Just what is a lace front wig?

 Okay so I have faffed about with wigs quite a bit in my time and for some reason I had yet to try a lace front wig. This was largely due to price as lace fronts have a bit of a reputation of being very expensive. But for my Catelyn Stark costume I decided to take the plunge and go lace front.

There were a few reasons for this, but the main one was because I knew an auburn wig would be so very useful for comic book cosplay.

There are a lot of red heads in comics after all...

Now, me being me, I still wanted a thriftier option and I investigated lace on ebay. Now buying on ebay can be a risk for costumes and accessories (more on this in a post in the new year) but feedback, price and the quality of the listing can be a great indication of quality.

I decided to go with this auburn curly wig by Wig Glamour. The price was £39 which is a fairly good, if not cheap, price for a lace front wig. The weave is also high quality synthetic fibre that can be styled with heat. 

I have to say I was very pleased with this wig. You can see that the colour is gorgeous and there is a very high volume of hairs in the weave. It creates a really full and thick look and makes the wig look a little more natural.

Now if like me you were unclear about what a lace front wig was hopefully this picture will help clear that up.

The wig has a piece of 'lace' at the front, now this lace is not like old fashioned lace, it is a semi stretchy holy fabric that stretches to fit comfortably around your head. The synthetic hair is then woven into the lace so that it more closely replicates the look of natural hair.

For me the biggest perk of the lace front is the added comfort around the head and the fact that the hair can be parted in any direction at the front. The predetermined part you often get in wigs are sometimes really annoying so being to use the wig in multiple ways has got to be a bonus.

So the weird thing about lace front wigs is that they come with extra lace at the front. The idea of this is that you can trim the lace to fit your hairline making it look more natural.

Of course it helps if you have a wig cap to keep your hair out of the way... unlike me.

Once you have tested the fit and got the wig sitting comfortably you need to trim the excess lace from the front. I watched a couple of youtube tutorials to get to grips with this, but it  really was very straight forward. Even if it looks really, really weird...

Okay and here is how the wig turned out, I pulled the front back so you can see the hair line a bit better. I really like the way that it blends in with my natural hairline.

Here is the back of the wig. You can really see the fullness of the curl!

I couldn't help but feel that the wig would be brilliant for an Oracle or Barbara Gordon costume.

What do you think?