Greetings, world. Today’s post will be about Dream Holic, a Chinese wig brand. In the past, I’ve had several bad experiences with other English speaking lolita wig companies with their quality issues and terrible business practices. Dream Holic has mostly positive reviews online from what I could find, but over the years I’ve learned to take most lolita wig reviews with a grain of salt because they usually aren’t very detailed and the negative ones are never posted. This is not a sponsored review.
When Dream Holic first appeared around 2012, I was impressed with the quality of their pictures. Previously, I had seen some of them in person being worn by Lillith and they looked great on her (probably because she always looks cute). I never ordered one on my own though since shipping was ridiculously expensive for one wig. One day, someone posted a group order on Facebook, so I decided to finally purchase a very girly for whenever I have random sweet lolita urges. I ordered the Hime Ringo style in the Chocolate colorway. It’s a bob base with two detachable clip-in ponytails.
Price: $56.00 – 12% group order discount = $49.28 excluding shipping
Ordering
Their store was still on Etsy when this group order happened. Recently they had to move onto Storenvy, so the pricing may be different now. Browsing the Dream Holic shop was the most headache inducing process ever. First of all, despite the store’s pictures being very pretty to look at, these pictures are absolutely terrible as stock photos.
What kind of stock photo is that? The whole wig isn’t even displayed in the picture and it’s drowned in layers of VSCO filters, so I can’t even tell what color it is. I tried looking for a worn photo for this style through their Instagram tag and a google search, but nobody seemed to own it.
Second, for some reason lolita wig shops have to come up with ridiculous names for their colors. Usually half of the names don’t make sense. Keep in mind, they have 40+ different colors. Each wig has a different range of colors, so if you like one color, it may or may not come in a style you’d like. The color chart isn’t posted anywhere on their store; it’s in one of their Facebook albums, so I had to inconveniently switch between their tabs of their shop and Facebook to try to decipher what I was trying to buy. I went for the chocolate brown because it seemed straightforward enough.
Luckily for me, the Hime Ringo style has individual pictures with labels of each colorway. However, only the newer wigs have extra pictures, so if you’re looking at an older style, you’ll have to play the guessing game.
Timeline
August 30: Order placed.
October 12: Wigs shipped from China.
October 17: Wigs arrived in the US.
Review
My group order host mentioned that Dream Holic asked for a $150 shipping deposit up front and once everything was shipped, Dream Holic would refund the difference. This is a potentially dangerous way to handle shipping, but they did process the refund in the end. According to my host, the order was shipped in multiple boxes from China. There were a lot of issues with the order, mainly Dream Holic sending a bunch of wrong wigs, but DH slowly worked with my host to resolve the issues.
The wig was packaged in a branded translucent plastic zip bag with a very sturdy piece of cardboard inside to prevent the wig from crushing. I store all of my wigs in a large box, but the bag’s design sets it apart from all of the other wig bags. The cardboard isn’t pictured since I long threw it out to save on space, but it was seriously the thickest and sturdiest piece of wig cardboard I’ve ever received.
Flipping the wig inside out, on the back there is a tag and it can be tightened with hooks. Sewn into the front, a hair comb in the center and two toupee clips on the sides for extra security. This is a nice feature for Dream Holic to include since it’s not standard with most other wig shops. Often, I have problems with Chinese wigs being too tight because my real hair is very thick and I suppose that means I have a large head, but this wig’s cap is fairly roomy and has a good amount of stretch to it.
This wig has a radial part which doesn’t bother me that much, but if you’re trying to make it look natural, look elsewhere. The ponytails attach securely onto the base with clips. The tightness of the ponytail can be adjusted with a drawstring. I really like that their ponytails have volume around the top.
The brown is more warmly saturated in real life than the stock photo. I was expecting because the stock photo and all of their other photos are edited in a dreamy low contrast style. The color is close what I wanted, so this wasn’t a problem for me; it is indeed the color of chocolate. The mileage may vary with the other colors though since all monitors are different. On the backside, there are a few hairs to cover the nape of your neck just in case you have a lot of hair in that area. The wig is just thick enough to hide all of my hair and netting.
