- Hey, it's Marquetta Breslin and I'm back with another video. So in this video, I'm
going to be teaching you how to ventilate a lace wig. (upbeat music) ♪ Breslin Breslin ♪ ♪ Author and the speaker ♪ ♪ Master stylist using every
gift I got to teach her ♪ ♪ Just wanna reach her ♪ ♪ When life changing
motivation is his key ♪ ♪ You can look wealthy ♪ ♪
But no the greater is he ♪ ♪ It's Marquetta B ♪ ♪ Breslin Breslin Breslin ♪ But there's some things that
I want you to understand. Number one, I don't have
enough time to sit here and teach you all of the intricacies of ventilating a lace wag. But I do have time to
teach you the basic skill of tying a single knot. Now there's multiple different
knots with lace wigs. There is.. That was my rice maker or something going off downstairs
if you heard that noise. Okay, there is the single knot. There's the double knot. There's the split knot. There's the double split knot. And there's cross knotting, now, cross knotting is not
a different type of knot, is just the placement
of your single knots. So there's a lot that goes
into ventilating a lace wig. But what I'm going to be
showing you in this video, is how to tie the basic single knot. Now the other things
that you need to consider when making lace wigs, is your
directions for ventilating. All of this is covered in my
list with training system. But I've seen a lot of
content about ventilating, but I wanna show you how
to do it the right way. All right. So, the things that you're going to need, you're gonna need some hair, you're gonna need some lace, and you're gonna need
a ventilating needle. All right, you may need some
clips or something like that. This particular piece that I'm working on, was started probably about a year ago, and (laugh) it has not been finished yet. But it's a perfect Canvas for me to show you how to tie the single knot. So, let me give you a
little bit of disclaimer. I have been washing my
hands like crazy because we're quarantine from the Coronavirus, and my hands might be a little
bit ashy, but it's okay. All right? So, let me do this let me
grab my ventilating needle, I am using a size three needle, okay? This lace is a very, very
thick lace is not my lace is the lace that came from the manufacturer. So, I can use a little
bit of a bigger needle. Alright, and the hair
is the hair that matches this texture right here. All right? so you just want to pull off a
little bit of hair at a time. And I'm also going to grab my glasses, and I'm gonna go off camera real fast and put some lotion on my hands
because this looks trifling. I'll be right back. Okay, so before I get deep into the video, let me just explain a
couple more things before. I know I said pick up the
ventilating needle and the hair. But let me talk about a
few more important things before I actually start ventilating. Okay, the first thing you
need to make sure you have is you need to be working
on a Canvas wig block. It doesn't have to be canvas. You can also use something like this. This is a Styrofoam wig block. It is a holds the shape very
very nicely is true to form. It has the occipital bone
in the back is flat here. This approach.. And it's very, very light. This I purchase from Atelier Bassi, same place where you can get
your Canvas wig blocks from your Canvas wig blocks
are stuffed with sawdust, and they're covered with a canvas but there are also other materials, but you wanna make sure you're working with the proper types of materials. You don't want that
traditional Styrofoam head that you can buy from Sally's. That's not what this is for. When you're making wigs
and working with wigs, you wanna make sure that you're
using the right materials. Okay, next I'm gonna talk about lighting. Lighting is very, very critical, because, if you can't
see what you're doing, you're not gonna do it. (laugh) It's just that simple. I've been teaching this
skill for over 10 years, and having people come out to my seminars and all of that good stuff to learn this skill of ventilating. And one of the number
one things that is always a deal breaker, could be a
deal breaker is lighting. So I always bring in additional lighting into the hotel rooms,
in the meeting spaces. But what I highly suggest
is that you purchase an LED light, something like a ring light, I'll link you to something on Amazon. I'll give you an Amazon
link in the description box of this video, depending on
where you're watching the video at there will be a link
somewhere to a light that you can purchase that will
be an Amazon affiliate link. So, I will get a small
commission if you purchase it. If you don't want me to get the commission not a problem at all. Just Google, whatever
I'm going to put in the description box so you can find it and purchase it on your own. Okay, now, I talked about lighting, I talked about the Canvas wig block. I feel like I'm missing
something, but I don't think I am. So oh, your chair. That was the other thing. You wanna make sure that you're keeping your proper posture and that you're not bent over
and slumped over like this, doing that for multiple
hours will cause some issues, trust me been there, done that, using a bad posture during this process. The other thing is, you want
to stop every 45 minutes or so to give your body
a break to stretch. Not work out but to stretch your arms and all of that stuff,
because this is a long and tedious process and you don't.. Just hit the camera. And you don't want to overwork your body or be in the same position
for long periods of time. All right now, your site, not only do you
