How to care for your cosplay wig

Thanks Erin to Submit this tutorial to us 🙂

You’ve just received your wig! How exciting, you pull it out of it’s package and its… limp, kinked, all together not very appealing. Although anime’ hairstyles are hard to pull off in real life with a little wig care you’re sure to get winning results.
You should take a picture now, because when you’re finished you’ll want to see how much improvement you’ve made 🙂  If your wig has clip in extensions do all these steps to each part separately.

care_wig_1

1) Wash

The first thing you want to do is wash your wig,  try to comb it out with your fingers as best you can before and after washing the wig, but don’t get too rough yet. I find the most convenient solution for me is to bulldog clamp it to the top of my shower screen, however a bath, a plastic stand or anything that involves getting the wig wet and not you is good. Remember to have the water WARM not boiling hot.

You don’t always have to shampoo your wig, but if it’s particularly ratty, you can use a grape sized amount of shampoo, you can get special wig shampoo but as long as you thoroughly wash it out I find regular stuff works just as well.

 

2) Comb

comb

Now your wig is all nice and dry it’s time for the most horrible part, wig combing, I recommend only combing one inch sections at a time, about the thickness of a texta. You can use any brush or comb you like, but try not to get bristles or teeth that are too fine, and always try to brush from the bottom, then move up in sections. Don’t be too stressed if a little fibre falls out or gets stuck in the comb, that’s totally normal.

Separate your first combed piece now ONLY IF YOUR WIG IS HEAT RESISTANT, you can straighten it on the lowest setting with either a hair dryer or hair iron. I personally like this step and think it makes the wig look a whole lot better, but if its not heat resistant don’t even try it or it’ll just melt and go gross. Of course skip this step if your wig is curly although you can re-curl it later. Now if you run into some nasty territory such as the pre curled section of my sailor moon wig here, don’t be afraid to not only trim your wig but to thin it using special thinning scissors that look like this.

(thanks google) you can pick them up very cheap from eBay or your local beauty shop should have them for around $10.

care_wig_2

 

 Ahhhh nice and combed.

3) Style!
now you’ve painstakingly combed and straightened each section, now put them all together for one last little brush through. Your wig looks better already (well it had better after all that combing you just did!) now styling of course need only be done if you are wearing the wig I won’t get into styles too much during this tut as it’s for basic care but my hot tip is curls react great to curl formers and a garment steamer, that’s how I did the ends of my wig.

Now if any major mishaps have happened during the combing process don’t worry too much, you can make wefts out of extra hair and clever sewing with a curved needle can cover up a lot of bald spots.

So If you want to wear your wig break out the scissors, hair spray and whatever else. But if you’re just setting your wig up for some peaceful storage, the best way of course is to leave it pinned to a foam head with regular combing but we don’t all have the space or understanding friends to have our wigs hanging about all over the place. So for long wigs plait the ends into two to four sections and pin them up to the base, then put it back in a zip lock bag, for short wigs the same minus the plaits. Make sure to place them in a spot where they won’t get to messed around, I like to stack mine on top of each other in a cardboard box up the back of my cupboard.

erin

 

And here’s a goofy picture of me I snapped in my hallway.

Good care will greatly extend the life of your wig, not to mention improve its re-sale value and of course make it look better and be much more manageable.

Take care of yourself and your wigs! All the best ^_^

P.S. Pro- Tip- Don’t wear your wig out to the pub or you’ll have to repeat all these steps and your wig will smell like smoke and beer.

Author Bio:Erin Kirkup, a twenty year old, Australian cosplay fanatic.

sado44

Co-Founder of Miccostumes.com,love Cosplay,Anime,Game,Hiking,Running,Board Game,Poker!