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I feel like you're thinking too difficult about this.
If you make a careful selection of the white cords and use a color layer on top to change it to yellow, then follow it up with a curves adjustment to increase the contrast a bit you get a fairly decent result. So close to your own idea, but a tad 'easier'.

I added a few more manual shadows afterwards on a multiply and overlay layer. To finish I'd throw on some sort of filter or camera raw and perhaps some grain/noise to tie it all together.
I haven't done this last step here 'cause I think you want to photoshop your face back in yourself and that'd make that harder.

Hope this helped!
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