Sponsored Review: The Five Wits Wigs: Lily Vanilla Diamond Sparkle (Part 1)

Hi everyone! Recently, The Five Wits Wigs graciously provided me with a sponsored wig of my choice from their shop in return for a return (Thanks, The Five Wits! I appreciate it!) I have received the wig, and will be writing my detailed review of this wig on here and on my Facebook page. I will be writing this review in several parts - I'll be starting today with my review of the shipping, packaging, and first impressions. Part 2 will be quality, fit, size, etc. Part 3 will be my final reviews once I have completed the costume I plan to use this wig for. So, let's begin with Part 1!

The Company: The Five Wits Wigs

First off, The Five Wits Wigs is a high-quality wig company based in the USA. They travel around to conventions, and you may have seen their wig booth before in your local Artist's Alley (I first found them at Anime Boston 2017). Here's what their About section on their site says: 

"The Five Wits is a geeky traveling business belonging to Ruth and friends. Maybe you met us at one of our many conventions, or maybe you stumbled across us on the Internet. However you got here, welcome! We’re artists, costumers, writers, and geeks of many fandoms. If any of this sounds familiar, you’ll feel right at home.We also run a site for our art and writing called The Five Wits Press, and our non-wig sales are made on our network site, The Five Wits."

Be sure to check out their site, they have an endless amount of wigs to choose from!

In my correspondence with them, I talked to Jessica and Birdy. I wanted to give them specifically a shout out for the wonderful customer service! You were both great to talk to!

Customer Service Rating: 10/10

First Glance: Lily Vanilla Diamond Sparkle

For my review, they requested that I choose 3 wigs, so that I had backup options in case my first choices were out of stock or unavailable. I was lucky and was able to get my first choice! The wig I chose is called Lily Vanilla Diamond Sparkle. Here's what it looks like on their website listing: 

And here is the description from their website listing: 

"This silky platinum blond wig has blunt cut bangs and luxurious length. This heat resistant wig is great alongside many different skin tones, and works for a lot of different characters. It’s easy to style, to set angle, and to make look amazing."

I chose this wig for my Anime Boston 2018 "Big Build:" Eli Ayase's Ball Gown from Love Live! School Idol Project. 

Shipping and Packaging

In my correspondence with Jessica, the wig was shipped using Priority 2-Day Mail on November 1 (Wednesday), and I received it on November 3 (Friday). It came from their site in Oklahoma to me in New England. The shipping was really fast, and the package came in great condition with no tears or rips. Now, I am also in the US, so I can't attest to the timeline to receive international orders. 

The wig came carefully packaged with a net and in a plastic bag. 

It's a very long wig, and in my past experience wrong or careless packaging can result in long wigs arriving tangled and gnarled. This wig arrived in perfect condition, with no knots or tangles! Obviously, I did have to run my fingers through it to straighten it out as it has been curled up for a while, but that is to be expected with any wig. 

Shipping and Packaging Review: 10/10

First Impressions

Here's the wig when I first took it out of its bag: 

For color, it was very true to the photos on the website (for what it's worth, all my photos were taken indoors and not in natural lighting). Something I did want to note was something that Jessica actually mentioned to me in her email. This wig is a platinum blonde/gold color (don't think platinum in the sense of, say Draco Malfoy 😆). Jessica mentioned that Eli Ayase's hair from screen shots is more yellow blonde. I do want to shout out that I appreciate the attentiveness of The Five Wits team, in that they took the time to look up the character to make sure I got exactly what I wanted (see my customer service review a few paragraphs up 😀). Personally, I chose this color because I wanted a more realistic tone for Eli. I feel like that REALLY yellow color looks great in the anime, but would look really fake in real life, so I chose this blonde instead. So, if you want a more true-to-life tone for Eli, this is a great color, but if you want that banana-yellow anime color, this isn't the wig for you. But like I said, this wig is definitely the color it is advertised as, and is just what I had in mind. 

True to Advertised Color: 10/10

This wig is indeed luxuriously long, as the website said. I'll talk more about this when I do my Part 2 review when I try the wig on and discuss fit and such. It has well-defined bangs as advertised, and it's beautifully even in terms of weft lengths (I've gotten wigs in the past where the length was not consistent throughout the wig, and it gave a very cheap, low-quality look). 

True to Advertised Style: 10/10 

The quality is very nice. It doesn't have the shine that some lower-quality synthetic wigs have that give them a very artificial look. The texture is quite nice as well - again very similar to real hair in that it's not overly-silky (which can lead to tangling). The wig base is very nice as well. It feels durable and of good quality without being bulky or leading to that "wig head" look (I'm sure you know what I mean). 

Initial Quality: 10/10

Well, that's all I have for now! Stay tuned for Part 2 over the next week where I will discuss fit, length, and go into more details once I actually try the wig on and post some photos for you to see it "in action."

Thanks again to The Five Wits Wigs! It's been a pleasure doing business with you!

- Birdie 💚