I bought a wig today. Not because of any medical need, but for fun & vanity.
I pass a black-hair store every day, and today I finally went in. I was astounded at the variety, the quality and the low prices. For the price of a normal top or skirt, I got a wig that is comfortable to wear, looks convincing, looks good on me and is totally fun. Man, I feel like a totally different woman. New clothes don’t have as much of an impact as a totally different head of hair does.
I just sent my husband an email that “he shouldn’t freak out when he comes home” in 15 minutes, but that “I had done something rather drastic and different at the hairdressers salon today”. I wonder if he will fall for it.
And fitting the dresses with the help of the store lady was so much fun! I almost fell for a longer black one, but now I have a shoulder length reddish brown one. It is quite something different then my usual blond hair.
I’m vain, I know. But I never thought this would be so much fun!
The 60’s and 70’s are back. I can remember a lot of women with wigs when I was a kid. Sometimes they work and other times they should be buried by the dog. I assume yours is in good shape. Have fun with it.
I’ve been tempted to get a wig but I didn’t know they were readily available anymore. I wore one for awhile in the 70’s and loved it. My hair is fine, thin, and straight, and I’m tired of getting body perms.
I have considered buying one myself (because sometimes I want pink hair but I can’t dye my actual hair pink due to corporate policy), but don’t you need short hair to fit it all under there? I prefer my hair to be long, and that’s my primary worry.
Oh and do they get itchy? All the costume wigs I’ve ever worn caused scalp itch after a couple of hours, but I presume a more grown-up wig wouldn’t be so cheaply made.
After a recent hair disaster, I took my teen to a wig shop. Tons of variety and not terribly expensive for synthetics. Fairly realistic looking, even in blond colors. Much better than back when wig styles were all Eva Gabors and Pole Dancers. Long hair stuffs under the wig cap easily. I’ve been told that wig shops in black neighborhoods have better prices and more styles.
I find that a wig cap gives me a headache much more quickly than a wig alone, so on the occasions that I stuff my long, thick hair up under a wig, I separate it into two ponies at the base of my neck, then pin them up into an X shape (the right pony gets clipped to the upper left of the back of my head, and the left one onto the upper right) using flat clips. A video of the basic technique is here, starting at around 1:55.
needscoffee, mine was also in a black hair shop. The lady helping me was very nice and knowledgeable. She advised me this wig because it would be better in summer. Less warm. This one was made from real human (Chinese) hair and cost 42 euros, that is about 50 bucks.
Caucasian wig shops usually seem to cater to women who have lost their hair to illness, and need a wig for medical reasons. Those are hugely expensive. Black hair shops, however, seem to sell to women wearing them just for diversity or special occasions.
I can’t tell about the itchy part; I’ve only worn it for an hour now. Will have to report on that later.
I can tell how my husband reacted. He was totally convinced that it was real, and said that it was really different and that he would have to get used to it. When I went: “tadaah!” and removed the wig, his mouth fell open. Then he wanted to wear it himself. It made him look like a weird Korean rock anime rock star.
Then I put it back on, he looked at us two in the mirror, and then… well, he jumped me. Gila, on what occasions do you wear your wig?
Thumbs up! You look great both ways, but what fun. A bonus for me is that the part I bolded reminded me that when I was very young my mom, whose hair was long and quite dark, bought a short “frosted” wig for no other reason than to surprise my father. Practically the only memory I have of them interacting pleasantly is of him coming home and progressing slowly from shock to peals of hearty laughter.
About wigs in general, I recently watched a Debbie Reynolds movie. Part of a scene of her getting ready for a party included picking up her wig from having it styled. It was all matter of fact. Just an accessory like jewelry or a scarf.
Maastricht - on occasions where it’s really necessary for me to have hair. I cover my hair for religious reasons (I’m a married Orthodox Jewish woman; there was a whole long thread about this a few years back that you can search out if you’re interested), and while I find wigs both uncomfortable and unpleasant (no matter what, I never look like myself to myself), it’s sometimes socially necessary for me to look more conventional. I wear a scarf or hat most of the time, but pull one of my two wigs out of the closet for formal occasions (weddings and such) and times when I need to look really professional (interviews, big presentations, etc.)
Very cute! My daughter has a platinum blonde wig that she wears for fun occasionally (her hair is jet black). She wore it to a St. Paddy’s Day parade last weekend and some of her friends didn’t even recognize her.
See, now I want a damned wig. I am so impressionable! I have a friend who when I first met him had a blue mohawk, and he went to a black lady wig store to get a wig because he has breakfast every Saturday morning with his grandma and he didn’t want her to be upset. The staff thought this was the cutest, funniest thing that had ever, ever happened.
What’s surprising and funny to me is that evidently black lady wig stores are an international phenomenon - somehow I thought it was just American.
Like Zsofia, now I want one, despite never having had the inclination before. Except I can’t image a way to fit all my actual hair up under one, I’d probably just end up looking like I had a deformed head.
You picked a great wig for yourself, Maastricht! Red looks good on ya.
For the long-haired ladies, I believe a lot of wigs have a little extra “pooch” in the back, at the nape, to make space for pinned-up hair. The one I bought for Halloween did, anyway.
I also found that using a cap helped a lot. It’s just a nylon skull cap, but holds the natural hair in place, and keeps a barrier between the itchy mesh from the wig and your head. I found that copious numbers of hair pins (probably 20) were extremely helpful, I used a few to pin the skull cap in place to my hair, then the rest to pin the wig to the skull cap so it wasn’t pulling on bits of my hair which can make it feel sore in spots. By pinning it all really well, you can swing it around like real hair, and not have to worry about having the top down on the car or having it slide in a weird direction while dancing and head-banging or whatnot.
