Captain Marvel Wig
(Mohawk version)
Heyya Everyone!
In this tutorial I will be walking through how I went about styling my Captain Marvel mohawk wig.
Captain Marvel has had a lot of different hair styles throughout various comics, and the style I have always preferred is her mohawk. Using the reference image above, I saw that she has more of a fauxhawk going on - the sides aren't cut short, instead they are slicked back to create the illusion of a mohawk, without changing her original hair.
This makes it a million times easier to style, as cutting a wig super short comes with a whole new set of problems.
My base wig isn't 100% accurate to Carol's hair colour, as I went for a wig that was more of an ash blonde, and which had very dark blonde roots. If you wanted it accurate to her hair colour, I'd go for a light golden blonde.
I fell in love with my wig's colour as soon as I saw it, and didn't mind that it wasn't accurate. I loved that the darkness of the roots gives it a more messy, punk look when styled.
My base wig was from my usual wig supplier; Wig is Fashion.
*The wig I used as a base isn't available anymore, but they do have a shorter version of it which will work just perfectly*
My first call was to section off the part I would be using for the centre of my fauxhawk. I combed this section through to ensure there were no tangles, then cut a small section to about 5 inches long. This was my guide piece, and I used this to cut the entire section to the same length.
This left me with a hairstyle that looked like what an 80s mum gave her kid to punish them - but it was the perfect style to work with.
--- I always use hairdressing scissors to cut my wigs, as they are much sharper and easier to work with due to their thin blades. You could use normal scissors, but it will take longer and not give the best finish ---
I wanted to add a bit of texture to the hair by adding in a few curls/waves, because if I tried doing a mohawk with straight hair, it would end up looking less Captain Marvel and more Guile from Street Fighter.
However, I only own one curling wand and it doesn't have a variable heat setting, and even though my wig is heat resistant, I didn't want to risk damaging the hair fibres with 200 degrees of heat.
If your wig is heat resistant, and you have a hair curling wand that can select it's temperature then use this, as you will get a better result than what I did.
I put the top section into two plaits and gave it a quick blast with the warm setting on my hairdryer, to heat in some waves. It gave a little bit of texture, not as much as I wanted but I made do with it.
And to keep them out the way, I put the sides into two plaits and clipped them together at the back of my wig head.
The next step was the most time consuming; backcombing the centre piece to get the height and help it stand up. This ended up being quite difficult as the fibres of my wig were very soft and silky, meaning the backcombing would just slide out.
I used a fine toothed comb and some Got2B freeze spray, and with a lot of backcombing, then a blast of spray before more backcombing, it started to take shape. Once I had the roots secure, I held the wig head upside, very gently brushed the ends of the hair straight, and gave it a really good blast of hairspray. I repeated the same method over and over until it stayed up; backcomb, blast of hairspray, backcomb again, set with the hairdryer on a low setting.
Now when I put the wig head on a table, the hair held the shape, and all that was needed was to take my scissors to it again, to cut the mohawk a little shorter and refine the shape. One final blast of spray and the centre part was done.
To work on the side parts I put the wig on myself, as I wanted to make sure it was smoothed flat and would sit properly on me when I wore it.
This part was very easy to do, as all I needed to do was undo the plaits on the side pieces, brush them through to make sure there were no knots, then smooth it back and behind my ears. I did this in small sections, giving it a good blast of Got2B as I smoothed it back. Once this was set, I took the wig off and put it back on the wig head, used my scissors to cut the excess to the same length as the back, and smooth the ends against the mohawk section to hide them.
I also did a trim on the ends of the centre section, just to make it a bit shorter and more refined.
And that was my Captain Marvel mohawk wig all finished!
I brought this wig with me to my photoshoot in April 2017, and just love how well it photographs! I love Captain Marvel with her long, flowing hair, but her mohawk will always be the best!
Photo by Iddstar Artwork.