Cosplay Wigs 101 // Synthetic Vs Human Hair

Hey guys it's aileen here so today, i'm gon na be talking all about wigs um. I get questions on a daily basis about my wigs um, where i get them, how i wash them, how i style them. So i thought it would be a good idea to make this little 101 video kind of an intro to cosplay wigs, and i hope that it's helpful. I broke down each topic that i want to discuss. Um. I won't be going into too much detail because then i feel like this video would be like three hours long but um, so i'm just gon na be talking about the basics, information that i think would be useful. So i hope it helps all right. So the very first thing you want to think about when you're about to buy a wig is the character and what type of hair they have so with cosplay. We know that this can be very varying because we have like cartoon characters, animated, like cgi, characters, um and then there's the real life live action characters and it all depends on the type of look that you want for your cosplay. So that leaves you with your first choice: you have either synthetic or human hair wig for me, lately um for all of my live action. Cosplays i've been buying human hair, wigs and styling them and doing all the work on them myself. That'S just because i really enjoy it and i like doing hair and it's something i'm really interested in um, but this doesn't have to be the case for everybody. So i do have a few like live-action synthetic wigs that i'll wear, one of them being my cheryl wig from riverdale um that one's a synthetic which i'll show a little bit later and then for my animated characters. I'Ll use synthetic because it just gives more of a cartoony effect, especially when i'm not going for realism. Those are your options, um. What you have to choose from when you're thinking about purchasing a wig. The second thing that you have to think about is: should i get lace, front or non-lace front and for human hair wigs? Is it going to be full lace or just lace front all right? So if we're talking about human hair wigs, i have my beautiful glinda work in progress. Wig right here that i can demonstrate on all right, so glinda is lace front, and what that means is that the front of the wig here is all lace so that when it sits on your head, it looks more realistic and you have a realistic part as Well, so it's not just like a closed off edge. It basically blends into your skin and makes your wig look more real and on the inside here you can see that there's still the tracks, so the lace basically goes all the way here and then it starts with the tracks um, and it has a bit of Lace on the back too, which is always handy. However, if you're gon na be putting your wig up in a hairstyle like, for instance, harley um, hi pigtails lace, front will not be enough, because you're gon na see the tracks in the back and the tracks are aiming downwards. So when you go to lift it up, it's not gon na work, so i will show my full lace wig in comparison. So this is the inside of a full lace wig. So the lace actually goes all the way throughout the wig so that there's no tracks whatsoever. So when you go to put your wig up in the back, it's just like a scalp like it's it's a net, so it it could go any way. You want a little point to note with the lace front. Is that when you're purchasing your wig, a lot of the sellers that i buy from will have in the listing it says like either 13 by 4, 13, 13 by 2, 13 by 4 or 13 by 6, and basically, what that means is that the 13 would Be this measurement around the scalp and the 4 or the 6 would be this measurement down. This one was supposedly 13 by 6, but it goes like really really far down here, which means that your scalp at the top is gon na. Look the most realistic. So if you're going to get a 13 by 4 or 13 by 2, it's only going to go up to bear the lace and then it's basically just at the front that you would be getting that realism effect and then it would start the tracks like here. Back and it won't look as good on the part and then for our synthetic wigs. This is my lace front, cheryl, wig um. So, as you can see, the lace is just on the front and it stops right here, but it still looks pretty real. In my opinion, i like this weight, a lot so when deciding if you should get lace front or not, you should think about the character's hairstyle. So, basically, if the character has bangs you're, not gon na need lace front, but any other style that requires maybe, like a center part or a pulled back. Look you're gon na need lace front to make it look more real unless you're going for that super cartoony like animated vibe, in which case you can definitely get away with not lace front. So now we're gon na get into shops and where to get your wigs. So for me, i purchased all of my human hair, wigs from aliexpress. They come from various factories in china and basically, if you purchase the faster dhl shipping, they get to you in like three days, which i like a lot um or you can wait like two weeks and the shipping is free for most of the sellers shops. As far as synthetic wigs go, i did purchase most of my synthetic wigs on ebay um. That being said, they do have them all over the place. Now. The last time i bought a synthetic wig on ebay was like three or four years ago. They do have synthetic wigs on places like amazon aliexpress as well, there's some on etsy and then there's definitely like cosplay shops and online websites that you can do your cosplay rig shopping on um wig is