You’re being hunted by a gargoyle. She lives in the mirror. She looks like you. She looks like you when you’re trying to glam up at the start of your gender journey and you don’t know what you’re doing.
Your gargoyle is probably wearing a pageboy bob wig. Because pageboy bob wigs look like shit.
This is a pageboy wig. It doesn’t even look good on the model. It WILL NOT look good on you. Pageboy styles exaggerate your jawline like in the picture of me attached to this article. They make you look more masculine, not less. They make you look like a man in a wig, not a trans woman finding her femininity.
YOU MUST SUCK BEFORE YOU CAN SOAR
If you think I am being harsh, I am. That is how you defeat the gargoyle: harsh truths. For example: until you get some experience, your wigs are always going to look like shit.
I went through this phase. You will go through it too. Failure is necessary. You gain experience just after you need it. You already know this because you have general life experience. Being trans is no different. But failure can be fun too. To become tasteful, you must first learn what is tasteless. Pageboy wigs are tasteless. Virtually no one looks good with a pageboy haircut – and I am including full-blown supermodels in that statement. Linda Evangelista can get away with you. Karlie Kloss can get away with it. I can’t. You can’t.
Right now, you don’t know how to get a good wig, what a good wig even is, what will suit you or how to get the best from whichever one you get. And to see yourself in a bad wig really harms the vision you are seeking to create. Like toupees, you only notice them when they are bad.
Because you are so vulnerable in these early days of femininity, seeing yourself in a bad wig can be so discouraging that they make you hate yourself. They can uncork that nasty bottle of self-loathing that virtually all transwomen have stored in their cellar. The gargoyle. Let’s reduce the risk of popping that bitter cork.
I AM WEARING A WIG
Me? I wear wigs in virtually all my images. I choose my wigs carefully. I do not have a large budget. I have many I bought online that I simply don’t suit. You don’t see them. I do not like long wigs – they are annoying and uncomfortable and I live in a warm and humid place.
I have made many wig mistakes. Like all of you, I too once loved the pageboy bob. Why do we all go for pageboy bobs? And why do we still go for them when they look terrible on more masculine face shapes? It’s just about the worst style that girls like us can choose. You can either believe me and give up on pageboy bobs. Or you can buy one and find out for yourself. Your choice.
CHOOSE REALISTIC ROLE MODELS
If you choose to believe me, then listen to the following advice. In choosing a hairstyle, look to masculine-looking women with strong jawlines who rock hairstyles around shoulder length (Sorry Tilda Swinton, even though you’re stunning, your signature hairstyle is too short to be useful for our purposes here).
Look to women like Anna Gunn – aka Skyler White from Breaking Bad. Look at Cate Blanchett. Lena Headey. Hilary Swank. NONE of them have a pageboy style. They instead have hair with a shape, softness and volume. Even when they have shorter styles, they still have something more interesting going on than a pageboy bob.
So, find a somewhat masculine celebrity woman who somewhat resembles you in face shape AND IN AGE. Be realistic here. It hurts to face up to the fact that you are never going to look like Keira Knightley or Zendaya. But facing up to things like that is a major part of the female experience anyway. Cis-women are constantly assailed by images of perfection they know they cannot live up to. So this is a good time to start getting used to making do with what you have in a society that places impossible standards on you.
When you find the wigs that could work for you, buy one from Amazon or a costume shop. Don’t go for curly or fussy wigs. Don’t go for curly. Don’t go for long. Don’t go for nasty.
DO NOT BUY A PAGEBOY WIG!
Just get the most natural-looking wig in your budget. Don’t trust the pictures on the label or box of the model wearing it, actually get a look at the product itself in person or in photos.
Take your new wig home home. Treat it. Care for it. Try it. Fail. Try again. Fail better. Buy a different wig. Try yet again. Develop your taste. Ask a woman for her advice.
Every woman goes through a very awkward phase in terms of grooming and styling at some point in her life, usually quite early – you are going through it very late. It is necessary all the same.