Recently I revamped my Qartheen Daenerys cosplay, all the way back from Season 2, that I made in 2012. Anyone who has cosplayed Dany knows that she's hard to get right, so I thought I would add my wig process to the internet so that anyone else who is interested can get a good Dany look the way that I did. Obviously I was creating one of her earlier loose styles, but I made the hairline of this wig so that it can be restyled later for one of her more complex braided styles. In some ways those will be a bit easier because you don't have to deal with texturing the hair.
What we are working with here is one of Arda's premium lacefront wigs, the Lola. It is extra thick because it is, from what I understand, produced for drag queens, but it has a very nice wide and deep section of lace that you can use to create Dany's complex hairlines and parts and then blend them in a natural way onto your own head. The limitations are Arda does not sell this wig fiber as wefts and the wig may be a little short for some of Dany's later styles. The good thing is that you do not need any expensive specialty tools (unless you want them) to create any of Dany's styles using this wig. I did it with a lacefronting needle, an iron with a vertical steam setting, a wig head, and some Murray's pomade.
Before we get started, I want to emphasize that having a steam apparatus of some sort is crucial to working with lacefront wigs because you MUST set the parts and the direction you want the hair to fall. You will also need to "flatten" the roots of the wig a little bit with steam to remove excess volume. The roots of wig hair stand straight up because they are plastic. Real hair doesn't do that, it falls directly from the root in the direction of gravity.
I am pretty dedicated to making my lacefronts as realistic as possible, so I actually started styling this wig by removing a half dozen rows of wefts near the top of the wig. You have to be careful doing this to avoid creating bald spots, so don't start too close to the crown and don't remove too many successive rows of wefts. This is also important for creating a natural hairline, because you'll need the hair harvested from these wefts in the next step for ventilating your hairline.
If you have a life cast of your head, put your wig onto it while ventilating the hairline. If not, a wig head will work fine. You might not achieve quite the same level of realism as you could with a form that's shaped exactly like your head with your hairline marked onto it, but you'll be just fine. For this wig I used a normal wig head, not a life cast. I then started ventilating using a size 1-2 lacefronting needle from Arda. This wig comes with lots of ventilating done already, so what you're doing is creating the thinning out that a normal hairline does right at its edge. Arda wigs really need this because their ventilating tends to end pretty abruptly and no one has a hairline like that. If you need a reference for what I'm talking about, look at the density of hair follicles right at the edge of your own hairline or take a look at photos of people online. Dany's hair thins out a lot at the edge of her hairline and that's what creates those beautiful loose sections of hair that frame her face.
After ventilating, my wig's hairline is shown below.
I *could* have done more. You could ALWAYS do more. With about 24 hours to finish this wig and get a bunch of work done on another cosplay before Anime Boston, I cut it a bit short, but the results were fine. Fortunately I have a pretty straight hairline so it does not take too much finesse to cover properly.
What I needed next was the crimped texture. Before starting I used a bit of Murray's pomade to control frizz and make the wig less prone to tangling (try it and be amazed). Put a little on your hands and work it into the fiber, taking care not to use TOO much or your wig will end up looking wet and greasy. Afterwards, the entire wig gets put into thin braids. The smaller the braids, the shorter the wavelength of the crimps will be, and that's the better side to err on for this style. Making the braids too large will create waves, not crimps, and will be harder to penetrate with steam. It also is good if you don't start the braids right at the scalp, because Dany's crimps start partway down, but the fiber can always be steamed straight again later.
I don't have a garment steamer, so I use an iron with vertical steam capability (meaning that there is a button you can push for constant steam no matter the orientation of the iron). If you're using my iron method, just be careful not to touch the foot of the iron to the wig or you'll melt the fibers. It's a lot easier to steam the braids with the wig removed from the wig head, and each braid should be steamed individually from both sides. Let the wig cool COMPLETELY before removing the braids. Curb your impatience and leave it for ten or twenty minutes to go do something else.
Here are what the crimps looked like right after I removed the braids and broke them up them with a wide tooth comb:
At this point I made Dany's side twists and tied them underneath the top panel of hair using a couple of hair elastics before it was time for the final steam styling. I do not have photos of steaming the parts into the wig because it's a two-handed process, but I use a fine-toothed rattail comb to hold the hair in position, tight and flat against the wig head, while I hold my steaming iron right up to where I want the wig hair to part. I used this same method to flatten any crimps/waves near the crown of the wig and again to direct the roots of the top panel of hair towards the back of my head so that they will not fall forward and cover the twisted sections. Keep in mind while steaming parts to steam the hair perfectly flat against the scalp. No hair roots sticking straight up! That's a thing only plastic hair does. Some of my crimps were also a little too wavy, so I pulled them a little from the ends to straighten them the desired amount and gave them a bit of steam.
I probably steamed a little too much hair to fall to the sides of my face, but actually for my face shape it was probably a good choice. The really beautiful thing about a lacefront is that you can see your skin in the part created by steaming this section of hair to fall forward and that adds so much realism to your style!
Something worth ordering with this wig is a couple of wig caps in your skin tone--the solid nylon ones, not the mesh ones. If they aren't available in your exact skin tone, you can buy a lighter one and tint them with a bit of iDye Poly or buy a pair of pantyhose in your skin tone and make a cap out of those. The cap will show a little bit under the lacefront of your wig, so it's important to seek as good a skin tone match as possible. I secure this wig from slipping with hair pins (the v-shaped ones, NOT bobby pins) underneath the twisted sections.
There are several options for sticking down the lace front. I am usually lazy and use Top Stick toupee tape, which you can get from Arda or from a place like Sally's Beauty Supply or Manhattan Wardrobe Supply. Make sure to remove makeup and oils from around your hairline before putting the toupee tape on your skin or it won't stick. An adhesive like Pros Aide (whatever you use, make sure it's colorless; Spirit Gum is NOT) looks a bit better and should not have the stickiness issues that can come up with toupee tape. Apply it to your hairline, wait until its gets tacky. Then the wig goes on the same for either method. To put the wig on without any assistance, flip the hair along the hairline back so it won't get stuck. Put the back of the wig on first, keeping your hands under the lace front, and bring it forward to your hairline. You'll only have one go at getting the hairline stuck down properly, so if you're not positioned correctly just take the wig off and restart the maneuver.
If you have assistance, have your helper hold the wig above you. Grab the lacefront and position it on the adhesive, then hold it in place while they slip the rest of the wig over your head.
That's it! I'd love to cosplay Daenerys again at some point in one of her other outfits, but I'm fairly certain it won't happen until later this year at the earliest because I have other projects and other obligations and quite a bit of disgust to get over with regarding the ending of the series. Please contact me or comment below with any questions about working with lacefronts.
