to handle the human hair wigs. It took a special skill to curl the hair around the front hairline to camouflage the cloth cap. 
It also took special knowledge to clean human hair wigs without stripping out the color. The original human hair wigs were made from dark brown oriental hair that had been bleached, then re-colored to the desired blonde, brown, red and black colors. To use typical household shampoo not designed for wigs would lighten the artificial color. Only wig cleaner designed for wig-cleaning could safely be used. That is why any wig stylist with that knowledge and the chemicals usually had a large following of customers for restyling services. |
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This up-do shown above was a formal style that could be used on most any longer human hair wig. Each curl was held rigidly in place with a hairpin that had a bent end to stay in place. This style lasted a long time with the exception of the "spit-curls" (just a term) on the sides that the wig owner could refresh themselves.
 Here are three views of a classic number-one hairstyle for short human-hair wigs. The soft bangs camouflage the wig cap in front, the short nape area is not bothered by collars, and the soft waves hold their curl for a long time.  These black and white photos do not do justice to the color of this almost-white wig. The soft curls in front of the ears fill in around bows of glasses to hide detection of a wig.
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 And now a longer synthetic wig with a formal style. These longer loosely-curled wigs could have the sides pulled back into cascading curls in back. This style allowed your earrings to show and kept the hair off your cheeks.
 Many ladies wore this style to the honky-tonks in the 1970s for an evening of music and dancing.
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So you are still here. This is the last section - I promise. In summary - we've seen a lot of changes over the years. These hair styles come from long ago.  Women have decorated their hair forever and are one of the few species where the female has always been more colorfully decorated than the male. But who are we to change what works!
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This concludes our "About Us" page.  I hope you enjoyed our tour ofwig history and vintage hairstyles. 
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Site design by Nemaha Web Design |
Wigs and hairpieces have come a long way since the 1960s when they were made only of human hair and required professional styling. Many women didn't have enough hair to make the "Beehive" shown at left unless they used a partial hairpiece to fill in. Therefore, many ladies became fond of wigs and partial hair pieces.
Original wig prices were over $50.00 for a solid cap or over $200.00 for hand-tied hair on a mesh cap. It was not unusual for a woman to pay $500.00 for a human hair, hand-tied wig specially ordered to match her hair color. There are still human hair wigs available and always will be because of their natural look. However, their prices are more reasonable now. The big-hair styles at right could easily have been duplicated with a human-hair wig.
Wigs became popular during these years because "Big" hair with lots of teasing was the fad and most women didn't have thick enough hair to make the big styles. So they opted for wigs instead.
The first synthetic wigs in the 1960s had an unnatural shine. Their hair rows were sown to a heavy knit cap, some were stretch, some had elastic at the nape only. Their styling capabilities were limited because they would wrinkle if teased, and they could not stand any heat to restore curl if their factory-style relaxed. But synthetic wigs gained in popularity because of their easy care and curl-retention even when wet.
Then in the 1970s a capless style (shown at left) was manufactured. The hair rows were attached to lace strips allowing them to move more like natural hair. You could push your fingers out between the rows which gave you the option of pulling some of your own hair out between the rows to mix in with the wig hair.
In the 1980s manufacturers experimented with varied color strands and perma-tease to make the fibers look even more natural. They "wrinkled" the base of each hair strand giving it body normally only achieved with a little teasing yet the ends of the strands were smooth and loosely curled. Anyone was able to comb through the hair and style it to fit their face with no hair-styling experience. This is the type of synthetic wigs that are still being sold today.
The main complaint with longer wigs after the big-hair days ended was they just had too much hair and did not look like a person normally looked with their thinner hair. Now manufacturers have perfected the typical thickness found on the majority of heads and wigs are now barely
perceptible. The shoulder-length styles mimic real hair in ways not before imagined. And that is where we stand in 2009.