It’s recommended that you wear a balaclava when wearing your fursuit head to help keep it fresh and clean. The zipper on the back of the head is utilized for construction and servicing of the head, you should not need to use to place the fursuit head on your head.
Your head contains two 5V blowers and an attached USB cable, you can use a small USB battery pack to power these blowers. If you don’t want to use the attached connector simply coil it up and store it in the back of the head - alternatively you can remove the cable by disconnecting the blower connectors and removing the cable from the Velcro.
Fursuiting can be dangerous it’s important that you are well hydrated and keep cool while fursuiting. If you feel dizzy, impaired or confused while fursuiting you should stop immediately as these can be signs that you’re overheating.
Do not store your fursuit in an area with direct sunlight, it can cause degredation and yellowing of the fabrics and plastics used to construct your fursuit head.
Do not store your fursuit in a hot car.
To adjust the fit of the fursuit head unzip the back of the head and find the velcro strap behind the spandex liner and adjust to size. Ideally it should fit comfortably and snuggly.
The eye-lids snap in place using a friction fit between the foam and the eye itself. If you lift up the foam between the eye and the eye-brow you’ll see there are two small tabs on the top of the eye, these match up against to notches in the eye lids to hold them in place.
The eye lids are marked with a letter indicating which set they belong to, i.e. A, B, C and have an arrow pointing to the center of the head. So when installing an eye-lid you need to make sure the arrow for the eye lid is pointing to the center of the head.
To remove an eye-lid lift up on it and then pull it out.
To install an eye-lid first lift up the eye-brow to locate the two notches on top of the eye and then match them up with the two notches in the eye lid you wish to place on the head - you may have to slide the eye-lid back and forth until it clicks in place.
On the head and especially the face it’s important that treat it gently, if needed gently brush it by hand.
DO NOT USE A SLICKER BRUSH ON THE FACE
Because of how tightly the fur on the face is shaven the brush may catch on threads in the seams - DO NOT try to rip these threads out.
The brush should not remove a lot of fur when used to brush the fursuit.
Slicker brushes which are commonly used on fursuits may actually not be the right brush to use, these brushes are designed to remove the undercoat of a pet, instead it’s recommended to look for brushes you’d use on a human you want something that is soft and gentle.
A brush as aggressive as a slicker brush not only can remove fur but also can scrape the backing of the faux fur causing further degradation.
If you must brush the face of the fursuit, especially after washing a soft toothbrush is recommended.
Lightly spray the inside of the fursuit with isopropyl alcohol. You don’t want to saturate the inside of the head as alcohol can cause fabrics to bleed and while the fabrics on the inside of the head have been chosen to avoid bleeding they will still bleed if saturated with alcohol.
Fursuits are wear items and the wear comes both from using them and from cleaning them, so finding the appropriate balance between using your fursuit and washing it is important. Generally we don’t recommend washing your head after each use, but only as needed.
Here are the recommended methods to clean your fursuit head:
DO NOT PLACE THE HEAD IN A WASHING MACHINE
Dunking the head in a warm bucket of soapy water is the recommended cleaning method.
Here is what you will need:
The blowers and wiring in the head are designed to be removed and replaced as needed, both for washing and for repair.
Here are the steps to remove the blowers:
If the head is particularly smelly it may be worth using a small amount of Lysol Laundry Sanitizer in addition to clothing detergent.
Prepare a bucket of warm soapy water, it’s recommended to use a small amount of gentle cloths detergent and fill up a bucket and then gently submerge the head into the bucket so that it becomes saturated with water, either agitate the water a bit or lift the head in and out of the bucket a few times to agitate the water helping further cleaning.
Prepare a bucket of warm clean water and submerge the head a few more times until the soap has been rinsed off, or gently spray it off with water. If needed you can gently squeeze the foam to remove water, but be careful and gentle.
Please the head in front of a powerful blower or blower to dry it rotating the head in front of the dryer every hour or so, until dry.
The electronics used in your head are two 4020 5V blowers these are standard size for blowers and should be widely available - although it seems unclear that the polarity of the connectors is standardized, so make sure that the polarity is correct when replacing the blowers.
Some of the fursuit heads have some hair spray applied to hold the fur in certain position or way - this is a mixed bag as it means you must be careful to protect the fur to keep the style, but then you get this awesome look. If after washing your fursuit head you wish to reapply hair spray we recommend that you you mask off the areas you don’t want to apply hair spray to, and then apply it only to the needed areas.
As to the hairspray to use it seems that generic hairspray applied sparingly works fine.
So for example if you wanted your mohawk to stand upright, you’d mask off using blue panters tape and paper towels everything but the mowhawk, sparingly spray it with hairspray and then use a comb or brush to sculpt it into the desired shape.
Alternatively if you wish to wash the hairspray out you may try to wash only those areas which have had had hairspray applied. If you’re worried about having to remove the you may be able to put them in sandwich bags with rubber bands to seal them so they don’t get water in them while you’re washing out the old hairspray.