The complexity of wig design is now being pushed and pulled to the limits by a leading manufacturer in Korea using the latest materials testing equipment from Lloyd Instruments
As the ever-changing face of fashion surges ahead, the popularity of wigs and artificial hair designs has never been greater. Whether hand crafted or mass produced, artificial hair pieces typically consist of many thousands of individual hair filaments. A vast choice of materials is now available, including synthetic fibres and human hair.
For wig manufacturers, quality control is vital to success, and now access to test equipment from Lloyd Instruments can help advances in product development programmes quicker than ever before, says the company.
Using a Lloyd Instruments LRXPlus 5kN testing machine, fitted with a special TG12 bollard wire/yarn/thread grip, the physical and mechanical properties of individual pieces and bundles of pieces can be evaluated.
Tests include measuring maximum load (up to a potential 30kgf), extension at max load, and extension at half load on both real human hair and artificial hair.
The force data can then be compared with the filament denier weight in each design to achieve a final result in gf/denier.
Wigs are designed and confirmed by exacting standards, and suppliers obtain all the necessary test data in a tailor-made report using Lloyd Instruments's Nexygen MT software that controls the testing machine.
The LRXPlus is extremely easy to set-up and operate and offers the added advantage of the flexibility to design special test programmes to suit individual needs using the Ondio application builder package.
The entire test set-up can be transferred from the research lab to the production line.
The LRXPlus can also be used to test other factors (such as fabric strength and adhesive peel) simply by changing over the sample grip and loadcell.
The work is currently being carried out in conjunction with a major university in Korea, which possesses two Lloyd Instruments testing machines: a 5kN LR5KPlus twin column testing machine (in its chemical engineering department) and a 5kN single column LRXPlus (in its polymer engineering department).
Lloyd Instruments is represented in Korea by Korins Scientific Instruments.
