How to Wash a Cosplay Wig

Many people are afraid to wash their synthetic cosplay wigs because they are afraid that they will ruin them. You may look at a wet wig and freak out, thinking it is ruined forever. But please, calm down: wet wigs always look like a disaster. There’s nothing to worry about! Washing a wig is actually quite simple.

It is important to wash wigs between styling to get all of the hairspray and styling product out before you start your next styling. Leaving hairspray in a wig for long periods of time can also cause little white flecks to appear in the wig as the hairspray deteriorates. This can cause your wig to loose quality as well, and become coarse or lose it’s shine. That’s why, if you are not going to be wearing your wig for a long time, it’s a good idea to wash it before you store it. But don’t worry, it takes many many month before product will start to deteriorate high-quality wigs. I have yet to lose a wig to styling products being left in too long. Most wigs can be revived anyway with a good comb and conditioning.

Anyway, to wash your wig, first clean your sink, and rinse the sink to get all the cleaning products off. Then fill your sink with room-temperature water. You don’t want to use hot water because you don’t want to make the fibers pliable, just clean them. So room temperature, to slightly warm should do it. Use a cap full or about a quarter size squeeze of gentle shampoo. Baby shampoo is ideal, but anything that says “gentle” on the bottle should work, just don’t use too much. You can also buy special wig shampoos on the internet. I have not found need of them.

Swish around the water with your hand to distribute the shampoo. Remove the wig from your wig head and make sure there are no pins, wig caps, or accessories still in it. place the wig in the sink and gentle move it side to side. Do not swirl, scrunch, or knead the wig. Wig fibers become very weak when wet, so you need to slosh the wig back and forth in the water gently. Let the wig sit for only five minutes to let the shampoo do its job. Then, lift the wig out of the sink carefully. Drain the sink, refill the sink with room temperature water, and put a cap full of conditioner in the water and slosh it around. There are wig conditioners available online, but I find that my own conditioner for real hair is fine.

The conditioner may clump up in the water. With you wig off to the side, break up any clumps of conditioner before putting your wig in the water. This can be a challenge, but you don’t want any little conditioner clumps getting stuck in your wig because they’re not that easy to wash out. You want to break up and dissolve the conditioner.

Once you have minimized conditioner lumps, gently place the wig back in the sink and once again slosh it side to side gently. Let sit for five minutes. Now, once again, remove the wig from the sink and place it off to the side. Drain and refill the sink, but this time, don’t put any product in the water. Place the wig in the sink and slosh it from side to side gently for about five minutes to get all the conditioner out. If there are any clumps stuck in it, carefully remove them while the wig is submerged in water.

Once you think you’ve got all the conditioner out, remove your wig from the sink, and stretch it over a wig head to dry. You’ll need lots of pins to hold it in place because the water-weight will make it very heavy. Your wig head will probably fall over if not secured. DO NOT BRUSH, COMB, OR REPOSITION THE FIBERS OF YOUR WIG UNTIL IT IS COMPLETELY DRY. Touch it only enough to get it on the wig head. If you sloshed it around gently enough, you should not have trouble accessing the opening for the wig head.

While wet, your wig will look like a terrible mess. But do not fret. As it dries, it will look more like hair again, and less like a slimy, malformed critter. Do not attempt to detangle your wig until it is completely dry. This will take at least 8 hours, and for long wigs, it make take more than 24 hours. Be patient, and don’t wait until the last second to wash out and restyle your wig. You’ll regret it. Your wig may be a little tangled after washing, but with patience you’ll be able to get all the knots out pretty easily. Tangling is just what wigs do, and there isn’t all that much you can do to stop it.

I hope that you found this tutorial helpful and feel better about that sopping fur ball in the sink.

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Howl’s wig

This weekend I cut and styled our Howl wig! It was a really simple cut. All I did was add bangs. I put in a little bit of product to help make the wig jut a tad piecey. This wig is going to be in the cosplayer’s face all day because Howl’s bangs are so long, so adding a little bit of product to the bangs makes them softer and easier to keep out of the eyes. Just a gentle reminder to everyone, I do take commissions on cutting and styling wigs for cosplay. 😀

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Finished Sophie! Set to Debut at Anime Boston.

