Throwback of the Day: Wigs

Throwback of the Day: where I’ll post some old random picture from the past and share a story about it.

This photo, of me in my favorite wig, is from around 2009.

I miss my wigs, but my locs are so long, wearing a wig would be cumbersome. Truthfully, wearing a wig, now, would be redundant.

I started wearing wigs around the same time I became enamored of hats. I was doing a musical, “Mack & Mabel”, for the local community theater when the Great Hair Mishap of 1988, occurred. I accidentally shaved off, one side of my head, while giving myself a haircut. The character that I was portraying wore “Hello, Dolly” sized hats, so I VERY MUCH needed my hair.

In a rare moment, where my mother actually came to my rescue, she offered me one of her wigs, to wear to cover up my huge mistake. It was like putting on a new persona. I fell in love.

Over the years, I’ve owned dozens of ponytails and removable extensions, but those all require that you still do something presentable with the rest of the hair on your head. What I love about wigs is you can simply braid it or put it in a net or cap, put on the wig and you are off to the races. If it’s a good wig, all you need to do is comb it out a bit, shake it, put it on, like any old hat, and you can be transformed.

When I had my own entertainment business, wigs were a time-saver and they were also part of my brand. I rarely wore the same wig, two times in a row. I’m sure part of the fun of people coming to see me, was to see which hair I would wear on any given night.

Nowadays, the wigs are in a hat box, in my closet. I let my girls use them for costume-play and Halloween. My hair now, finally, comes down to my butt, so I don’t need to play with wigs, anymore.