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I went to a wig shop today and had a consultation.
It was great! I have realized that wearing a wig is not outside of the realm of options anymore. The woman who did my consult said she has a number of clients who have hair, but choose to wear wigs - they like to keep their hair short for low maintenance, but wear wigs out in public. These are professional women who are not in the entertainment industry.
I am excited about this!
The wigs were much more realistic looking than I thought they would be. I especially like the lace front wigs. It was amazing how the front blends into your own hairline.
I'm not ready to cut all my hair off and start wearing wigs, but I am going to learn how to braid my hair so its flat, then will probably buy a wig and start wearing it on occasion.
I get lots of compliments on my hair now, because it is long and thick, but the older I get, the more work it takes to make it look "great".
As time goes on and I get more and more tired of dying my hair, paying for expensive products because it is so coarse, getting hair cuts, spending hours using hair dryers, flat irons and hot rollers, I may eventually opt to cut it short, stop dying it (its over 70% gray now), and invest in a wig collection.
No I haven't and I doubt I could stand them as I can barely stand sunglasses, hats or hair accesories but I have a friend who had chemotherapy and her wigs looked very natural.
Does anyone know where to get those gadgets that attach the dummy wig head to the tabletop?
I don't even know what they are called.
I am toying around to get real hair, but would like to set and style it. I will not do that on my head, which is hard. It would be much easier to do it on the manikin head, then just leave it air dry and comb out when I am ready to wear it, but I would need one of those contraptions. I will not buy a wig without one because it sort of defeats the purpose.
Okay. I found out. They are called adjustable wig clamps. Amazon sells them.
For $1500 I can buy a real hair wig that'll last me 3 years if I'm careful. So that's what I do. In the long run, it's around the same price as getting your hair professionally cut every 2 weeks, and a color and professional deep-conditioning treatment once every 2 months at a spa-style salon.
Except - you never have to worry about the roots growing out
If I got a real hair wig, should I get one online and take it to my local shop to get it colored and cut?
Should I buy the right color and cut from the online place?
Do you have a favorite place where you can get them? I'm afraid of getting ripped off, being my first big purchase.
I get the feeling that if I buy the wig at my local salon it may cost a lot more.
AnonChick- do you think a woman can get away with wearing a synthetic wig without everyone knowing it is a wig?
In some ways, I think it if I ever do decide to start wearing wigs, I would rather just have it be obvious that I am wearing one rather than trying to disguise it and having people snicker behind my back.
Absolutely. If you stick to natural styles and colors, and get a well-wefted cap, and high quality fibers, and take CARE of the wig. You'd be surprised at how many people wear them, that you're not noticing.
Is there any place, maybe online, where a person can purchase the metal gadget that screws onto the tabletop with the other end a protrusion that the Styrofoam wighead sits on?
If I got a real hair wig, should I get one online and take it to my local shop to get it colored and cut?
Should I buy the right color and cut from the online place?
Do you have a favorite place where you can get them? I'm afraid of getting ripped off, being my first big purchase.
I get the feeling that if I buy the wig at my local salon it may cost a lot more.
Your best bet, is to go to a professional wig store where the people who work there are more like salon owners than retail clerks.
A place where they have booths where they can do private consultations, and where there's a professional wig stylist on staff. I recommend that you not buy one color, and have it dyed another. Buy the color you want to actually wear. The same goes for the length, to some extent. It's a good idea to buy it slightly longer than you expect you really want to wear it.
Wig hair does get split ends eventually, and needs to be trimmed. And obviously, it doesn't grow. Plus if you want bangs, it would need to be cut. Human hair wigs are -usually- not made in a finished style. Some of them come permed curly, many have a natural body wave, and they come in all manner of quality (there's Remy, Asian, European, ***, etc. etc. etc.).
The goal is to pick the length, thickness, cap-type, color, and quality that best matches what you want to end up with. And remember "asian" human hair is naturally black, so if you're getting a blonde wig made with asian hair, it means it's already been dyed. And they haven't "washed out" yet...so you wouldn't want to dye over that, you could ruin it that way.
Blonde wigs tend to get brassy over time and you can solve that very easily:
You buy a bottle of Fanciful rinse in a golden shade -just- slightly darker than the color your hair is now...and add a couple of capsful of that temporary rinse to an 8-ounce bottle of water, with a spray top.
And then you just give your brassed-out blonde wig a light spritz every couple of days and right after washing. Restores it easy without ruining the cap or the hair itself.
Your best bet, is to go to a professional wig store where the people who work there are more like salon owners than retail clerks.
A place where they have booths where they can do private consultations, and where there's a professional wig stylist on staff. I recommend that you not buy one color, and have it dyed another. Buy the color you want to actually wear. The same goes for the length, to some extent. It's a good idea to buy it slightly longer than you expect you really want to wear it.
