Almost every day, a client walks into our boutique and pulls out her phone.
“I love this. Can you make my wig look exactly like this?”
Sometimes the answer is yes.
And sometimes, surprisingly, the answer is no.
It isn’t because we don’t like the style. And it certainly isn’t because we don’t listen to what our clients want. In fact, it’s the opposite. After decades of working with women’s wigs, we’ve learned that recreating a beautiful photograph isn’t always the same thing as creating beautiful hair for the woman sitting in front of us.
A Photograph Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story
An inspiration photo can be extremely helpful. It tells us what catches your eye. Maybe it’s the colour, the softness around the face, the length, the volume or the way the hair moves.
But the woman in that photograph may have a completely different face shape, head size, hairline, complexion or hair density than you do.
A long, sleek style that looks spectacular on one woman may make another woman’s face appear longer. Heavy bangs may overwhelm a smaller face. Very thick hair can sometimes make a petite woman look as though she is wearing a wig rather than simply having beautiful hair.
Our job is to understand what you love about the photograph and then translate that into something that works for you.
Natural Hair Has to Make Sense on the Person Wearing It
One of the biggest mistakes we see with wigs is focusing entirely on the hair.
We look at the whole woman.
Where would her natural hairline realistically begin? How much density looks believable around her face? Where should the volume sit? How does the hair fall around her jawline? Does the colour complement her skin?
These small decisions can make an enormous difference.
With high-quality human hair wigs, we have tremendous freedom to customize the finished result. Hair can be cut, coloured, highlighted, thinned, layered and styled. Density can be adjusted and the hairline can be refined.
That flexibility allows us to take inspiration from a photograph without blindly copying it.
Sometimes the Most Beautiful Wig Is the One With Less Hair
This can be particularly difficult to explain.
Many women experiencing hair loss naturally assume that more hair will make them feel better. They may show us a photograph of someone with extremely thick, luxurious hair and ask us to reproduce it.
But too much density is one of the easiest ways to make a wig look like a wig.
Real hair isn’t perfectly uniform. It has variation. It moves. It falls differently around the face and is often finer around the hairline and temples.
Sometimes we actually need to remove hair from a beautiful new wig to make it look more believable.
That can feel counterintuitive, but the goal isn’t to create the most hair.
The goal is to create your hair.
Colour Is Another Place Where We May Guide You Differently
A photograph of a gorgeous icy blonde or rich brunette can be very tempting, but colour doesn’t exist in isolation.
Skin tone, eyebrows, eye colour, age and even the amount of contrast you naturally have in your features can completely change how a hair colour looks.
We may love the inspiration photo but suggest softening the root, warming or cooling the colour, adding dimension, or changing the placement of highlights.
Often, these subtle changes are what make the finished wig look natural rather than manufactured.
Your Lifestyle Matters Too
We also need to know how you actually live in your hair.
Do you want to wash and style it yourself? Do you exercise frequently? Do you need to pull it into a ponytail? Are you looking for something polished every day, or hair that can be washed, air-dried and worn with very little effort?
A style that looks incredible after an hour with a professional stylist may not be the right choice for someone who wants five-minute hair every morning.
A beautiful wig should work on an ordinary Tuesday—not only on the day you leave the salon.
Inspiration, Not Imitation
We love when clients bring photographs. Bring one. Bring ten. Show us celebrities, hairstyles you wore 20 years ago, photographs of your own hair before you experienced hair loss, or even different pictures where you love one small element from each.
Those photographs help us understand you.
But don’t be surprised if we occasionally say, “We love this—but we’d change something.”
That is where experience comes in.
The best women’s wigs aren’t necessarily exact copies of somebody else’s hair. And even the finest human hair wigs still need the right cut, colour, density, fit and finishing to become truly personal.
Sometimes saying no to an inspiration photograph is actually our way of saying yes to something better:
Hair that looks as though it was always meant to belong to you.
