Wig Care Schedule
How often should you wash it? It depends on how you wear it. Answer five questions for a care routine and dated reminders, and add them to your calendar.
Your routine
- Every time you wear it
- Detangle before and after, from the ends up, holding the hair above where you're combing so you don't pull at the knots.
- Every night
- Take it off and put it on a stand, and wear a satin bonnet for your own hair. If you do sleep in it, braid it loosely and sleep on satin or silk.
- Wash: every 10 wears, so every 18 days
- Our guides suggest every 8–12 wears for straight and wavy hair. Washing more often than that strips a wig faster than wearing it does.
- Deep condition: every 2 washes
- A mask for 20–30 minutes, from mid-length down and off the lace, where conditioner loosens the knots.
- Monthly
- Look over the lace and the knots at the parting, and trim any split ends.
The next eight weeks
- Wash, condition and deep condition
- Wash and condition
- Check the lace and knots, and trim any split ends
- Wash, condition and deep condition
- Wash and condition
Downloads a calendar file (.ics) with repeating reminders for the next six months at 10:00, each with a nudge an hour before. Open it to add it to Apple Calendar or Outlook; for Google Calendar, use Settings → Import. Nothing is stored here.
Where the numbers come from
From our own care guides: how to wash a human hair wig, daily care and storage and the curly wig wash day routine. A wig has no scalp feeding it oil, so it needs less washing than your own hair and more conditioning. Treat the schedule as a starting point: wash sooner if it feels heavy, smells of product or loses its movement, and later if it's still fresh.