The only thing people ever ask me about personally, is my mohawk. I put a lot of effort into its shape as well as a lot of effort into maintaining hair and scalp health, for the sake of the mohawk I do so love.
Now, I have very fine hair. I've had to develop a few tricks for that. Tricks on a budget in my younger years.
First, I have a professional cut it for me. I like to keep my lines on the side straight and clean. I keep the length trimmed. It's worth the $20 a month it costs to have it trimmed and shaped properly. Does it have to be done professionally? No...but I believe if you are going to use your hair to stand out - don't be sloppy unless the POINT is for it to be sloppy.
For standing it up - no, I don't use egg whites. Or glue. Or paste. Or anything else from an arts and crafts place. I like to be able to take my hair down easily enough when it comes time to go to work the next day.
I start with a good thick gel, massaged into the base of the hair. This is very important, as without a good base to stand upon a mohawk will just fail.
After the gel is mostly dried, I re-wet the hair lightly and apply the product. Of all things, the best thing I've ever found is "Axe Charged 'spiked up look' putty". At $7.99 a container, it's pretty cheap...it's very good at what it does and one container lasts me a few months. Bonus - it smells good.
After that's rubbed into the hair, I take a the wide end of a comb or a brush through the hair to remove clumps. Usually at this point, I wash my hands - grab a drink, check facebook real fast then get to shaping it. Reason for the other stuff? To give it a few moments to dry. From there, I can just shape it by hand.
Total time invested - 15 minutes (sometimes more if I'm being a perfectionist, depends on mood, +/- margin of about 5 minutes).
Total $ invested (not counting getting hair cut, just product) - about $10.00 a month.
Easy, sanitary, healthy mohawk on a budget.
As for taking it down? About 3 minutes to wash everything out.
Want to maintain it for a couple of days? You can even sleep on it and just easily reshape it with a little bit of water to re-moisten the putty.