Wig hair does get split ends eventually, and needs to be trimmed. And obviously, it doesn't grow. Plus if you want bangs, it would need to be cut. Human hair wigs are -usually- not made in a finished style. Some of them come permed curly, many have a natural body wave, and they come in all manner of quality (there's Remy, Asian, European, ***, etc. etc. etc.).
The goal is to pick the length, thickness, cap-type, color, and quality that best matches what you want to end up with. And remember "asian" human hair is naturally black, so if you're getting a blonde wig made with asian hair, it means it's already been dyed. And they haven't "washed out" yet...so you wouldn't want to dye over that, you could ruin it that way.
Blonde wigs tend to get brassy over time and you can solve that very easily:
You buy a bottle of Fanciful rinse in a golden shade -just- slightly darker than the color your hair is now...and add a couple of capsful of that temporary rinse to an 8-ounce bottle of water, with a spray top.
And then you just give your brassed-out blonde wig a light spritz every couple of days and right after washing. Restores it easy without ruining the cap or the hair itself.
Thank you for the very helpful information.
I'm not quite sure what 'washed out' means.
I frosted my own hair for a time, and those fanciful rinses always gave me a bad reaction, though the way you're saying to use it there would be no problem. If blond hair gets brassy, to me it means that it was never bleached light enough to begin with.
I have brown hair and have always managed to bleach it to nearly platinum in one treatment. I am thinking that, in black oriental hair, they are not getting it light enough and just putting some toner on it to camouflage. So the toner washes out' showing the brassy bleach job underneath. This is sad.
No it's just that wig hair doesn't grow. It doesn't have roots, it gets no nutrition, it gets no oil from the scalp when you brush it to give it gloss. It -will- eventually fade in color, if the color is synthetic over natural hair of a different color.
Permanent coloring isn't truly permanent. It -does- fade somewhat, and more when you're outside a lot in the sun. Bleaching -will- get brassy eventually. There's no root touch-ups on wigs. The hair is dyed -after- it has been cut from the head of the woman who grew it.
There's just no way around it, and even a high-quality hand-made wig, IF it has been dyed and isn't the natural color, -will- fade.
And in fact, your own natural hair, without any dye at all, _will_ lighten. I -do- have hair, albeit not much. I have not stepped foot out of my house without a wig covering my head in 30 years. My hair, such as it is, has not been exposed to the sun in over 30 years. No sun exposure at all. Not even to get the mail and walk back inside. My hair was always a light brown, growing up. Turns out, it's actually naturally dark brown. But being a kid, running around outside, doing normal things that people do when they're not wearing wigs, the sun gave it a lighter hue than it was naturally.
That's just what happens to hair when it's exposed to the sun. And if you're wearing a wig that -does not grow- and so cutting off the lighter parts isn't going to make the darker hair grow in...means that your wig -will- fade in color to some extent or another. Even glossy black un-dyed pure asian hair will get dull after a year of washing it every 2 weeks.
That monofiber is for extensions though, not for wigs. I suppose a wigmaker could use it to make wigs, but you'd have to find a wigmaker. And then you'd have to pay for the cap to be custom made, and then you'd have to pay the wigmaker for the time to hand-tie every strand (or 2 strands at a time, maximum) into the cap. This can take up to 60 hours of work, since it's being done by hand (those extension lengths don't come pre-wefted). At the going rate for wigmakers, you're better off paying for real hair. That's IF you can find an actual wigmaker. Most of them are in Korea now.
I wear real hair wigs exclusively. I used to wear the synthetics but I was going through one every 3 months and the prices went up. Cheap wigs don't last even a month, when you're wearing them all day every moment you're in public, including in the swimming pool or lakes or the ocean or out sweating doing yard work or at the gym. So you really have to get a decent quality fiber. And even the good quality ones won't last more than 3 months wearing them -that- regularly. At $300 a pop, it ends up being around $1200 per year in wigs.
For $1500 I can buy a real hair wig that'll last me 3 years if I'm careful. So that's what I do. In the long run, it's around the same price as getting your hair professionally cut every 2 weeks, and a color and professional deep-conditioning treatment once every 2 months at a spa-style salon.
Except - you never have to worry about the roots growing out
Not to revive an old thread, but there are a ton of places where you can buy heat-styling wigs. I mainly use them to cosplay, but Arda Wigs, Epic Cosplay, Cosplay.com are US-based places that sell wigs that you can heat style.
They're also waaaaaay less than $300 a pop. A friend of mine only wears Arda Wigs (all day erry day) and she still has all of the ones she bought from them 3 years ago.
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