Cosplay Hair

One of the important parts of cosplay is making your hair match that of the character. This is true for any character, not just ones from Pokémon. There are just as many ways of doing this as there are many different characters, but in general they can be shoehorned into a few approaches. I subscribe to some of these approaches for my cosplay and in particular my Pokémon cosplay.

Using own hair. I am blessed and grateful for the fact that I have black hair, the same as Ash. As such it is an asset that I have to protect if I want to continue cosplaying Ash with my own natural hair, which I am proud to do. I've been told that I can have long hair - even the same as Ash's - as long as I maintain it, and I find that this is true. Now whenever I go to get my hair trimmed to keep it in check for cosplay and other purposes, I follow my hair stylist's recommendations in order to maintain my hair. This is an approach that works well for me and my cosplay, but it's not for everyone, and certainly not for specific occasions. For that, there are the two other approaches below.

Modifying own hair. I could in theory apply extreme modifications to my hair so I can cosplay other characters, other than to keep it black and trimmed for cosplaying Ash, but this is something I'm loath to do for reasons of cost, risk, and practicality. I would have to do this every time I cosplay a different character, thus running up cost and practicality, and some processes (e.g. dyeing hair) do run the risk of something (bad) happening to my hair, which would be counter-productive to my intent above. But if you're willing and able to do this, by all means. I prefer not to do it and go with a less risky approach.

Wearing a wig. This is what I and most of my fellow cosplayers do when cosplaying a character with extremely different hair. It's cost-effective, not too risky, and practical. I've never really thought about it for cosplaying Ash since I use my own hair, but if I'm in really dire situations this would work, and it's something I could invest in. For other characters, this is practically required; so far the only one for Pokémon cosplay I really need is a brownish short-hair wig for cosplaying Red's modern costume, but I haven't been able to spend for that. If I want to cosplay a radically different character - like Gary, but I'm not likely to do that one, or Brendan - then this is practically required.

These are all fine approaches for my Pokémon cosplay and cosplay in general to suit hair to the character, though admittedly they work to different degrees for different characters and different people. No matter the approach, it is an important part of what makes cosplay what it is, for my own Pokémon cosplay or any other cosplay, and certainly for all other cosplayers out there.