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Ironing out the Frizzies

Model horse hair usually needs straightening because of two problems, the hair being left wavy from having braids in it, and kinky strands of hair, or frizz.

I think frizz is mainly caused by tangles left uncombed for a long time, though I guess it could just be due to general playwear. Some frizz can be caused by dry heat, such as from putting a toy in the dryer, but it seems weird that heat will fix frizz, too. Also, some synthetic hair colors are more prone to frizz than other colors, and crimping seems to provide the hair a thorough and inexplicable immunity to frizz, as evidenced by some My Little Ponies, some GCs, and most Fantasy Fillies.
Well, all I know is that, for being such a common malady among our horses, frizz is poorly understood.

Anyway. Frizz usually starts at the hair ends and works its way up. For GCs, this is damning because manes tend to be short, so the entirety of a mane can be affected rather quickly once the process begins. Frizz often visits the tail first, though, I guess because it's longer and swings around more and tangles faster than the mane. I rarely find frizz that has reached the base of the tail or the neck crest. That's good because once it gets that bad, it's usually very difficult to fix. In these cases, the frizz is so hard and bristly and matted that the hair just can't be saved.

The Curling Iron Method

The curling iron is very useful for fixing Grand Champion manes, especially. Because it has a curved barrel, it will preserve the natural curl the mane has, and straighten out the frizz at the same time. There are a lot of curling irons out there, and the newer ones are really awesome. The one that I have now was about $10, and it has heat settings and a tight clamp part. The heat settings help you know just how you should set the thing so it's hot enough to work, but not hot enough to burn the hair. Mine goes up to setting #30, and I find that #20 through #25 is a good range for fixing GC hair. It has a clampy clamp part where the hair goes in, and this is a very grabby thing that holds onto the hair tightly.

It's important to keep the hair wet at all times when you use heat on it. If you don't have settings on your curling iron (like if it's an oldie), it should just be as hot as possible, enough to hiss and steam a little on the moisture. The newer irons are so much more sophisticated and I think they get hotter, too, so there is more danger of melting the hair, especially if you're not paying attention to what setting you're on.
I do not recommend ironing dry hair for any reason; some GC hair will melt instantaneously if it's dry when the iron touches it. So I get the hair wet and then squeeze it out, so it's wet but not dripping. Also, if you're using an old fashioned iron, it helps to use warm or hot water for the wetting down, as cold water will cool the iron faster.

The Tail

On tails, I used to use my old curling iron. But now I have a hair straightener that works wonders. I separate the tail into segments, maybe five or six sections, and iron them separately by pulling the hair through the iron. When I was using my old iron, this would take a *long* time because the iron would

to cool off as I used it, and it had to be absolutely hot to be effective. Yay for technology, as the new irons (whether we're talking about curlers or straighteners) have a fast heat-up and recover from cooling in seconds.

But if you have an old curling iron, you may have to let it sit and gather heat every few minutes just to keep it at a useful temperature.
Separating the tail is best because it allows each hair more exposure to the heat. For really nasty frizz, I may end up separating it into 10 or more little sections.

I just put the hair in there at the tail base with the clampy-clamp part of the iron on top, and then just pull it down the tail. My old iron had such a loose grip on the hair that I would have to use pulling pressure by holding the base of the tail at the same time, so the hair was held tightly against the hot iron. Any modern hair straightener will work much better than this, and you just have to squeeze a little to get the ceramic panels tight on the hair.
It depends on how bad the frizz is, but the tail is usually pretty smooth by the time each segment has been through the curler 3-5 times. I often trim about a quarter inch off the bottom of the tail, to even it out and also remove the worst parts of the frizz that are not as easy to iron. Using a hair straightener should prevent having to cut off any more than this. A little trim is ok, though, because most GCs look perfectly ok (or even better, to some people) with a tail that reaches to mid-cannon rather than touching the ground.

The Mane

Grand Champion manes are a little trickier to iron. I always do it from the on-side, or whichever side the mane does not rest on. (I sneak up behind it, hehe.) I use the curler right-handed and pick up a bit of the mane, maybe half an inch. I usually start at the poll with the curler end pointing toward the head, and then start it section by section. I clamp the curler as close to the body as possible, and then roll/twist it forward to pull the hair through it. I use a rolling motion because I want to eliminate the frizz but also preserve the natural curl-over the mane has. (If you just pull your curler, it will pull the hair flat and straighten it.)
The tricky part of it comes at the moment the hair is free of the curler. For a few seconds it will be damp, limp and very hot, and probably with a little less curl-over than it had out of the factory. (It's hard to get the hair out of my iron without straightening it a *bit*.) I've noticed that the hair is kind of suggestible when it's in this state, and that I can curl my hand around it and kind of shape it into the "Grand Champion Wave Thing" that it's supposed to have, and then it will stay that way as it cools.
I go down the crest and iron all the mane like this. The last little segment can be tough because it's so close to the withers and you don't have the angle of attack as you do higher up. I solve this by just turning the iron's angle toward the horse a little bit, so it's perpendicular to the crest rather than parallel. It does bend the last segment backward somewhat, but I can usually fix this with the manual-curling technique afterward.

General Notes on Using the Curling Iron:

Make Sure the hair stays WET at all times. Sometimes I get into the whole procedure for hours and don't notice that the hair has dried while I've been working. It only takes a second to melt a big chunk of dry hair !

Pay Attention to the heat setting, if you're using a modern curler. Some have their little buttons and dial-things right on top of the handle, so it's easy to accidentally tap the dial or move it as you're using the curler, and suddenly your curler is either too hot or too cold. This is annoying and very poor design (many do have the controls on the side, which is much better), so just make sure your number setting is where you want it, and check on it periodically.

