For future reference: SS NC HQ = Suicide Squad NightClub Harley Quinn, ok? Ok.
Hey Skwad!
It's time to rev up yer #Harley (vroom, vroom!) and take her for a night on the town!
The Wig
Do you see this hair?? Flawless curls twisting away from #MargotRobbie's face to highlight how pretty it is? Yeah, unlike real hair, wigs are bloomin' tricky, which is why you need a gal like me (as well as a few pieces of equipment) to show you how to style them.
(Also I need to know for future reference, in case I want to do this #cosplay again, and I can't remember how I did it 😅)
You will NEED:
A wig preferably (or if your real hair is platinum blonde dip-dying into blue on the left and pink on the right, please feel free to use that) I’m using a 14-inch, lace front synthetic Harley Quinn wig by wigisfashion (Style Code: LF853E)
A wig head & stand to attach it to a table or something and keep it steady (otherwise the wig head just slides all over the place, no really, this is NOT negotiable)
Sewing pins (to pin the wig to the head)
Fabric detergent and conditioner (what you Yanks refer to as “laundry soap” and "fabric softener")
Heat protectant spray (wigs tend to be made out of plastic and will MELT)
Hairspray (a lot! There's no point styling it if it will immediately fall out of place)
Bobby pins/kirby grips/clips/whatever your corner of the world calls 'em
A hair straightener (I’m using a carmengirls.com one, it’s not brilliant but it’s small enough to fix mistakes)
A curling wand, I’m using Andrew Barton Professional one (reference number: 230BABU)
A hairbrush you don't mind wrecking (or multiple)
A comb (fine-toothed for knots and wide-toothed for brushing out curls)
Hair-sectioning clips (Wigs are a LOT thicker than real hair) or hair bobbles (again “hair elastics” for any Americans)
A lot of time & patience (also I hate leaving lists on odd numbers but this is a NEED, not a WANT)
You may WANT:
Wig glue/clips/tape (if using real hair, ignore this)
Hair net/s (I tend to use 2, but if you have shorter hair 1 should be fine, or maybe I'm just paranoid?)
A good podcast, YouTube video essay or TV show to binge (check out my recommendations here!)
Granted, this is more post-styling stuff!
Technique:
I started with a fresh base, which meant undoing the space buns from the “Boss B**** challenge” I took part in (Click here to check it out!) and brushing it out.
...I may or may not have randomly decided to cut an inch off my wig at 11 o’clock at night. 😅 To be fair, it turned out far better than expected and it’s much easier to style now! (YAY!!) 😱👏 My main reason to cut it was the ends were so knotty and awful from the heavy rain and wind where I live, but now I’m just worried I’ll have to take off an inch every time I wear it out (hopefully not!!). 😰🤞
Following that, I washed my wig as normal (If you want a tutorial on how to wash wigs I’ll link a few of the tutorials I usually follow below) and left it to air-dry for a few hours so the wig was damp as opposed to soaking wet. Whilst I would usually let it air-dry overnight, as my goal was to hide the pigtail parting from the back of the head, by brushing the wig whilst damp I was able to change the parting.
My next job was to remove all the frizz, static and rough ends from the wig which I did by first, checking the wigisfashion website for the maximum heat resistance, and then straightening the entire wig at the appropriate temperature (my wig being fine up to 150℃).
Once the wig was frizz-free and raring to go, I started looking at close-ups of Margot in the scene to see if I could work out which way her wig had been curled. Looking at photos, gifs and (of course) clips from the film, Margot’s wig seems to be curled in sections vertically as opposed to horizontally (the way I would usually curl my own hair). For anyone unaware, wigs are made up of wefts, sections of hair that make it appear like it is growing out of the scalp. The challenge now being that wigs are typically sectioned into horizontal wefts as opposed to vertical ones.
To start with I took a small weft at the bottom of the wig cap so that if anything were to go drastically wrong I would be able to hide it or if possible amend it. As the wig’s wefts go horizontally anyway, I began by curling the wig the way I would usually curl my own hair to see if the results would be achievable without changing my method.
I was wrong. So very. Very. Wrong.
After frantically screaming and crying with a few “effing and blinding”s in between, I was ready to tackle the situation like an adult. I got my mother involved.
I knew that realistically I would either have to straighten the section I had curled, which would involve more heat and potential damage to the wig or wash it again, which would take another two days, plus wasting more fabric detergent and conditioner.
And despite mummy dearest saying I was fine to squander more fabric softener, I decided to straighten the section, which worked fine, although it meant I was now back to square one.
Method ...take 2
I separated the wig into three even-ish sections using a hair bobble; the left (blue), the right (pink) and the middle (where the parting separates the two dip-dyed colours).
Starting with the left or the blue section, I begin curling small sections vertically by weft/row, trying to get each section/curl roughly the same, amounting to three curls per row.
I held each curl for roughly 8-10 seconds, pulling the curling wand out slowly and catching the curl before it fell so I could pin-curl it in place with a bobby pin.
I repeated this process again with the righthand section aka the pink section, before moving on to the most challenging section the middle/colour combo!
The reason why this was the most difficult section to do was due to the simple fact that this wig is not designed to be worn down and has a full parting from the widow’s peak to the bottom of the scalp. As such, the only way I could think to get the colours to combine so that the curls had both blue and pink within them, thereby hiding the pigtail parting was to curl it horizontally, which only created further issues to consider. Namely, that the curls at the back of the head would look entirely different to those at the side. But also, I had previously tried to curl horizontally (as I usually would) on a smaller section of hair (see above) which didn’t work out, but how else would I be able to merge the two colours and more importantly hide the parting at the back?
With the final section being so wide, I was luckily able to repeat the earlier process of creating vertical curls, by dividing the middle section into smaller parts by weft/row, again able to achieve three curls (a blue, a combo and a pink) per row. Again, holding each curl for roughly 8-10 seconds, pulling the curling wand out slowly and catching the curl before it fell, pin-curling it in place with a bobby pin.
Once the whole mannequin head looked something like a suburban housewife from the 1950s about to go to bed, I ~lightly~ *cough* *cough* covered the head in hairspray, before cracking open a window and letting the curls set overnight.
At 3:15 pm the next day, I gave it another spritz of hairspray to lock the curls in place, before beginning to unpin the curls row by row, starting at the bottom, slowly brushing the curls out with a paddle brush or a wide-toothed comb as this is what I tend to do with my own hair. This created a sort of “fluffy cloud” effect.
Links for more wig help that I usually follow ☺️
Just to draw your attention here: I'm really annoyed, I did take pictures at every step of the process to better illustrate my point, but my computer's crashed and I appeared to have lost all but one, so I do hope I've explained myself as best as I can in word format. Any questions, please feel free to comment below! :) 
Shoes & tattoos
For shoes, I'm fortunate in that my prom shoes are fairly similar, in that they are gold and you can see my toes which is good enough for me. Harley does have a chain as an ankle strap and black and gold tassels down the heel that you can add if you want to. Alternatively, the shoes can be found on Etsy and cosplay shops online, but be warned, they sell out very quickly!!
In terms of tattoos, there are some wonderful cosplayers who make and sell screen-accurate temporary tattoos on Esty!
Some of my favourites:
I hope this helps and hurrah! After a 2 year break, she's finally falling back into cosplay! If you have any advice or recommendations please let me know in the comments below as I'm very out-of-touch with the cosplay community and putting cosplays together (lol!).
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