For those of you who may not be too familiar with my blog, my life isn’t all about what I’m wearing. It’s also about what I’m hairing. I hair–or rather, wear, wigs.
My favorite wig–“Storm” by Model Model. I have five Storms.
It’s due to the irreversible damage that I did to myself because I have a condition called “Trichotillomania”. I have spent a lifetime pulling my hair and, in the most disgusting habit since nose-picking, picking at my scalp.
I refuse to be ashamed of this and I refuse to be embarrassed about it. It’s who I am.
True. I don’t. I pulled and picked for most of my life. It is what it is!
My life has been one of anxiety. I’ve had twitches and nervous coughs as a child. I also exhibited some OCD. My parents took me to a doctor about my coughing and twitches when I was about nine years old. The doctor suggested to my parents that they take me to a phycologist. They did not and nothing was ever mentioned again. Ever.
Back then, it was basically taboo to talk about anxiety or any sort of emotional disorder. And to take me to a doctor—forget it!!!
Boo Hoo! Back in the day, nobody addressed emotional disorders. Now it’s talked about but still carries a stigma!
And so, anxiety and stress became a part of my life. And in dealing with it, I pulled at my hair. And picked at my scalp. It was a way of almost soothing me. And it caused permanent damage. Because of the picking and pulling, my hair never grew back. Add to that menopause and the natural process of aging and my bio hair just isn’t what it used to be. I’ve lost more than half of my hair.
This is me every day. “I’m OK!!!”…
And as I write this, I’m suffering from more anxiety. The phone rang. It was a recording reminding me to make an appointment for my annual lady exam. This causes tremendous anxiety for me. I have Pap anxiety, mammogram anxiety, colonoscopy anxiety, skin check anxiety, work anxiety, driving anxiety, weather anxiety, crowd anxiety, traffic anxiety (different from driving anxiety), error anxiety (I effing flip out whenever I make a mistake) and any other anxiety that you can think of. I have anxiety if a framed picture or piece of art isn’t exactly even. I will go around straightening them. MY LAPTOP KEYBOARD IS ALSO ANOTHER CAUSE OF ANXIETY!!!
This pretty much sums up my anxieties.
Regardless, this is a post about the hair that I’m wearing. So, let’s talk about it.
Wigs. They have a bad rap with white women. And don’t tell me otherwise! Younger women, bloggers, and vloggers will extol the virtues of hair extensions till kingdom come –but mention a wig and the mean girl spirit comes out.
No. This says stereotypical wiggy wig! He looks like Captian Kangaroo for chrissakes!
In the White Community, wigs haven’t become fully accepted or mainstream. Wigs are something women wear when they are sick –that’s the stereotype. And while that’s true, there are many other reasons women wear wigs.
Women do suffer from hair loss. Just as men do. There are women who have female pattern baldness, women who have alopecia, women who have Trich and many other reasons.
My mission is to get women to see that wigs are fun. Wigs are cool. And—wigs are convenient. They offer us the hair that most of us wish we had.
Catherine O’Hara’s character, wig-obsessed Moira Rose, on the comedy “Schitt’s Creek” makes me so happy–she’s ridiculously funny and the fact she’s wearing wigs makes me love her and the show even more!
And so, I’m doing another wig post today about…you guessed it!! What I’m hairing! Let’s go!!
Hair I am au natural! I took a shower this morning and let my bio hair dry naturally. There’s no need for me to blow it out while I’m wearing a wig. Toppers, which used to work fine to disguise the loss and now only an option if I’m wearing an updo, are not worn that much anymore. I can no longer get away with “just a topper” if I wear my hair down.
My clean hair. I’ll be honest. If I had all my hair back, I would wear it like this all the time. I dig my waves. But, take a good look…
From the top and the back, it’s not a good look. I sprinkled some Miracle Hair Fibers on my head. They work pretty well and are less pricey than Toppik.
These are the two that I wear and have worn on a regular basis in the past.
This topper is by Uniwigs. It is the Yaki Texture Topper in the 14 inch I don’t know if Uniwigs still sells the yaki texture topper anymore but they sell the Brazilian Straight. I have that too but didn’t take a photo–
As you can see from the photo, this topper does make my hair look thicker. The only slight issue I had with this was that the color was not a true jet black and in certain lighting, you could tell and I had to play around with the placement of the clips all the time. But other than that, it always looked nice when my hair was blown out.
Next is the 18″ Enhancer by Tony of Beverly. I have three of these. If you click on the link, you will see that the enhancer looks ridiculous on the model but IRL it looks fine. If you also scroll down on the link, you will see a review I wrote exactly a year ago. Before I went full-on with wigs. I wrote a few things about wigs I no longer feel the same way about. That’s because I became educated and did research!
Here’s the Tony of Beverly Enhancer. The lace top is very dark which is great for no scalp peeking. For the money, this topper is an excellent value and looks fabulous put up…
The Uniwigs topper doesn’t fare that well pulled up because the lace is softer and lifts like crazy. This TOB Enhancer stays put. This is the one I wore when I fell into the ocean and it never came off–so I ended up swimming in it and never had an issue! This topper is $55.00 on the Vogue Wigs site.
And now that I’m wearing wigs, I try to look for wigs that resemble my natural hair. As I’ve written in past posts, I wear hair by companies that are geared to the African American market. This is due to the texture of my hair and the luster of the AA wigs. They aren’t overly shiny! They look realistic. And they are affordable!
This is Sage, from Model Model. I cut a couple of inches from the length but she resembles my hair when it was blown straight. Sage is dense and has a lot of hair–just like I used to have. BTW–older women CAN wear long hair–even longer fake hair! She is $34.95 on Divatress site–but shop around because she can be found for a lesser price.