The final touch to my Sophie (Howl’s Moving Castle) costume, the wig, is now complete! I am ready for Anime Boston! I’ve got my ticket, my costume and my cosplay group. Now, I wait.

I am really happy with how the wig turned out. I started with a plain, just-off-the-shoulder length silver wig from ebay. This is a really thick wig, and I am very happy with my purchase.

To start off the styling, I first cut in bangs in two layers; the bottom layer of bangs is a little shorter than the top layer, because I wanted to give them a little bit of volume and life. Sophie’s bangs are all over the place in the movie. Epic hair. I knew that I didn’t want to use a lot of styling product in this wig, because I want the hair to move a little, so I spent more time on the cut. Most of my time was spent thinning. I thinned each layer of bangs separately, holding my shears vertical, and cutting out small bits of fiber at a time.

Then I cut the sides and back of the wig. Sophie got her short hair when a fire demon burned off her long braid. I would imagine that this left her hair slightly uneven. Now, I don’t want to look totally disheveled in my costume, but I do think that a shorter-in-the-back cut is a great way to interpret Sophie’s hair. I didn’t want to get too modern, so I only stacked the back a little bit. The sides are left long, and taper very slightly to the shorter back. The result is a very cute little bob. Then, once again, I spent a lot of time thinning the bottom of the wig so it wouldn’t look so perfect. It was burned off in the story after all.

Finally, I curled the bangs just a touch to give them more volume, and sprayed the wig with a lusterizer to make it shiny and to prevent tangles. Then I used a TINY bit of manipulating gel to make the ends stay together nicer.

Because there wasn’t any intense styling involved in this wig, and because it is short, I am not afraid to wear this thing outside on a windy day. Bring it on, nature! I believe that this wig is simple enough to handle it. 

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How to Style a Plausible Officer Jenny Wig

I started with a wig I got off eBay that was the PERFECT color. (Looks a little too blue in these photos though) It is mid-back length with super long bangs. First, twist the bangs into three sections and apply light heat with a hair dryer for 5 seconds at a time at the roots to train the fibers to separate this way

once the sections are molded, cut the bangs to the desired length.

using combined heat and got 2b glued hair gel, mold the bangs into chunky, spiky sections. Additional cutting to shape bangs may be needed.

Now cut the back of the wig into three sections of subtle, LONG LAYERS. Keep it soft and wispy. And imagine the spikes you’re going to make as you cut.

Another view of the cut.

Working from the top down, wrap chunks of hair around a drinking glass and apply heat to curl slightly. Then, holding the hair into ring-shapes, spray each spike with got 2b glued BLASTING SPRAY to get the curls to stay in the air.

work you’re way down the rest of the wig, curling one spike at a time, and finishing off the ends with got 2b glued gel/cream.

Finished!

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How to add spikes and volume to a wig.

This tutorial used to be located on facebook, with a link on the Tutorials page leading to it, but because of Facebook’s ever-changing privacy policy, some guests may have trouble viewing the tutorial on facebook, so I decided to move it here in post form. The link on the tutorials page will now lead to this post.

This tutorial will show you how to add moderate to heavy volume to a wig. It is also a helpful method for spiking short wigs.

Items that you need: a foam wig head, scissors, a wig, a toothpick, string and sewing pins. Styling gel and hairspray are optional but recommended.

stick the tooth pick through the bottom of the wig so that it sits in the middle of the opening.

pin your wig to the foam wig head. Pin around the base of the wig and in a few spots around the crown

Cut the wig into the desired style, leaving the hair long around the nape.

Also, it is a good idea to leave the wig a little longer than you would like throughout, because once spiked, the style may look shorter than you expected.

tie a string to the toothpick that you stuch through the bottom.

tie the wig hanging upside down in the shower.

heat a sauce pan of water to 180 – 185 degrees Fahrenheit and bring it into the bathroom with a big cup. Dont worry, the wig won’t melt.

use the cup to pour hot water over every part of the wig that you want to add volume too. Get it soaking wet. Now let dry for 7 or 8 hours.

Flip right-side up. Do not attempt to brush wig until it is completely dry. Use hair spray and spiking gel to hold style.

Shorter haircuts are easier to spike. For dramatic spiking, try applying hair glue while wig is upside down. Elmer’s glue, and got 2b Glued are good products to try.

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