Do You Think All This Weave Labeled Human Hair Is Real?

[Anonymous1]

I don't. This is purely my thinking.

With the demand of weave so great, I just can't see how all this hair being marked as human is really human hair. I think most of it is really good hair like fibers that are being put on these wefts. Now are some of the hair human....yes i think so but I bet 85% of the hair being marketed as human hair is not.

How many people really have 22 inch kinky, curly, and yaki texture to the point where thousands of people can constantly order it? We should have a lot of bald people walking around the globe because of all this "human" hair on the market.

 

[danniegirl]

Nope especially the so called afro kinky hair ......I dont know not near one women with afro hair that cutting and selling enough to supply all of youtube and instgram

 

[Anonymous1]

Nope especially the so called afro kinky hair ......I dont know not near one women with afro hair that cutting and selling enough to supply all of youtube and instgram

Thank God I'm not the only one thinking this! I feel like I need to shout it from the roof tops. LOL. Their is not enough people who are cutting off their hair to meet the demand. Hair companies will never make me believe it. And everyone and their momma is selling hair. Where are they finding the people that are cutting their hair off? I just bought some coarse yaki hair the other day. It came in 14 22 26 28 inches. There is no way i could buy 100 packs of that hair and all of it be human if thousands of other women are ordering the same hair.

 

[movingforward]

I thought everyone knew those various forms of "human" hair came from sheep. I thought a yaki sheep if I recall correctly.

 

[Crackers Phinn]

There's several billion Asians in the world and a lot of them make 10 dollars a day. Animal hair probably cost more to harvest than free donations.

I understand the paranoia but I don't think there is much merit to it.

 

[Subscribe]

^^^^^^ I disagree. There has been several articles about human hair fibers and animal hair used in human hair weave. Ain't no way all the weave that's on the market can be from real humans. Even if there are a billion Asians and millions of Indians , all of them combined could not support the demand for weave.

It has become the unspoken truth just like cemeteries. How can that same land locked cemetery keep burying new bodies year after year after year?

 

[Saga]

1 head of hair can only make a few bundles, and the ends will never be perfect the way many weaves are. 28 inches even at 6 inches or an inch per month of growth will take years to accomplish, those years will cause the hair to deteriorate and after that there's no turning back. 1 billion women may be donating hair but there are only roughly 7 billion people on the planet. So lets say for arguments sake 1 billion women buy weave and 1 billion other women grow and cut it, that means that these asians/indians need to be growing their hair every year for each buyer to have one full weave.

That's not realistic. I definitely agree that these are not all human they are just better and better at their hustle.

 

[lux10023]

no and i dont trust indians or chinese folk in general as they are the kings and queens of altering an original product and making a knock off

 

[overtherainbow]

I always thought that the afro-textured weave hair was just processed straight/wavy Asian hair? I remember a few websites admitting that they make the hair permanently curly a couple of years back. As for how they're keeping up with the demand in general, I don't want to know

 

[ClassyJSP]

I take it all with a grain of salt I never believe what most say about the hair they're selling anyways.

 

[Harina]

Lol. No. Just like when McDonald's announced that their chicken nuggets were now made with real chicken.

ETA: Starbucks also just recently announced that their pumpkin spice lattes are to be made with real pumpkin now.

 

[ForestRose]

This has been on my mind for a while. Its really clear that weaves are way too in demand to supply the amount of people that want it. All those aliexpress sellers that are selling virgin brazillian hair for no more than $40 for 18 inches is really questionable. There are women that are paying thousands for one virgin brazillian bundle.

The thing is people aren't donating weave to us. They are donating it to their god. The temples and communities in India and other places are benefitting quite a bit from selling the hair. From what I know they know where it is going.

 

[joy2day]

Some of it is coming from dead people.

This is a lengthy article from the UK's The Guardian. It is a telling piece on how women are exploited globally for their hair. Rather sad.


Women
The hair trade's dirty secret
If there's one business in Britain that's bouncy, it's hair extensions – sales are up to £60m a year and growing. But underneath all that hair there's a global tale of exploitation

A woman donates her hair for auction at the Tirumala temple in India. Photograph: Jns/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Homa Khaleeli

Sunday 28 October 2012 16.00 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 21 May 2014 05.51 EDT

Graham Wake is hardly looking at me but one glance is enough. "I could pay about £75 to £100 if you had a pixie cut," he says briskly. "If you went for a short bob I'd give you £40." It's not often you get paid for a haircut, but Wake's business, Bloomsbury Wigs, now relies solely on hair sourced from the heads of women in the UK. Each week 30-40 envelopes stuffed with ponytails arrive at his office. Every day, one or two women visit to have their hair valued, cut off, and restyled. Some are bored with long hair, others need the money, and a few are raising money for charity.