fashion, is one of them that i have purchased from the Past arda wigs, i also have a few of those. Those are just a handful of places where you can get wigs now, let's get into how much you should be spending on your wigs human hair. Wigs are, of course, more expensive than synthetic wigs, but if you ask me, it's not really that big of a price difference on some of them, like some cosplay wigs that are fully synthetic, are like 85 or more, whereas human hair wigs can go as low as Like 70. um, it all depends on the length that you're going to be buying. Just to give you an example, this is 14 inches. This one is around 8 inches, so you can see the difference, but i did trim this one. A tiny bit i purchased 10 inches and i cut about an inch and a half off. So you do the math the more length you're going to have on your human hair, awake the more expensive the price, so so 14 inches should be around 120 canadian dollars which equals out to hey siri, 120 canadian dollars to us dollars. 120. Canadian dollars is 88.12, so it's around uh 88 to 90 us dollars for 14 inches and then uh. The price varies from there, so it can go if you're going 2 inches shorter it'll be around 15 to 20 dollars less and then so on and so forth. So it's definitely good to decide what length you're going to get before you even start looking at shops. So you know exactly what you're looking for and then, if you do, plan on trimming the wig try to not over buy because then you're just cutting off the money that you spent before. I knew that i actually was really dumb and i bought like a super long wig for my harley suicide squad wig and i cut off about almost 10 inches or more, which is ridiculous because that's like 100 worth of hair. I don't know why. I did that, but yeah. It definitely helps to know going in what length you need synthetic wigs. On the other hand, don't really rely on their length uh for cost. It all depends on the quality of the synthetic fibers and whether it's lace front, which company it comes from where they source their hair. It'S it's pretty much a lot of different factors for synthetic wigs. You can definitely get um a long, synthetic lace front wig for like 40 to 50, us dollars sometimes 60 to 80, but you shouldn't be spending more than 100. In my opinion, on a synthetic wig, my super super long rapunzel wig that came from wigas fashion was, i think, around 85 us dollars plus shipping. So - and it goes like all the way past my butt, you know so that just gives you an idea of prices that you should be paying. However, that being said, if you are gon na be purchasing a pre-styled wig, they will absolutely be more expensive because then you're paying for the work that the seller puts in that's a completely different ball game that i probably won't get into today and then you're going To have to account for uh the cost of materials. So if you're dyeing your human hair, wig yourself, you're going to have to pay for the dye like, if you need to bleach it you're going to have to buy the bleach, the dye, the hair, cutting scissors, the materials like a brush and a bowl and stuff Like that, if you plan on doing it a lot, it's better to just invest in like large quantities of like the developer that way, you'll have it for reuse every time you need it. But if you're gon na be dyeing a synthetic wig, you're gon na either need to invest in some ink or fabric dye, but honestly i've only done each one once i've dyed with ink and i've done. The ink and alcohol method once and i've also done the fabric dye method. The fabric dye method worked pretty well, but it kind of messed up the fibers of the hair, because you need to have it in like really hot water. Anyway, that's another story um. So i'm not really an expert on dyeing synthetic wigs and personally, i just think it's a lot easier to work with human hair and it's like less messy and if you mess up there's always going back like so i just prefer to work with human hair. Wigs for it's like not even that much more expensive, so all right! So now, let's talk about styling, your wigs, so with human hair. Obviously, it's super easy because you can just look up any tutorial or whatever you want on youtube and you can find super easy ways to style, hair and that's kind of another reason why i like human hair. So much is because i can do things like pin, curls and it'll actually look the way. I want it to look, whereas with synthetic wigs, it's a lot harder to style. The way you want if the wig doesn't come pre-styled. So i'm going to talk about my cheryl wig again, so when styling synthetic wigs, the first thing you want to think about is, if it's heat resistant and where you got your wig, will most likely always tell you. If it's heat resistant or not some wigs, it can only go up to a certain temperature and they tend to vary depending on the fibers. Then you're gon na look at the character's hair and you're gon na decipher um. What kind of style you have to do with it? So for cheryl i got this wig and it came super curly like locks um, so this wig was heat resistant. So what i did was, i took a straightener to it and i went through the curls with the straightener so that it just kind of broke them up and made it more wavy as opposed to like curly. So you can do that. You can use a steamer. I know a lot of people do that where they will put the hair in pink rolls or rolls or whatever put a bag over the head and then use their steamer to steam inside i've. Never personally