So I’m about to root a doll with alpaca and I’m wanting her to have longer hair. Not like a toddler or even shoulder length, just that shaggy newborn/young baby look. The issue is, I only know how to do this with curly hair, and the alpaca is very straight. Have any of you done a longer style with alpaca? Any tips or pictures would be appreciated 
I’ve only tried to root alpaca once. I changed to mohair 
Most of my babies are rooted with Alpaca. I don’t root them long but they’re not super short either. Your technique would be the same as with curly hair, but depending on the needles you use, you might need to change gages. I root with a 42 g forked, and a 42g single barb around the front.
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I’m just trying to figure out how to cut it haha. I can do the rooting, styling is the hard part for me 
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If you want it shaggy on the ends you’ll need to point cut it, which means instead of cutting it straight across, you cut up into the hair to thin the ends which will give you a shaggy, uncut look.
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Your babies have beautifully rooted hair! I’ve tried to use a forked needle with no success. The hair sticks straight up and when I try to lie it flat against the vinyl it won’t take the hair…how do you do it?! I wonder if that would root the alpaca hair I have…I’d love to use it but all my needles make it pluggy☹️ I’ve been using a 46g crown…
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Thank you so much🥰
I’ve used different sizes of needles but found I loved using a forked the best, and i love that they never break.
Are you mono rooting?
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Sort of, and so many hairs get grabbed and it’s pretty tough to work with IMO. I love the way the alpaca hair feels though
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Yes i do too! If your using a multi barbed needle you’ll spend a lot of time plucking extra hairs.
Yeah the one I found to not grab too many was a black heavenly illusion needle I think 42g 1 barb. But it was pretty slow going lol
I’d like to figure out my forked needle and maybe I’d buy a pack. Need to find a tutorial or something to show how to hold it to the head.
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Rooting Alpaca is definitely slow going due to the fiber being finer than mohair. Rooting a full head of alpaca takes me around 50+hours for a newborn sized head, unless it’s platinum blonde and then it’s more like 75 hours.
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Oh my! 
it already takes me about that with mohair so it’ll probably be double with alpaca 
Well you do a lovely job that’s for sure!!
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Thank you!
The key to getting one hair with a multi barb needle (which is what I use) is how many hairs you have in your fingers at a time. I cut small sections and then only grab about 10 hairs at a time to root, it makes it very easy to see one at a time and only grab one hair. Also fanning the small amount helps as well, it will definitely save you time on plucking extra hairs out.
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