Sage again–but in a ponytail. This wig makes a nice pony but I did pull my bio hair out in the back and blended. I also had to secure with more pins due to the weight of the hair.
One other thing I want to mention about Sage. Although the hair itself is heavy and dense, the wig is very comfortable during the summer heat.
Here’s the stock card from Sensationel Empress Rita wig. She’s on sale for $21.59 on Glamourtress.com
Here’s how Rita looks on me. A nice length with nice density and a very light silky yaki texture. Nice summer wig and nice for date night or even everyday wear!
Next up is Riley. She is $22.99 on Sistawigs.com. I purchased this unit from HairsoFlyshop.com on sale for $9.99. I bought two. I cut the length a bit. This is Bonaparte’s favorite wig. I like it but it isn’t my favorite. I wear it to work quite often.
My newest wig. Samala from Janet Collection. It’s a human hair blend. OK. And on the stock card, Samala doesn’t look all that appealing to me because of the color–but the price and length had me intrigued. Then I saw a video review from …
..TheHeartsandcake90 on YouTube and went for the purchase!
I LOVE Samala! And I’m thankful for that great review or I would have passed on this. It is a flattering wig and just the type I like–again, very similar to my bio hair when blown out. I paid $19.50 on Elevate Styles for Samala! Note–sometimes the shipping fee can bring the price of a wig up substantially–my tip is to check out ALL the sites for the best wig and shipping prices! I like my shiny lip gloss!
Next is Justine from It’s a Wig. This is my second favorite wig next to Storm. I wear Justine a lot!! I “justine” ordered another one!! I’m wearing her off my face in this photo.
I paid $28.95 for my new Justine at Divatress–and worth every penny because my first Justine washes and wears very well!!!
As you can see, I stick pretty much to what resembles my bio hair. I also like the “no-style” style. I’m not into fussy wigs–just as I was never into a fussy hair style with my bio hair. And I think that’s the most important thing to look for when making a decision to buy a wig. Stick to what you would wear for your bio hair. Don’t stray too much or you won’t be comfortable. Then–after a while head outside the box. I’m toying with the idea to go lighter in color a dark color with lighter highlights.
In the meantime, I have always loved bobbed hair. When my bio hair was shorter, I used to wear it in a bob–but I’ll tell you, it took forever to get it right. Nobody could cut my hair into the kind of bob that I wanted because my hair was just too thick, curly, frizzy and unmanageable. I would get it cut into a blunt bob and set it in big rollers, then blow dry it and it looked great until the humidity set in–then it looked awful. That’s where wigs can also help. They can give you that style you always wanted!
Ok–so I know I said that I don’t really like a “do” or a styled style–but I still love a bob. Here’s a sampling of two of the bobbed wigs I have–and they ain’t easy to maintain during the day either. However, for a fun change up….
This is the Brown Sugar Silk Lace Bob BS 609. Another wig I ordered from Divatress. I paid $29.95. It’s a beautiful unit and unlike a few other bobs I’ve tried in the past, this keeps its shape during the day!
One view…
..and another. I literally plopped this on top of my head so it looks a bit sloppy at the part, but this is a great, great bob!
Here’s a bob that gets a TON of love with wig reviewers. I have to admit. This is also a great bob–Copper, by Bobbi Boss! I got this so long ago that I can’t remember where I purchased–and I have two! It’s more like a Lob on me due to my short neck, but this is a great unit! The price point runs the gamut from $25.00 to $39.00–so if you like this, shop around!
Other info: I don’t wear a wig cap or a wig grip. I simply put my hair into two braids and pin them up Swiss Miss style.
Two braids pinned up is what works for me!
And today, I washed my favorite wig–Storm. Here’s how I wash my wigs:
Fill the bathroom sink up with cool water and a capful of wig shampoo.
Brush the tangles out before submerging in water. I use a wig brush or paddle brush–whichever I grab first. And I’m not gentle when I brush out those tangles–it’s ok though, the wig is synthetic and strong…
Into the sudsy water, she goes. I place her in gently then swish.
Look how filthy the water gets. I don’t overwash either. This was three weeks coming.
After rinsing the suds out from the shampoo, I drain the water and refill with more cool water and two capsful of fabric softener. YES! Fabric softener makes the greatest conditioner for synthetic wigs.
Combed my bio hair before washing and this was my shedding. …….Yeah.
Let the wig relax in the conditioner for about five to ten minutes then rinse.
Some like to blot the wig with a towel. I don’t do that. I simply take the wig, put it in a net and place in the bathtub. Let it dry and then brush. Turns out like new!
Yeah. So, Storm is in the bathtub in the guest bathroom now. I’ll keep the wig there for 48 hours to ensure it is completely dried. Then take it out of the net, give it a gentle brush and it’ll be good as new.
That’s about it–and that’s what I’ve been hairing.
Oh. And today, I ended up wearing the Brown Sugar Bob BS 609!
In the car, running errands with Bonaparte. A bob was in order today!
Thanks for reading–and if you ever want to change up your hair–you can always do it with a wig!
OK. Maybe to some wig-wearers are a cult. And that brings to mind one of my favorite bands from the ’90’s. The Cult. And this great song that I almost forgot about–had I not been turned on to “Amoeba Music-Whats in My Bag” on YouTube. My sons got me hooked. Musicians visit Amoeba Records in L.A. and pick out CD’s, albums, books they want. And they talk about it on this YouTube show. Anyway, one musician picked out a set by The Cult–and I went back into my memory. “She Sells Sanctuary”. Ian Astbury rocks–and he can dance!
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