Hair, hair, hair!

A great cosplay always needs an accurate wig. Wig shopping is very important to a costume because most of the time the wig needs styling and cutting. When I say "wig" I do not mean wigs from party stores. Party store wigs are made of cheap plastic. The kind of wigs used for great cosplay are professional grade high-quality wigs that are either made of Japanese kanekalon or toyokalon fibers. A helpful website that has tutorials wig styling and know-how is Katie Bair's Petting Zoo Wigs. Katie is a professional costumer and has been working on wigs for as long as I've known.

Here are basics for wig working. First off wigs are not human hair. They do not have their own chemistry or natural oil to them, so hair products that work with hair oil have no effect on wigs. The best product to use on kanekalon or toyokalon wigs is alcohol-based hairspray or hair gel. Waxes, pomades, conditioner and other greasy products do not work at all. The second best thing to do while styling a wig is to have it pinned down to a wighead. If you can have the person who is going to wear the wig actually wear it while you style it that would be even better, but that's not necessarily going to happen. So the option of using a wighead base is the safest bet; you can purchase these at beauty stores that sell hair products. When cutting a wig you can use sharp scissors, and be sure to cut less than what is needed and then try it on, and adjust from there if necessary. If a wig is curly or wavy and you want to straighten it DO NOT use a hair straightener. This will cause it to melt the fibers! Remember these wigs are not human hair. So Katie Bair has a tutorial written just for straightening wigs which can be found here. It basically straightens via very hot water and air drying. Also please note that just like hair straighteners and flatirons, hair dyers can also melt the fibers too. so please stay away from them!

My Alice wig for the costume required minimal work. I bought the wig from a very well-known online cosplay store called Amphigory. This is a picture of the wig style I purchased...

As you can see the wig has the perfect color for Alice's hair.

All I needed to do was trim it to the desired length which was just above the shoulders, and straighten the waves out of the wig. After I cut and straightened the fibers I styled the front bangs and set it with a light coating of hairspray to keep the style in place.

This is the wig pinned to the wighead.

This is me wearing the wig and the hat.

That's all there is to it.