need good lighting but, sometimes you may need to use a reader or some sort of magnifier to be able to see the tiny holes in the lace. What I'm wearing right here is
these are prescribed readers. And what I mean by
prescribed readers is this. These I cannot go into
CVS or Walmart or Target and buy these off of the shelf, not because they were sunglasses and I turn them into readers, but because I have a
specific reader prescription, specifically for wig making. So when I went to my doctor, I said, "Hey, I do a lot of
working with tiny little things "and making wigs and I need something "that's gonna really help me to zoom in "and it's not gonna be too strong. "that's not gonna be too light, "but still allows me
to see what I'm doing". So, he prescribed me a
reader that works amazing. This is first time I've ever
had a prescribed reader. Now I do wear no progressive bifocals, so it does give me a little
bit of that magnification at the bottom but not at this level. So, I have one eye is
weaker than the other. So, I have one prescription in one eye and another prescription in another eye. This is amazing, I'm not telling
you to run out and do that because not everybody has seasoned eyes. I don't have all eyes,
they're just seasoned. Not everybody has seasoned eyes like I do. So you could get away
with just getting a reader or maybe just wearing,
a small magnifying lamp or glasses or something like that. Alright so, now we can get it started. Alright, so I'm gonna put my readers my wig making glasses back on and that helps so very much. I can actually see, if I do like this and I'm trying to just look
at it with the naked eye. First of all, I got to adjust because that looks like a bunch of fuzzy mess. So if I push my head back a little bit, I can see those knots, but not the way I can, when I
put on my wig making glasses. So now I can really see
exactly what it is I'm doing. Now, when you're working
with certain types of hair, you will find that some hair is a lot more slippery than others. And if you run into that where you're working with slippery hair, all you have to do, is add
just a little bit of water to the hair and you should be fine. Water helps maintain the control, helps the hair stick together. Some wig makers, I know this
is gonna sound disgusting. You don't have to tell me
in the comment down below. But some wig makers will chew,
literally chew on the hair because it breaks the enzymes
in your saliva breaks down some of this hair and
they'll chew it and use it. I know it sounds nasty, but I'm just sharing with
you this information. All right, so the first
thing you want to do, is we are looking at
the holes in your lace. You want to find the single
hole first before I get into that let me tell you how to hold the hair. Alright, so what I have
here is this is Cuticle hair I'm not gonna say Remy hair
'cause that's a whole nother video breaking down
what Remy hair truly is. So, I'm just gonna say
that this is Cuticle hair, the hair is still intact. So with Cuticle hair, all of the cuticles are
unidirectional they should be, which means all the
cuticle should be laying in the same direction. The reason why that matters
is because with Cuticle hair, if you mismatch the cuticles, it will cause severe tangling and matting because what happens is, let's say the cuticles my
fingers are cuticles, right? So, the cuticles are here, right? And if I mismatch hair
and put cuticles here, what's happening is locking up. This was gonna happen is the
hair is gonna lock together and it's gonna cause severe
tangling and matting. So, when you're ventilating, you do not want your cuticles to do that. So, where are you fold the
hair is called the Turnover. That's where you turn the
hair over to ventilate. Now, I know you guys have
seen these manufactured wigs, where you have these long turnovers that look like they're about
three to four inches. That's a no no. In the wig making world true wig makers, you don't go any longer, you should not go any longer than somewhere around a two inch turnover. Now you can go back and
cut your turnovers out that is a thing and I'll
show you how to do that on a whole nother video. But in this video, we're not doing that. I'm just teaching you how
to do the basic single knot. All right? So, you're gonna turn your
hair over and then I like.. Everybody holds their hair different so, ventilating is just
like braiding hair. People may pick position
their fingers different but you get to the same result. So, what I like to do
after I fold the hair over, is I just like to twist that
hair in my pointer finger and thumb that's very important, okay. It's not sticking out from
the sides is sticking, right out from the top. Okay? So, now what I'm going to do, is I'm going to find the hole in my lace. I'm gonna insert my needle,
wave that hair across. Use my middle finger for tension. Pull that needle back through, rotate 180 degrees and pull through. Okay, I'm gonna do it again. Insert your needle. (light upbeat music) Insert our needle, wave the hair across. Little finger for tension. Rotate down, pull all the way through. (light upbeat music) Alright, so I'm back, we
just switched the cameras out to give you an even better look. So, it might look a little bit darker, but you'll be able to see my
hands a little bit better. So again, you want to insert
your needle into the hole. A lot of, one of the biggest
mistakes that people make is they go into two holes, 'cause it's hard to see. That's why lighting comes
into play and your glasses. So you wanna make sure you're
not going through two holes. You wanna make sure
