How to Keep Santa's Beard & Wig on Without Coming Off

Dressing up as Santa carries a lot of responsibility. You have to help keep the magic alive for the young children who see you, and letting the Santa beard and wig slip will ruin that magic. Keeping on a Santa beard and wig along with a bushy Santa mustache and eyebrows is all about proper application. Take a cue from theatrical performers and use a skin-safe adhesive product called spirit gum, which is strong enough to keep beards and wigs in place even if you start sweating in your warm red suit.

When you're wearing a Santa beard and wig around young kids, you can count on at least one of them giving your long white hair a tug. A wig may easily shift if it's sitting directly on smooth hair or a bald head. Giving the wig something to grip will help it stay in place. Cover your head with a wig cap (ideal if you have long hair that you need to hide) or a wig grip, which essentially looks like a wide headband made of stretchy fabric. Once you pull on the headpiece, you should notice that it already feels secure because of the friction created by your wig cap or grip.

If your Santa wig has a lace front (meaning the hair is connected to a lace cap that fits over your head), use spirit gum or wig tape to secure the front edge of the lace to your hairline. Wash your face or use baby wipes to clean your forehead, as removing any oil helps the adhesive take hold. While wearing the wig, shift it slightly back from the hairline, paint a line of spirit gum along your hairline and wait several minutes until it dries enough to feel tacky. You can use a hair dryer on a low setting to speed up the process. Carefully shift the wig forward so the front edge covers the adhesive. Press a clean makeup sponge all along the wig's edge, holding it down for about 30 seconds in each spot so the lace bonds to the spirit gum without getting any adhesive on your fingers.

Alternatively, place a few strips of wig tape along your hairline to hold the wig in place. If you're putting on a cheap Santa wig that doesn't have a lace cap, use white bobby pins to attach the wig to your wig cap or wig grip.

Santa's beard tends to be the hardest part of the costume to keep in place. Talking, eating, drinking and sweating may cause the beard to shift all over the place. Again, spirit gum is the best product for holding a fake beard in place.

Starting with a clean face, paint a line of the adhesive just below your lower lip. Once the spirit gum is tacky, position the center of the beard and press it into the adhesive with your makeup sponge. Starting with the center of your beard allows you to make sure it's perfectly positioned on your face before you move on to attaching the sides. Hold the sides of the beard up to your cheeks so you can see where the top edge of the beard will hit you and then paint on more spirit gum and press the beard edges into place.

Repeat this process with your Santa mustache once you're happy with how the beard looks. Paint spirit gum above your upper lip and press the Santa mustache into place. If you're adding Santa eyebrows too, you can use spirit gum to glue them directly on top of your clean eyebrows. As long as you use plenty of spirit gum remover when you're finished playing Santa, you shouldn't lose many hairs from your brows.

Spirit gum is so effective at keeping hairpieces and prosthetics in place that you need a special product to dissolve it at the end of the day. To do this, soak a cotton swab in spirit gum remover and rub it along the edge of your wig, beard or other hairpieces. Once the glued edge lifts up, dip the cotton swab in remover again and slide it between the hairpiece and your skin. Gently work the cotton swab along the glued edge until the entire piece is removed. Use cotton swabs soaked in remover to clean any dried spirit gum from your hairpieces and you should be able to wear them again and again.