tried that method um, but i have used a curling iron on weeks before clipped them up and just done some curls. That way, which i find works for me too, gives kind of like that loose wave effect. So now that we have our wig um, we're gon na figure out the best way, how to put it on we're gon na start with what kind of wig net would you need? So there are different types of wig nets, so we have our standard nylony nude wig net. Like this same thing in black, and then we have the actual netting like that in nude or in black and in my opinion, um. The best wig net to use would be this one in black. You know what i'm going to show you an example, because i know a lot of people like the nylon types of wing nets, but i'll kind of show you why i prefer the netting. The first thing you're going to want to do put all your hair back like this and then you're, going to put your wig net directly on top of your head like this and then as you're pulling it over your ear. You'Re going to put all your hair behind your ear like that, and then all the hair, that's in the back you're just gon na, like kind of twist it up a bit and tuck it in and then what i like to do is just kind of like Move it around so that it's not all in one place in the back of my head, just making sure that it's nice and flat and then just kind of like pull it back a bit over your hairline. So now that you have your wignet on, you can either choose to put something like a self-adhesive bandage material. I got this from the pharmacy. It'S like kind of like a sticky rubbery soft material um, which really helps to keep your wig in place or there's this kind of product, which is a velcro band. It'S like velvety material, and this is specifically for keeping your wig on so for my bigger wigs. Like rapunzel or ariel i'll use this, but if i'm just having a normal everyday kind of wig, just the net is enough. So now we're about to put our wig on and what are we gon na? Do we're not gon na turn it upside down, because you know what that does that completely messes up your entire wig? If you put on your wig upside down and do that whole awkward like head, flip thing and then pull the back down, that makes me cringe. So much because you just spent all that time, styling your wig and getting it nice and not frizzy, and then you go and do that and what does that achieve i'll, never know, okay. So what you're going to do is hook it to the size that you want for your head and then grab the front just turn it around like that grab the front kind of like use your hands to manipulate it, and just put it on like you would Like a hat, i guess you're gon na, like kind of rearrange the front, make sure it looks realistic, and now i'm gon na show you what i mean with the wig net. Um okay, keep in mind, but i didn't cut the lace yet. So that's why it's all like this. So if you look at my scalp, you can actually see the wig net through. So the reason why a darker wig net would be ideal is so that you don't see the wig net through or the line of it, because people's roots tend to be darker than the ends of their hair. So my reasoning is, if you look at it like that, you would see dark it just would blend in a lot better. So now i'm going to try on a black wig net and you'll see the difference. But the reason why i like the netting wig nets better, like this mesh, as opposed to this nylon, is so that your combs on the inside of your wig have something to hook into. I never understood why these types of weakness are so popular because all of wigs, mostly every single wig you get, is going to have combs so like what's your comb sticking into, if it doesn't stick into your hair, you know i'll, never understand it. So now i'm gon na put it on again and now you can see that it kind of blends in and you don't see any line of the wig net. So that's personally why i prefer darker wig nuts. That'S just me, though everybody has their own preference. If you want it to look more like a scalp, i guess you would like use a nude wig net and try and make it blend in so that you don't see that line. But for me i always see that line. So it just bothers me a lot. So now you have the option of either gluing down your lace or leaving it as is, and it definitely all depends on the style that you're planning. So if i were to be putting this wig in super high pigtails with all the hair back like that, i would definitely want to glue down my lace, and so i get a lot of questions daily about which lace glue i use. So i thought i would show you i used the got to be glued spiking glue. Um i've been using this for three and a half years now, and i just find it works really well for me, however, i think that this particular bottle is getting old now, because it's stopped working as well, but i know a lot of people use spirit gum Which is another great option, but i just find that spirit gum rips out my hair way too much, and it's just so harsh on my skin. So this is actually a product for like like mohawks and styling, your own hair super crazy, but it works as a glue too, and so since it's good for hair, it's good. It doesn't rip out your hair edges. It'S not like super crusty on your skin and you can just use water to remove it, and then it has like the matching like from the same collection, the hairspray. I showed this because this is the best cosplay hairspray ever it has the same kind of super crazy styling hold if you're doing like a really crazy cosplay hairstyle. This will definitely hold it in