Here I am wearing the wig out of the bag. I didn’t cut or style it. I only shook out the pigtails to give them some life and combed through it for smoothness. For reference, I have a flat and round face. I find the base wig a bit unflattering on its own because the face framing bits make me look like I’m wearing a helmet of hair. My biggest gripe is the bangs though. If you notice in the pictures featuring my wig head, the bangs don’t sit very well on its flat facial plane. I thought they were the “standard” lolita straight bangs from the stock photo, but instead they are they wispy J-shaped curled bangs that are popular in larme kei right now (think Risa Nakamura). Because the bangs are thin they subject to flying everywhere. Hairspray can be used as temporary fix, but they will move if you do enough moving in the day or wind hits it. It took me several minutes too long to get them to look right in my worn picture. The thinness would be unflattering for someone with a wide forehead.
Earlier I mentioned that I liked the shape and design of these ponytails. The are super cute and I love how much volume they have. They can be worn in a smoother manner, but I like the more wild voluminous look. By arranging them in different positions, you can create multiple cute looks.
Next, let’s talk about the fibers. The wig is made from”Japanese high temperature wire.” The fibers are soft to touch and the few tangles I’ve encountered were easy to untangle. Shedding has not been a problem. Hairs will fly only if you intentionally try to rip them out. I find the hairs comparable to cheaper synthetic wigs in terms of shine. I brought the wig outside on a cloudy day and took pictures with and without flash. In direct sun, the plastic shine will be obvious.
After that, I brought the wig back inside my room. I hadn’t noticed this earlier until now writing my review, but the wig can also look fake indoors as well. This picture was taken without flash in my room under my fluorescent lighting that isn’t very bright.
Even some of cosplay wigs don’t even shine this much. This wig can look very good in a environment with controlled lighting such as a photoshoot, but at the same time, it can look very plastic-like in a brightly lit environment such as the outdoors.
Summary
Quality: 3/5 ♦♦♦♢♢
The wig is soft to touch and easy to brush through which makes it easy to maintain. The fibers are nothing special in terms of naturalness. They reflect a good amount of light which can make them look unnatural in certain lighting conditions. I have not tested the heat resistance out.
Design: 4/5 ♦♦♦♦♢
I bought the Hime Ringo because I’ve always wanted a twin tails wig without the generic straight twin tails. It looks cute even with just one ponytail. This bangs on this particular style won’t flatter all face shapes and I wish they were thicker. It’s comfortable and lightweight to wear.
Price: 3/5 ♦♦♦♢♢
For international buyers, Etsy/Storenvy prices do have a significant markup above the Taobao prices before shopping service fees. I was aware of this when I ordered. But since I didn’t want to deal with a Chinese shopping service, I just went in the group order. With discount, the price I paid was bearable, but if I had to pay full price, I probably wouldn’t. They do have shipping and discount promotions every so often, so that would definitely have an influence whether I’d order again.
Shipping: N/A
I went through a group order, so I didn’t deal with it directly, so I won’t give it a rating. My group order host mentioned that order fulfillment does take very long. They ship to the U.S. using EMS. When my group order host received the multiple boxes the order was split into, the 30+ wigs were not labeled, so she had to sort through all of them to decipher what each wig was.
Customer Service: N/A
Again, I went through a group order, so I didn’t deal with them directly, so I won’t give it a rating. Communication can be slow because of the distance and time zone differences between their staff. The factory is located in China, but the English support person is actually located in Sweden. The team member that handles their Facebook page did work slowly to correct the wrong wigs sent and did their best to make up for the mistakes.
Overall, this wig scored a 3.3 out of 5 marking slightly above average. After I purchased my wig, I saw a friend wearing a black wig which had the same amount of shininess. The wigs are overhyped, but they appear gorgeous in photos. Seriously though, they could tone down the editing a lot to provide an accurate stock photo. Their webshops still need a lot of work in order to make it easy for the customer. Having to cross reference across different platforms is highly inconvenient. Arda Wigs had this same problem too, but their Flickr gallery is more organized than a Facebook album, so it was an easier trial. Arda has slowly been adding more stock photos, so I hope Dream Holic will do so too in the future.
Dream Holic wigs are definitely unique with fun styles and color blends making them perfect for all kinds of cute and girly fashion styles. As far as I know, they haven’t been involved in any scandals like, ahem, other lolita wig companies. Would I order from Dream Holic again? Probably not anytime soon. With good marketing (and Photoshop skills), I see them growing more popular in the future. They’re not a perfect company, but they are open to helping their customers and improving their shop.
