American Girl Doll Salon

On our trip to the American Girl Store in Chicago, my daughter brought along her Kanani doll in addition to the Molly doll that she bought when we were at the store.

Watching Kanani's
Salon Appointment

She received Kanani for Christmas and Kanani has long, thick hair that over the prior 6 months had filled with tangles and knots and looked "ratty". I had looked up tips on brushing their hair, and done it once without much success. My parents had watched my daughter one night the week before the trip, and I had not known that my Mom had worked on Kanani’s hair. I knew the store had a doll salon and my plan was to have them brush out Kanani’s hair.

Hair Stylist with the
"Tools of the Trade"

The doll salon is located on the second floor of the shop next to the doll hospital. Doll hair styles start at $5 and go up to $25. They have styles for short hair, long hair, and curly hair. My daughter selected the style of the month and we had an appointment to start in about 20 minutes. You need to pay for the hair style before you can pick up your doll, so we went to pay before our appointment. Kanani sat on the shelf with our order ticket until her appointment time. We made sure to return to watch Kanani's visit to the salon. As we were waiting for Kanani’s turn, my mom commented that they could have quite the business giving girls and dolls the same hairstyle. Of course they probably do a sufficient business with the dolls hair that they don't need the added space, equipment, and licensing that would be involved in also doing hair styles on girls.

When her appointment began, the stylist strapped Kanani in the styling chair and put a styling cape around her. They began by misting her hair until it was fairly wet and then began brushing out her hair. We talked to the stylist as she worked and received some tips on styling - always wet the hair before brushing, use a stiff bristle brush (like the metal bristle brush they sell), and a hard bristle toothbrush is good for smoothing the hair. Also, be very careful not to get the water in their eyes as the eyes are metal and will rust. We were also advised that we should leave Molly’s hair in its braids, or redo it right away if it comes loose. By wetting the hair, the doll lost much less hair than when we had tried to brush it dry.

Kanani's Hairstyle

My daughter was able to choose two ribbons to go in Kanani’s hair. I think she did a great job picking a blue and a pink that matched Kanani’s dress very well.

As our stylist was working on the hairstyle, we questioned whether she knew we were doing the style of the month since it didn’t look quite the same as we had remembered. She got about half-way through and said wait a minute. We were there on the first of the month, and she had started the previous month's style. Since it was half-way done (and we liked it better), we told her we were okay with her finishing that hair style. The style we ended up with looked more intricate, so I am not sure if it had been the same $20 price, but it was less effort for her to finish the hairstyle than undo it and do the current hairstyle.

First Day of School with
Kanani's Hairstyle

My daughter loved Kanani’s hairstyle and asked me to put her hair in the same style the next day. The style was fairly time consuming, so it will be a special event hair style. The only change that we made is that her hair is not long enough to braid the resulting pony tail at the bottom so my daughter wears it without the braid. My daughter requested the hair style for the first day of school and willingly woke up 20 minutes early to have me do the braids. She is also planning on wearing this style as a flower girl in my sister's wedding. I took lots of pictures for the hair stylist to be able to replicate the hairstyle.

If your daughter’s doll has hair that is a mess, it is worth paying for a hairstyle - especially one that results in her hair being fully captured in braids and pony tails.