Wig Basics

Lace Front, Closure, 360, Full Lace — What the Wig Cap Names Actually Mean

Lace front, closure, frontal, 360, full lace, hand-tied — a product page throws all of it at you at once, as if you're supposed to already know the difference. Most of these words are answering one simple question: how much of the wig is see-through lace you can part and style, versus solid cap you can't. Get that straight and the whole category clicks. Here's the plain-English version, and which cap is honestly worth paying for.

For 2026 · An honest map of wig cap types, minus the buzzwords

Three different things people call "the cap"

Before the names, untangle one thing: there are really three separate questions hiding inside "what kind of wig is this," and sellers love to blur them together.

• How much of it is lace? That's coverage — lace front vs closure vs 360 vs full lace. This article.
• What's the lace itself like? That's the material — HD vs transparent vs Swiss, how sheer and what color. I covered that one in the lace types guide.
• How does it stay on your head? That's attachment — glue, glueless, bands, clips. Different question again, and I wrote it up in glueless vs lace front.

A single wig has an answer to all three at once — say, a glueless HD-lace front. So when a listing reads like alphabet soup, just sort each word into one of those three buckets. This piece stays in the first bucket: coverage.

The real question: how much of the part is lace?

Lace is the see-through bit that disappears against your skin, so wherever there's lace, you get a believable scalp — you can part the hair there, pull it back there, and it reads as growing out of your own head. Wherever there's solid cap with hair sewn on in rows, you can't part convincingly. So "what cap do I need" really means "where do I want the freedom to part and style, and how much am I willing to pay for it." That's the lens for everything below.

Lace front

Lace along the front hairline — usually ear to ear — with the rest of the cap built from rows of hair (wefts). It's the most popular type, and for good reason: you get a natural, partable hairline and face-framing styles up front, at a friendlier price than full lace. The trade-off is that your convincing parting lives in that front zone. You can't flip a deep part down the middle to the crown, and a high slicked-back ponytail will show the cap behind the lace. For the vast majority of people, day to day, it's the sweet spot.

Closure wig

A closure is a small lace patch — commonly 4x4, 5x5, or 6x6 inches — that sits at the top to give you one clean, partable spot, with wefts filling the rest of the cap. This is where "closure" and "frontal" get mixed up: a closure is that small top piece, while a frontal is a wider ear-to-ear lace panel (often called 13x4 or 13x6) — basically what a lace front is built around. Closure for a single tidy part; frontal/lace front when you want the whole hairline to read natural.

360 lace

Lace running around the entire perimeter — front, both sides, and the nape — with wefts through the middle. The point of a 360 is the back: because the nape is lace too, you can pull everything up into a high ponytail or a bun and it still looks like it's growing from your hairline all the way around. If your signature look is hair up, this is the one. It costs more than a basic lace front and asks for a bit more care.

Full lace

The whole cap is lace. Part it anywhere — middle, zigzag, off to one side — wear it up, wear it down, no spot that can't pass. It's the most versatile and the most natural-looking everywhere, not just at the front. The honest catch: it's the priciest cap, the most delicate (all that fine lace tears if you're rough), and it rewards a confident installer. People who restyle constantly, or who want zero limits, are the ones who get their money's worth here.

Basic / machine-made cap

No lace at all — just wefts sewn onto a sturdy cap, sometimes with a thin strip of mesh up top. It's the most durable and the most affordable, and it throws on in seconds, which is why a lot of people keep one for gym days, sleeping in, or grab-and-go mornings. What you give up is the invisible hairline; without lace, the front doesn't melt into your skin the way the others can. (U-part and headband wigs live near here too — quick, secure, and they lean on your own edges or a headband instead of a lace hairline.)

Hand-tied vs wefted — how the hair attaches to the cap

One more axis, because "fully hand-tied" gets thrown around as a premium badge and it's worth knowing what you're paying for. It's not about coverage — it's about how each strand is fixed to the cap.

If you wear a wig all day, every day — or your scalp is sensitive, say during hair loss or thinning — a fully hand-tied cap earns its premium in sheer comfort. If you want maximum durability for the money, a wefted cap is the workhorse.

So which cap do you actually need?

Match it to how you style, not to whichever word sounds fanciest:

For most people — and almost always for a first wig — a lace front hits the balance: a natural hairline, real styling range up front, sensible price, and forgiving enough to learn on. Reach past it when you have a specific reason: ponytails (360) or total parting freedom (full lace).

What the cap doesn't decide

Here's the part worth being straight about: more lace does not automatically mean a more realistic wig. Coverage decides where you can style, not how convincing the hairline looks. A cheap full-lace unit with the wrong lace color and a rushed install will lose to a good lace front that's been tinted and laid properly every single time. Realism comes from three other things — the lace material and how you tint it, a clean install, and how it's attached and laid flat. Pick coverage for your styling life; pick those three for the believable hairline.

FAQ

Keep Reading

• HD, transparent and Swiss lace — what the lace terms really mean
• Glueless vs lace front — what people are really asking
• How to choose a wig color — reading the codes