you're only going through one hole at a time. You're gonna just wave that hair across. (light upbeat music) Okay? Use your middle finger for tension. Rotate down and pull all the way through. All right, let's do that again. Insert the needle. Wave that hair across. Use that middle finger for tension. Pull the hair back through, rotate down, pull all the way through. So, when you wave the hair across the hair is getting caught on the Barb. The Barb is the tiny little
hook on the ventilating needle. It is designed to catch that hair. The size of your
ventilating needle tells you how many hairs it is designed to pull. But what you're seeing me do is only pull one hair at a time. That's because I have
control and it's easier for a little bit easier for
you to see what I'm doing if I just pull one hair at a time. So, you're also notice
that I'm sitting in front of the wig block and I'm
pulling the hair away from me. You never, I see people do it all the time and I always teach my students, I make them change the
way they're doing this because it's so dangerous, to ventilate and pull that
hair towards you because this is a hook and it is sharp. And it has been stuck in my lip before it's been stuck here before from students. It's been stuck some of everywhere, so you wanna be extremely careful. And when you're ventilating, you wanna make sure to pull that hair, away from you're watch. Okay, I'm sitting here, I'm pulling the hair away
from me in the direction I want it to lay in. Alright, so I'm gonna do
it a couple more times at regular speed. Just so you can see what it looks like. (smooth upbeat music) So the reason why I have
this tiny little piece of hair sticking out is because I accidentally splitting on it that here. So, there's multiple different ways I can take care of this. I can pull it out, or I could just leave it. I'm very meticulous, so I just pulled it out. I don't even know if I said that right. I'm a very detail oriented person and a bit of a perfectionist, so I don't like those little
short pieces like that. So, I pulled it out. (light upbeat music) Okay, the key to ventilating is control. Now, sometimes that happens, and you actually pop the hair, it actually happens a lot when you have, when you're working with synthetic hair, it's easier to pop that synthetic hair. And with certain types of human hair, that is the case as well. So, you just wanna be mindful of that. It happens, I don't care how
long you've been making wigs. It happens, there it is. I just popped that hair. And that's okay. You just pull it, drop
it and keep it moving. (light upbeat music) Okay, so I'm going back in, gonna insert my needle,
wave that hair across, rotate down the hook, (light upbeat music) Now you'll notice that, I see some people. I see some people do some of everything. I've seen them wrap like this. It should be a fluid movement, the rotation of your needle should wrap the hair around the hook. I'll show you what I'm talking about. When I insert my needle, pay
attention to my right hand that's holding the needle holder. Okay, that hand is not moving, barely once I wrap and rotate, it wraps around the hair
catches on that Barb, and I pull right back through that hole. All right, you just want to make sure you're paying attention to that. (light upbeat music) All right, so I'm just gonna
place a couple more knots. And these, again, these are single knots. This is the base. So what happened there is my hair just got a little bit too messy. So when that happens, most in.. A lot of cases, is because
you're holding too much hair in your hands and sometimes
with longer lengths of hair. It just happens. And so what has happened here
is it has gotten completely.. You probably can't see this
'cause it's only a few pieces, but it's completely messed up. So I'm just gonna grab a tiny bit more. I'm gonna go at regular speed and then we'll end the video off. (light upbeat music) Okay? This is one of the things that most of my students get the
most intimidated by because, it is something that's foreign. It's not like braiding hair, where you have an idea of how to do it. This is something that a lot
of people have never even attempted to do, so they don't
even know where to begin. So, just take your time and
be patient with yourself. I promise you when they
say patience is a virtue, that is the truth. So what has happened here is my turnover was super duper short. Now I can handle this in
multiple different ways. I can just pull this out and regroup or I can still make that knot. So to make that knot, I'm just gonna press that hair down. Pick both of those pieces up, rotate and pull through, all right? (light upbeat music) Now ventilating is a skill
that is very time consuming. But you can do a lot with that. A lot of people think that just because you learn how to ventilate, now you're gonna sit there and make lace wigs all day long. But that's just not the case. You need to learn how to
do this skill if you work with frontals and closures because you need to
know how to repair them. So this is it. This is how to ventilate a lace wig. I just showed you how
to tie a single knot. Remember, there was
multiple other knots to tie, and then there's directions but
the thing you have to master before you get into anything
else is the single knot. So, do me this favor. Now that I've taught you the
correct way to ventilate, I want you when you try this, I want you to go follow me
on Instagram and tag me, #MarquettaTaughtMeHowToVentilate (laugh). Alright, thank you guys
so much for watching and I'll talk to you soon (upbeat music)
