A Cosplayer’s Guide to Wigs
Wigs are essential to any cosplay look and luckily for the community, there are a lot of options out there for them. Having been cosplaying since 2006, here are some shops I have wigs from that I highly recommend checking out.
Arda Wigs
https://arda-wigs.com
If you're looking for a wig for your next costume that comes in a variety of colors and can take a beating, look no further than Arda Wigs!
Arda Wigs has been around for awhile in the cosplay community and were among some of the first to create wigs specifically with cosplayers in mind. Offering a large selection of styles and colors, you're bound to find the right wig for your next cosplay project.
The quality of their wigs is phenomenal! I have never purchased a wig from them I didn't like. Their fibers are soft and can be heated which makes them great for styling. Whenever I have a project that I know I'll be doing a lot of styling and cutting, I tend to lean towards Arda for my wig selection as their wigs hold a shape very well. Even if I'm not doing a heavy styling job, I like that their wigs have very little shine to them which makes them look more realistic. I can't tell you how many times I've worn their wigs and have received compliments from people who thought the wig was my real hair!
Their pricing is very fair given the quality of the wigs. A regular wig can run you $25-50 with specialty and lace front wigs being in the $70-90 range.
If you ever find yourself struggling to pick a wig for your next costume or just simply need guidance on how to style a wig, Arda's customer service team has your back. Arda Wigs is really good when it comes to answering emails and everyone on their team is very knowledgable in both the art of wigs and in the fandom world. Many times I've emailed them asking for wig recommendations and I have never been disappointed with their aid.
Arda has a Youtube Channel where they are constantly uploading video tutorials with their most asked styling tips or most requested character styles. You can find mostly everything such as "How to Spike Wigs" to "How to Tone Split Wigs". Recently they posted a few tutorials for Jojo's Bizarre Adventure which helped me tremendously with some current costumes I had been working on. They have also been posting Wig Suggestions to their website of some of the more popular series to help cosplayers pick the right wig without needing to send an email.
Wigs aren't the only thing they offer. Arda Wigs also sells a large assortment of wig styling tools as well as makeup imported from Japan. Arda over the years has expanded their business to include more products to make cosplayers lives easier. More recently they've added foam and foam cutting products to their line up of products making shopping more convenient.
One more thing worth noting is their Convention Request service. The weeks leading up to a convention Arda Wigs is attending, Arda will offer their customers the opportunity to email them wigs you would like to purchase from them and they will pack and bring the order with them to the con. I can't tell you how many times this service has saved my costumes when the con crunch sets in and the wig would arrive too late to use. Definitely a service everyone should look into and be sure to check if they will be attending a con you plan to go to.
Now with all the good there are some pain points.
The most common issue I run into with Arda isn't their fault, but they tend to always be out of stock of pretty much everything. They do counter act this with the ability to backorder wigs which is where you essentially place a preorder on a wig and they ship it to you the second it arrives in their warehouse. Arda is very popular amongst cosplayers and stock is very limited especially if they just had a sale. Sometimes the lack of stock has lead me to shop elsewhere but I tend to backorder and try to plan far enough in advance to where it's not an issue.
Now this might be a thing with all long wigs but Arda's longer wigs do tangle and they do tangle pretty badly. Nothing a good brush job can't get rid of but it is worth noting to be cautious of tangling.
And lastly is Arda doesn't tend to carry natural hair styles. They carry natural colors, but when it comes to just normal every day hair looks and styles, they don't offer a lot in that category. Lucky there are other places you can go to get looks such as pixies and bobs, but I love Arda's quality so much that it pains me when I can't do business with them.
Here's a quick summary:
Pros:
High quality wigs
Easy to style
Huge assortment of styles and colors
Affordable for the quality
Phenomenal customer service
Offers wig styling products, makeup, and more
Youtube tutorials and character wig suggestion guides
Conventions services for when shipping isn't going to cut it
Cons:
Stock is hit or miss
Longer wigs tangle very easily
Not a huge variety of natural wig styles
Epic Cosplay Wigs
https://www.epiccosplay.com
Another well known wig shop in the cosplay community, Epic Cosplay Wigs supplies cosplayers with a wide variety of styles from natural cuts to gravity defying spikes in almost every color combination possible. Similar to Arda Wigs, for those familiar with their products, Epic Cosplay Wigs offers just as great customer service and a large selection of wigs.
The quality of their wigs for the price is hard to beat. Epic Cosplay Wig's wigs are heat resistant and truly don't tangle. Many of the wigs I have worn from them I have barley ever needed to fix and running a comb through them is very easy. Because of this I sometimes choose their wigs specifically for the fact the wig will be less of a hassle to deal with while wearing.
My main draw to them is I like that they have natural hair styles. Many of my costumes I find myself struggling to find a bob in green or a pixie in blue that won't put a dent in my bank account. Epic Cosplay Wigs always has my back when I'm needing natural styles in a not so natural color.
