CAUSE: Your head is round the lace base is flat - like a piece of paper - try taking a piece of printer paper and molding it around your head. It can't really lay flat unless it is darted and curved.

WHY THERE ARE NO RIPPLES ON NEW PIECES - because the lace is more flexible/elastic and if stretched "correctly" there will be no ripples for the first few attachments. After time and washing the lace become less elastic and because you are compensating for ripples by stretching you cause there to be even more ripples (and frays).

Using mirror slides or other gentler cleaning techniques might get you 1-3 more attachments without ripples but...

THE REAL WAY TO GET AROUND THIS IS: do your own darting; to force the piece to be curved.

FOR EXPERTS ONLY:

I cut two darts up front at 10 and 2 o'clock if the very front center "tip" of the piece is 12 o'clock - the darts are near each temple. I don't sew the two sides together with invisible thread because I find with densities below 65% the stitches are visible and come undone unless you are a certified tailor or a plastic surgeon. Also cleaning a curved piece is hard so it is good that it can go back to flat.

I used contoured tape and marry the two sides of each dart together with tape on the lace before applying the piece to my head. I use Walker No shine CC countour about 1/2 an inch behind the hairline edge on the lace. I then follow up with 3-mil up to the very edge. You glue guys can use glue on the front edge after attaching using toothpicks or whatever. But remember you still need that tape behind, doing this totally with glue by marrying the darts using only the glue on your head is probably tough.

The contour tape behind the edge should be what forces the curve and holds it in place before attaching.

This method work best if you attach the front first of course.

So before applying, the front is super curved and sits pretty much totally flush up front.

DRAWBACKS: There is more of an edge that can fray due to the 2 "triangle" darts you cut into the piece. I originally thought this was going to cause me to lose about 10%-20% in durability/life of the piece. Not the case. I find my pieces last about same as before or even longer if you're one of these guys super stretching the front to get rid of the ripples. Because of this stretching and constant pushing the lace onto my head ever few hours the front got super gluey into the lace which made cleaning more difficult and the front just frayed more and more so much faster.

Only issue is you are doing surgery on a piece and if you are not really careful you can have some serious issues including ruining the whole piece. Do so at your own risk.

BOTTOM LINE: The attachment is top notch, no lift, no ripples, attachment lasts longer. Until bases come curved I will slice all my pieces like this, without a doubt. I have been doing so for about a year.

Maybe I'll start a thread and post some photos.