As some of you may know, when she's not busy getting Red Bulls for Miss Alyssa, Vivienne Pinay is a wig stylist. She owns an Etsy shop, Fairytale Wigs, which sells wigs meant to replicate the hairstyles of popular Disney characters, and is incredibly popular among Princess Performers and Cosplayers for its high quality products. These products cost anywhere from $65 for a base wig and styling kit to over $750 and beyond for more complex styles.
Here is a post confirming that drag queen and RuPaul's Drag Race alum Vivienne Pinay is in fact the person who runs the company and styles the wigs.
This beautiful Cinderella wig is an example of the quality one can expect from Vivienne's shop.
Another example of FTW's products.
The subject of this post, however, is their Rapunzel wig, which as you can see here, is meant to replicate the braided hairstyle worn by Rapunzel in the film Tangled. Please note the wig does not actually come with the flowers in it, but the flowers are usually put into the wig by the wearer since Punzie wears flowers in her hair when it is braided.
It all started on December 31, 2016, when Tara (name changed), one of Vivi's customers, went live on Facebook in a 500+ member group meant for Princess Performers to unbox the Rapunzel wig she had ordered. Tara was among the first customers to receive a fully styled Rapunzel wig from FTW, as Vivi had never done them in the past. The wig had cost her $520.
The wig she received was styled extremely poorly. As Bianca & Sherry would say, it was a hot mess. As you can see in this picture, it features very obvious black netting on the braid base (the netting is intended to be left on in order to lengthen the life of the wig) and a giant hole in the center of the back of the wig, near the spot where the braid would attach, though the braid would not hide the hole.
The braid attachment for the wig came with black bobby pins sticking out all over the place. The fabric that you see is a braid pillow, meant to protect the braid attachment from getting caught on the costume. It is intended to be pinned onto the braid with bobby pins, though Tara says this was not advertised prior to purchase and she had assumed it would be sewn in.
Wefts were also visible in the wig, which is a huge issue and clear sign of a shoddy styling job.
This is the underside of the braid, but is towards the bottom of the tail. It would not be visible in still pictures, but this part hangs free, and when the performer moves it would swing and be visible. The pins sticking out would also become visible if children wanted to touch the braid, which is a regular occurrence for Rapunzel performers.