Epic Cosplay Wig does a really good job showcasing cosplayers in the community wearing their wigs which is how I originally found them. Along with cosplay features, they also offer a small Photo Gallery of tutorials based on their most asked questions online.
Probably the biggest reason cosplayers shop with them is the fact that they have Officially Licensed Wigs. These are pre-styled wigs that Epic Cosplay Wigs has worked with the anime and gaming studios to produce and sell. In the past I have purchased one of their Naruto wigs that was already spiked and for the price it was hard to beat.
Now when it comes to cons I only have two and they aren't huge pain points that would keep me from buying from them.
One is that some of their wigs, depending on the color, can be a bit on the shiny side. I have a dark brown wig from them that for some reason under studio lighting is very shiny.
The wig put a lot of strain on my photographer in post as he tried to remove most of the shine to look more natural. But a white wig I have from them didn't shine so it seems to depend on the wig type and color.
The second issue is some of their wigs have a low fiber or weft count. I've received some that while wearing you can see my wig cap underneath through the hair fibers. Again this seems to depend on the wig type as not all of them have been like this.
Here's a quick summary:
Pros:
High quality wigs
Easy to style
Wigs don't tangle and are easy to clean up
Large selection of styles and colors
Affordable for the quality
Natural styles
Great community presence and offer some tutorials
Officially licensed wigs
Cons:
Some wigs have a shine to them
Lack of wefts/fibers can be troublesome
Pose Wigs
https://posewigs.com
Pose Wigs is a recent shop I discovered in 2019 from a few friends who were looking for a custom wig shop. Pose Wigs is a small locally run cosplay wig shop that specializes in providing cosplayers with high quality natural looking wigs.
The wigs from this shop are extremely high quality! I currently own 3 from this shop, and just like I mentioned earlier, are natural looking and I love that about them. Not only do they have natural hair colors to choose from, they still offer bright and bold hair colors for those characters with unnaturally red or blue hair. Their wig caps are also unique in that it has combs attached to the wig cap to keep the wig from moving around.
If you're looking for a natural lace front wig look no further than Pose Wigs! They offer a huge selection of lace front wigs at very reasonable prices.
Something that I really like about Pose Wigs, especially on their social media, is how they feature cosplayers wearing their wigs. It makes finding the right wig for your next costume easier as you can see the style and color on a person under natural lighting.
Pose Wigs offers both synthetic and real human hair wigs.
One of the main reasons my friends use this shop is because of 2 things: 1.) you can email them with wig commissions and they will do them for you and 2.) if enough people ask for the same character wig they make it available in their shop as a perminant staple item.
Some examples of wig commissions they get include Harley Quinn, Aloy from the Horizon series, Khaleesi from Game of Thrones, and Geralt from the Witcher.
The only draw back to Pose Wigs is being a small shop operated by 2 people, they tend to take awhile to restock their out of stock items. But that comes with the nature of small independent shops.
Here's a quick summary:
Pros:
High quality wigs
Specialize in natural styles and colors
Offer a wide range of lace front wigs
Affordable for the quality
Unique wig cape that has built in combs
Great at featuring cosplayers wearing their product
Take on wig commissions and offer their most requested on their website
Cons:
Wigs that are out of stock take awhile to become in stock
Wig is Fashion
https://www.wigisfashion.com
Wig is Fashion has been a shop that a lot of my hairstylist friends recommended to me for years. Why did it take me so long to finally buy from them? It has to do with their only con of the shop being located in China. Like any other cosplayer, I tend to know my cosplay plans for an upcoming convention a little too late in the game for items to be coming from overseas. With customs and the chance of shipping delays, I just never tried them.
What got me to finally try them was I was looking everywhere for a natural dark brown curly wig that was within my budget. And let me tell you I wish I had been ordering from this company a lot sooner.
The wig I wore from this shop went a little below my shoulders and it NEVER tangled through out the day that I wore it. Now their wigs are a bit on the shiny side, but the fibers used are probably why my wig never tangled while wearing it. Even better, after transporting the wig in a suitcase for a con, it was the only wig I didn’t need to restyle as it kept it’s shape even when crammed at the bottom of the suitcase.
Long story aside, Wig is Fashion is just like the other cosplay wig shops I mentioned before, though this one isn’t specially just for cosplay. Because of this, they offer a wide variety of natural and unique looking wigs to the point you may find yourself buying a wigs just because it looks cool.
As more cosplayers have been using their wigs, they have begun to offer certain pre-styled character wigs to their line up. You can find the more popular characters on their site such as Game of Thrones, the Last of Us, and Stranger Things. Though not as many options or commission opportunities like at Pose Wigs, it is an option and if they have a character you plan to cosplay and want their wig, I recommend grabbing it when you can as they only carry the stock while the character or series is popular.
Here's a quick summary:
Pros:
High quality wigs
Specialize in natural styles and colors
Offer a wide range of lace front wigs
Affordable for the quality
Character specific wigs
Wigs need little to no styling
Longer styles don’t tangle
Cons:
Located in China so high shipping cost and slower speed