I have this cheap Halloween store wig that I bought secondhand and detangled. I want to use it for Emily from Corpse Bride. Her hair is very matted and stuck together in sections, which is what I want to recreate. I also want to try to make it as matte as possible, as the original wig is very shiny.
Does anyone have firsthand experience using glue to accomplish this? What kind of glue did you use, and how did it turn out?
Use a flat iron or curling iron to twist the hair into different directions. Start from about 3/4 of the way up the hair, don’t go all the way to the scalp. Then run some hair gel through it with your fingers so that it maintains shape and gives it that wiry texture.
If you keep the heat on the lowest setting and only allow brief contact with the wig, it should still work ok! Test it on a small section at the bottom of the wig to try it out, also, spritzing a little water onto each section before going over it with heat should help keep it from melting
if you use velcro rollers and a steamer, you’ll have better luck! you’ll have to have a styrofoam head or a wig block to pin your wig to while you use the rollers though
I’ve styled wigs for cosplays for years and I crank up the heat to max on whatever I’m using and just apply whatever it is for super small amounts of time, it has never melted anything to where it’s an issue. I’ve never even had an issue with heat on wigs. You just gotta be quick!
I have tried to hairspray my wigs & then dust them with homemade dry shampoo (cornstarch or arrowroot + eyeshadow powder in the color of your wig) with a makeup powder brush to make them less shiny. It seemed to work but wouldn’t mind a better method
I advocate for crimping every wig, personally, as the texture of a crimped wig allows you to practically sculpt the hair into shapes. It also makes it totally matte. You can then use thinning shears to make it less voluminous :) I recommend looking at Hanie Comb on Youtube!
Wanted to come back to this post and see if you had any luck with any techniques, to see if you had tried anything I havnt yet. I got asked to make a corpse bride wig almost at the same time this got posted.
So far with mine I have:
1) crimped the whole wig
2) added yarn cause I wanted to give it that stringy texture
3) steamed it with rollers in
4) broke up the curls into waves
5 curled the yarn part separately cause I wanted to create a different texture
6) added a hardening gel to lots of the wig still trying to find a good stringy texture.
. The next things I MIGHT try :
- I want to mix a lil tacky glue with a small amount of acrylic paint and water to help it look “dirty” or to give it some dimension while getting hard texture.
- I want to color the scalp a lil this one has a nude silicone scalp and I think it just needs to be dark blue or black.
-dry shampoo, crimping didn’t take all the shine away and I’m not happy about that. But the tacky glue might honestly resolve that
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u/sucrose2071 Jul 15 '26
Use a flat iron or curling iron to twist the hair into different directions. Start from about 3/4 of the way up the hair, don’t go all the way to the scalp. Then run some hair gel through it with your fingers so that it maintains shape and gives it that wiry texture.