Adventures of Jin & Friends

I think a tip that some beginner cosplayers ought to know is that some wigs just aren’t meant to be worn the way they look straight out of the bag. Most of the time, bangs are made really long so that people with different sized foreheads can just trim it to suit their faces. (I’ve seen people at cons try to compensate for the long bangs by pulling the netting farther up over their scalp, which is uncomfortable and looks odd most of the time. But I wondered if I might come off as an ass if I corrected them when they weren’t asking me.)

Earlier, I wasn’t too happy with a wig I had ordered to use for cosplay and a concept shoot. I wish I had taken a photo of the wig before I modified it, but I was too discouraged at the time and wasn’t sure I’d be able to fix it.

It was a short, spiky wig but the fibers were too freakishly straight that it looked very unnatural. The bangs also stuck up so much that it looked like they were trying very hard not to make contact with my forehead. My forehead was offended. It is a reasonably normal forehead that hair ought to be able to sit upon in a spectacularly normal way.

Ahem. I digress.

I went on to check the label to see if the fibers were heat-resistant, and I was relieved to see that they were. There was hope for the angry orange creature on my head! I got some scissors, and stol- ahem, borrowed a curling iron and… beauty razors I think they are called. That thing I’m holding on the top photo which is in a most provocative shade of pink.

I started by using the scissors to cut the wig down to a shape I was happy with, holding the blades parallel with the direction of the fibers. Snip snip snip.

Then I set the curling iron on what I’d say is low to medium heat (I should pay more attention to the things I do). Taking small pinches of hair at a time, I curled them in different directions just enough to give the whole thing an overall more natural look. I didn’t hold the fibers in the barrel long. I kind of just clamp some hair in, roll it up for a second and let go. They went from straight like uncooked spaghetti, to what you see in the photos. I also curled the bangs inwards so they’d rest on my forehead like bangs are supposed to do.

Next up was the razor. I just held bits of hair at the ends and ran the razor back and forth across the strands (blade and strands perpendicular to each other, as pictured above) to trim them further or simply give them more texture and dimension. Shhk shhk shhk. This also helps for instances when you feel that the ends of areas you cut with the scissors look too blunt. Running the blade through the ends a few times makes it look more, what’s the word — feathered?

Please be careful with the razors! I had underestimated them once for their girlish colors and build, and ended up with a small slash on my forehead and had blood dripping down my nose bridge for several minutes. ACTION STAR MOMENT But I know better now!

I don’t really know how I come up with these things and I”m sure there are better ways to go about it, but I hope this was helpful somehow. This isn’t really meant to be a step-by-step tutorial. I guess my point was just that there are things you can do to a wig that might look disappointing straight out of the bag. I ended up actually very happy with mine.

I still wish I could have taken more pictures to help my descriptions, but as I said, earlier I wasn’t entirely certain it would work out the way I had hoped. If things went differently then I’d be left with a series of photos that tell the story of how I had killed a wig. Hahah! I really must learn to have more faith in myself sometimes.