TIFU by making my own cosplay wig.

Obligatory didn’t happen today but y’all should get a laugh out of this.

When I was in college, I went to my first Comicon. I wanted to do a Cosplay and at the time I was really into plants, and my favorite color is green, so I decided to be Poison Ivy.

I’m an artist, and I spent weeks drawing different designs of what I wanted. What I finally settled on was a leotard covered in tiny clovers and clover flowers, a cape made of ivy, and a braided hairstyle that had flowers woven into it.

My natural hair grows slowly and isn’t very forgiving, so I decided to make a wig. I bought the main hair pieces on Amazon and got all the flowers and materials to make vines and leaves at the local craft store.

Now, I’d never made a costume before. I can sew stuffed animals, and mend garments, but this was uncharted water for me. Especially the wig. I had a general idea of how to build it and what I’d need, but no real experience.

In the craft store, I was browsing adhesives, and there was this plastic bucket that promised permanent bonding for all materials, the ability to bond up to 50 lbs, and that it would dry quickly and invisibly. So that’s what I picked up.

My mom helped me sew the leotard and cape, but I made the wig. I spent hours gluing strands of hair, braiding streaming ivy and flowers and leaves, and just making this gorgeous waterfall of mother nature. I was so proud of myself for how it turned out.

The convention was tons of fun, but it was summer in the Southern USA and the AC couldn’t keep up with thousands and thousands of people packed into the convention center. About an hour in, my head started itching. I assumed it was sweat mixed with my eczema, and did my best to ignore it.

Until I couldn’t. I went to the bathroom thinking I’d take off my wig and rinse my head to feel better. I took out the pins, took hold of the wig….

And it wouldn’t come off. I pulled and tugged until my hair screamed, but to no avail. That wig was stuck to my head.

Thankfully, some experienced cosplayers found me crying in the bathroom and took me to the aid area. There, we realized that, in the suffocating heat of the convention center, the adhesives had bonded to my hair and weren’t coming off.

I was itching like crazy, crying and panicking, and someone made the executive decision to get a craft knife and spend the next three hours carefully sawing that wig from my head. With it, came most of my hair. There was no saving it, it was glued solid to the wig.

The end result was so bad that the only recourse was a buzz cut and letting my hair grow out again. And by a buzz cut, I mean peach fuzz. I looked like a cancer patient.

It took years for my hair to recover. It’s been over a decade and I haven’t worn another wig since or done anything permanent to my hair.

So, ladies, gents, and gender assorted friends, if you make a cosplay wig, check your materials with the community, follow a YouTube video of someone with experience, and don’t buy the 29.99 bucket of Mega ultra bond goop at the craft store.

TL;DR Used Mega bond glue for a wig and Mega bonded it to my head.