I have heard some people say... that you shouldn't "drag" the iron down the hair. I don't know what that means, but I have a feeling that's what I do. How else can you move the hair through the iron? So, yes I acknowledge this rumor, but no I don't think it means anything, since my ironed guys turn out fine.

Re: Conditioner... I have read that some people recommend keeping the hair saturated with un-rinsed conditioner during this process. I guess that would work, but it seems unnecessary. I think a little slick texture on the hair has some protective benefit, but a bit of friction is good, too. Also it depends on what kind of curler you have, as an old one with a loose clamp will barely be grabbing the hair as it is, so any friction you can add is a good thing. On a newer one, the grip is rather tight, so more conditioner will help it slide through smoothly.
All in moderation, I guess, or you'll find your own preference as you go along. Truly though, the critical thing is to keep the hair wet at all times. Also there might be concerns about how a large amount of conditioner will behave once it's in that iron and heated to a million degrees. Will it boil? Burn? Discolor? I don't know anything about that.

Color Change. This applies to both the curling iron, the regular iron, and the straightener (I think...) if you're working on horses with colored hair. Some shades of color (particularly lavender, I've noticed) will change color permanently upon being exposed to high heat like this. I haven't seen any of this effect on Grand Champion hair, but definitely on Fashion Star Fillies and MLP. The lavender will turn a lighter, pinker color, and there may be other hues that will react.

Accidental Burns... Be VERY careful where you're working with the heat, and where you set your curling iron down. It's easy to leave it next to something and cause melting or burns, and not even realize it until it's too late.
Also, steam burning yourself is entirely possible with any type of curling iron. The high heat plus the moisture in the hair creates steam, and it's hard to avoid getting burned at least a few times, especially as you're first getting practice at doing this.

FIRE HAZARD... Most importantly, remember not to leave your iron on unattended for any kind of long period. I always turn mine off if I'm going to be gone for more than a few minutes. This is another reason to get a new, modern straightener or curling iron; they heat up so fast that there is nothing lost in turning them off whenever you please. Also keep your pets/little kids in mind. Your hot iron may seem safe somewhere, but could someone accidentally knock it down into a more flammable place?

The Hot Iron Method

A regular hot iron can be used on GC hair, too, but I don't recommend it on the mane because it tends to straighten it too much. Actually I don't recommend it much at all just because it's so inconvenient, and you're much better off using a hair straightener. (I know it's scary to try new things, but a straightener can change your life. You'll never go back to the hot iron afterward, trust me !) I hardly use my hot iron at all anymore, and am thinking about getting rid of it. I have no need for it, plus I'm clumsy and tend to burn myself, plus it's heavier and more cumbersome and you don't have as much control over what's happening once the hair goes under it. But here is what I know about ironing horsie hair with a regular iron:

It's best to use the regular iron when you either want fast results, or when the frizz is quite stiff and extensive. I use an old towel (one that is ok to "burn") and never allow the hair direct contact with the iron. (It will melt it immediately!) The basic method I use is to fold the towel so that the hair will be ironed between the layers of it, or at least so that there is one layer of towel between the hot iron and the hair at all times. I hold the horse in one hand, hold the iron down hard with the other, as close to the base of the tail as possible, and slowly pull my guy out

so that his tail is dragged under the weight of the iron. Oh yeah... And the critical thing is to wet the hair first and use a WET Towel. So I wet the hair down, put the towel over it, and then sprinkle plenty of water on the towel, right over where the tail is resting, and then put the iron down and let it steam like crazy while I pull the horse out.
Also, you need a really hot iron for this. The site I read recommended the "Cotton" setting, and that is one of the highest on my iron.

Some complications of this method include:

Burning yourself. Yay.
It's hard to do this without touching the iron accidentally, eventually, and that's ouchie. Or, if the frizz has reached close to the base of the tail, you'll steam burn yourself by trying to hold the base of the tail and iron it at the same time. However, I guess this could all be solved by wearing little gloves or something?

Burning the horse.
I have never left visible marks on any of my GCs by using this method, but I'm sure it's possible if you're trying to iron really close to the base of the tail. (I have left burn marks on My Little Ponies...) Also, this is a great way to ruin a towel; it will probably leave brown burns on terry cloth, even if you use plenty of water.

Over-straightening.
If you're doing this right, the hair will end up very straight and limp. This is fine for GC tails, but it is not a good idea to use it on Grand Champion manes, and My Little Ponies will definitely need re-curling afterward.

Crimping.
This can happen if the hair you're ironing is already pretty straight, and if you're ironing on a towel. Because the towel has an uneven texture to it, it's possible to hotset that pattern into the hair itself, and it will leave a crimpy wave in it. I would recommend the Hot Iron method for moderate to badly frizzed hair. If you put pretty smooth hair under an iron, it will tend to mimic whatever texture it's heated against. Then again, if you're ironing on a nice smooth surface (like an ironing board that I don't have?), and just using the one layer of towel on top of the hair, everything will probably stay nice and smooth.

Advantages to Ironing
The hot iron does work well, and quickly. Even on bad frizz, it can straighten the hair noticeably in 2 or 3 quick passes, and you don't have to separate the tail and iron it in as many segments (Usually 3 is sufficient). The hot iron is very powerful, and it's so rewarding to pull that tail out and see such dramatic improvement so quickly, especially on very bad frizz.

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Blue Paradise Stables