place, not sponsored so then for taking off your wig. It'S going to be the exact same process as putting it on just backwards, so you're going to go like this. Take it up like that, grab it and pull up. Now you have your option of putting it back on your wig head, which i will do for for my more styled. Wigs, however, for just a normal down um, as is wig i'll, just put it back in the bag in the net that it came in. So something like this, basically, what i would do put the paper padding in then put the net on like this and then put it in the bag, and that way it's all ready for travel and whatever else you have in mind. So what about washing your wigs? So how often should you wash your wig um, i think since we're cosplayers and we don't really wear our wigs every single day, um washing it maybe maybe like once or twice a year um. I know i personally don't wash my wigs too too often because i'll just wear one one time a year, so it's like it's not really that vital. However, with human hair wigs, i find they tend to get a little bit dirtier easier than synthetic wigs. So i do wash my human hair wigs a little more often than that. Also you want to get like all the glue off and everything if you used lace glue. However, um washing your human hair wig is gon na completely get rid of the style that you did, for instance, like a style like this, which took a long time to style. It'S going to stay like that for a while. You know i'm only going to wash it like when i absolutely have to, and obviously the processes on washing human hair versus synthetic is going to be completely different. Synthetic wigs are not human hair, so therefore they don't take too regular shampoo and conditioner. They might take like that much, but it won't do that. It won't do anything. It'S basically just going to clean the wig of the oils and everything from your own head, but it's not actually going to like rejuvenate the synthetic wig. If you want to clean your synthetic wig as well as rejuvenate the style and the fibers you're going to want to use laundry detergent and fabric softener to wash it, so you just put it in a big pot or maybe a sink or a bathtub and you're Gon na put equal parts of detergent and fabric softener at the same time, and just give it a gentle wash you're not going to be too rough with your wig at all. Try to be really really gentle when you're washing it and then you just rinse it really well, and you can re-comb it and hopefully that will kind of breathe a new life into your synthetic wig. I'Ve done that a few times and it really really works. Also, after that, you would want to brush it either with a wig brush a wide tooth comb. If it's curly or a wet brush, i find wet brushes, are my favorite. They work on human hair and on wigs synthetic wigs too. Sometimes i'll even trim off a little bit of the dead ends, um, so to speak of the synthetic fibers because sometimes they tend to like clump up at the back and just create a lot of unnecessary knots and everything. So trimming definitely helps and then, of course, your human hair wigs are going to be the exact same process that you would do on your normal hair, so shampoo, conditioner and then maybe a leave-in conditioner as well as like, if you're styling with heat, you can put A heat protectant to protect your wig, that's what i like to do and that's it yeah! That'S why human hair wigs are super easy, so now we're going to talk about how to store your wings um. I also get a lot of questions about that on a daily basis like where i store my wigs and how i store them, how i travel with them. So basically, i always store my wigs either on a head, as you can see here or in the bag that they came in. Whoever gets to be on a head is very lucky um, but it definitely depends on the type of wig that it is. So i think about like: will it get messed up if it's closed flat and kind of squished and in a bag and in a drawer will it get messed up? If the answer is yes, then i put it on ahead, but the heads are kind of randomly hard to get and are expensive. Sometimes so that's why i only have four um i'll usually keep one of the heads, maybe the wig that i'm working on at the moment or the cosplay that i'm going to be doing next i'll leave it on the head upstairs in my room. But for all my other wigs, i keep them downstairs and i have a big tupperware drawer unit that i keep a lot of the ones that are in bags in and then also some of them are in boxes like this. So this is my super long rapunzel wig and it's just in what it came in and i keep this downstairs as well and then, as far as traveling with wigs goes, it's super easy to travel with a wig like this, because you could just plop it in Your bag or your suitcase and it's fine, but if it needs to be on a head, i'm gon na show what i do for specifically my princess, wigs and stuff, like that i'll have them first on a head and then what i'll do is i'll put the Net over it, and then i put a scarf like a satin scarf and i wrap it around just so. The hair doesn't move around too much, and then i have it in like a tote bag or a little reusable bag that i can carry around and it's super easy to travel like that and it stays nice and intact all right. So that's it. Actually, that has been wigs 101 hope you enjoyed. I hope it was helpful. Let me know if you like videos like this and we'll definitely make more. So thanks for watching and i'll see you in the next one bye um. Oh no. I store my wigs on their head. Their heads, you