Hair White

July 7, 2007 4:21 PM

How do I make my hair white for a night?

I'm acting a short part and would like to make my hair white. Two restrictions:
1. No money
2. Using only what's likely to be in one's home already

I'm looking for serious answers, but I realize this is one of those questions that just begs for a joke. So, please, indulge yourselves.

posted by kc0dxh to clothing, beauty, & fashion (19 comments total)

White shoepolish.

Although that's probably pretty unlikely to be in your home.
posted by yohko at 4:25 PM on July 7, 2007

Cornstarch is the old thespian's standby. Pure talcum powder, or even baby powder will work, but you'll smell like an infant, and you'll shed a cloud if you move rapidly. In a pinch, wheat flour, if you do not sweat under the lights.
posted by paulsc at 4:25 PM on July 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

- White spray-paint. Probably a really bad idea because removing it would be a nightmare, but it would make your hair white. (Though you might be able to get away with that stuff they sell for making your windows look frosty in winter, I think that's a bit easier to remove)

- Flour, starch, etc. This will work, but you will have clouds following you and it will get all over everything.

- Mop head. It works in the cartoons.

On a slightly more serious note, I know that it violates your rules, but you could probably pick up a really cheap wig at costume shop/ second hand store and bleach it/ cut it to meet your needs.
posted by quin at 4:27 PM on July 7, 2007

Maybe regular hair spray combined with the powder idea?
posted by sunshinesky at 4:35 PM on July 7, 2007

Could you hairspray over the talcum/starch or alternately, comb gel through beforehand?

*I* have this in my house; you may not, but spray laundry starch is white and would stick nicely.
posted by artifarce at 4:38 PM on July 7, 2007

Olive oil and flour. Finger just enough oil through your hair and apply the flour. Bonus, it will be good for your hair. I suggest a trial run before the show.
posted by vers at 4:38 PM on July 7, 2007

Are you a guy or a girl? Does you care that your hair will be a gel like consistency?

In college, I was one of those people that painted themselves for athletic events. For our hair we used acrylic paint, straight out of the tube.

Do not use spray paint and do not use house paint!

Acrylic paint will take a good 30 minutes to get out in the shower (if you're a guy), and it will make our hair really sticky, like you've put a ton of gel in it, but it's very effective (made my black hair totally white).

Do NOT use house paint, do NOT use spray paint. These paints are meant to be permanent and do not use a water base. The freshmen that inevitably used these ended up having to shave their heads!
posted by unexpected at 4:44 PM on July 7, 2007

There used to be a spry on white hair product specifically for this sort of situation. I'm not sure where our drama department picked it up- possibly a costume shop.
posted by oneirodynia at 5:00 PM on July 7, 2007

Oh, right. No money. Talc and egg white then. Comb egg white, sprinkle talc.
posted by oneirodynia at 5:01 PM on July 7, 2007

I would mix gel with paint, but that's me.

Piggybacking this question, to make it more permanent what would you need to do? Extreme decoloration and hope for white and not yellowish?
posted by Memo at 5:16 PM on July 7, 2007

You might be able to add a coat of hairspray over the corn starch to keep the Pigpen-like dust down.
posted by The Deej at 5:23 PM on July 7, 2007

Try corn starch or talc before flour. Four can be a problem to wash out, it's more like making dough in your hair.

Start with clean hair, sift some corn starch over your hair and brush it in/out. Hair spray and style it how you need it, then corn starch over wet hair spray. Much better if you have a friend and a small strainer or flour sifter to get more even coverage. If you have some real big holes you can try another coat of hair spray and and corn starch, but be careful or you'll get nasty clumping.

Don't touch your hair the rest of the night.

Hope you're not wearing too much black or you're going to look like you have thermonuclear dandruff.
posted by Ookseer at 6:06 PM on July 7, 2007

Use cornstarch or cornstarch-based baby powder rather than talc. It's not healthy to inhale talc, and it's difficult to get a lot of powder on your hair without breathing some in.
posted by needs more cowbell at 6:47 PM on July 7, 2007

As yohko recommends, we always used white shoe polish to age people for on-stage roles. It's less likely to get all over the place than any sort of powder.
posted by occhiblu at 7:24 PM on July 7, 2007

Hahaha. Wow. So- baby powder will make your hair a whitesh-grey. We definitly used it to make a dogs hair grey in a play once upon a time. Made the dog sneeze... A lot.
posted by thebrokenmuse at 7:43 PM on July 7, 2007

Memo: you can get from yellow to whitish by adding a toner. It's light purple and neutralizes the yellow. I've used Special Effects and Wella.
posted by aneel at 10:46 PM on July 7, 2007

Go to a beauty supply and buy "Streaks and Tips" or "Magic Moments" hair color spray that is temporary and washes out. I'm not sure if they have white, but they have all the normal colors.
posted by Leeman at 11:33 PM on July 7, 2007

I would go with the spray if at all possible, but in high school, for aging at the temples a little, or a streak or because we had no funds, we'd use clown white. You don't have it, I guess, but it's like two bucks at a costume shop.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:55 PM on July 7, 2007

If you're playing a female role, I would strongly recommend purchasing an inexpensive salt-and-pepper or silver-platinum wig. You can probably find something for around $20 or less.

Men's wigs are trickier: anything inexpensive tends to end up looking like it belongs in a 1970s era SNL sketch. For men's hair I would suggest using Streaks n Tips in Frosty White. This will require a bit of experimentation to get a believable look.

One quick tip here is that any kind of hair fakery looks better with the addition of a hat, scarf, hairband or even a hair ribbon -- for some reason, the ornaments make the wig/streaked hair seem less alien.
posted by La Cieca at 7:45 AM on July 9, 2007