Wake says he prefers paying a fair price to women in the UK to buying hair from agents, and that 90% of the coils piled into the transparent plastic boxes that surround him are used to create wigs for people who have lost their hair. The rest are for hair extensions, which is what my locks could become. "If your hair was any curlier, we couldn't take it," he says. "It would just matt after a while, but as it is I could use it."

A stylist is finishing off a head of dramatic, tumbling curls for Bianca Gascoigne, a glamour model and reality TV contestant. With her thick, false lashes emphasising her wide-set eyes, the cascade of hair makes her look like a Disney drawing. Laughing, she agrees she likes to look like "a princess": "Hair extensions make you feel glamorous," she says, explaining she first started wearing clip-in fake hair as a teenager, keen to copy celebrities such as Christina Aguilera. Now, she says, everyone she knows has them.

I watch as a woman in her 40s with long, streaked, blond hair has some extensions that have fallen out refitted. Thin strands of hair topped by a "polymer" – a covered metal ring – are wrapped around tiny clumps of her hair in neat rows, a centimetre or so from her scalp. It's fiddly work, and it's fascinating to watch the stylist gently heat the bond so it stays put. Doesn't it weigh her hair down? No, she insists, "you can't feel them, you don't even know it's there." And anyway, she says, "You fall in love with it. You look great without even trying."

Emir says the UK's passion for extensions began with Victoria Beckham. "For a long time it was only celebrities who knew about hair extensions, but when Posh went from short to long, everyone realised – and that was it."

Among hairdressers specialising in Afro-Caribbean hair, however, extensions have been popular for three decades or more, according to independent hairdresser Amanda Biddulph. Black British women may not visit salons as regularly as their US counterparts, whose styling habits were investigated in Chris Rock's 2009 documentary, Good Hair, but in the last decade, demand for extra hair has really taken off. Once, extensions were the preserve of women in their late 20s to mid-30s, says Biddulph, but now she regularly sees 14-year-olds with 18-inch extensions, and has refused to put extensions into the hair of girls as young as 12. "At the moment it's Kim Kardashian for the Afro community," she tells me. "They are wearing middle partings and their hair really long."

Cox points out that such exploitation has underpinned the industry since false fronts and hair pieces became popular in the UK in Edwardian times. "It's taking advantage of those who are disadvantaged," she says. "Working-class women's hair is used to bedeck the head of those who are more privileged. It's been going on for hundreds of years."

Much of the hair on sale comes from small agents who tour villages in India, China, and eastern Europe, offering poverty-stricken women small payments to part with their hair. As one importer, based in Ukraine, told the New York Times recently: "They are not doing it for fun. Usually only people who have temporary financial difficulties in depressed regions sell their hair." More worryingly, back in 2006, the Observer reported that in India some husbands were forcing their wives into selling their hair, slum children were being tricked into having their heads shaved in exchange for toys, and in one case a gang stole a woman's hair, holding her down and cutting it off. When Victoria Beckham said in 2003 that her "extensions come from Russian prisoners, so I've got Russian cell block H on my head", she may have been joking, but it was not long until the Moscow Centre for Prison Reform admitted it was possible: warders were forcibly shaving and selling the hair of prisoners. Thanks to such horror stories, reputable companies try to ensure the hair they sell is "ethical". Balmain Hair, Riley explains, has been sourcing hair from China for almost 50 years, and pays women the equivalent of a man's six-month salary (although she cannot give me an exact figure). However, not all companies pay donors.In temples in south India devotees travel for hundreds of miles and queue for hours to have their hair tonsured, or ritually shaved. Some have prayed for a child, others for a sick relative or a good harvest, and when their prayers are answered they offer up their hair. According to one report, most are rural women whose hair has often never been dyed, blow-dried, or even cut and is worth around £200. The hair is then sorted and sold, often by online auction. Last year Tirumala temple, apparently made 2,000m rupees (more than £22m), from auctioning hair. Great Lengths, who sell "temple hair", point out the hair is donated willingly, and they have a representative based in India who buys it straight from the temple, and ensures the money is funnelled directly back into the local community to fund "medical aid, educational systems and other crucial infrastructure projects".

But while the women who grew the hair may not be well paid, the price for the customers is rising. Biddulph says the cost of buying hair "has gone through the roof" – packets that used to cost £10.99 to £20.99 are now priced at £50 or £60. Yet, says Biddulph, even in a recession about half of her clients' extra hair is something they "can't be without – they factor it in to their monthly expenses." Other stylists I speak to agree and link it to the higher grooming standards and emphasis on physical perfection that have recently crept in. Kim Hunjan, who runs Belle Hair Extensions in North London, says: "A lot of clients talk about botox and plastic surgery, and they see this as similar."

In a recent report on the hair industry, IBISWorld noted trips to salons are seen as essential, rather than an optional extra: "Many salon customers have come to view their spending on hair colouring and styling services as non-discretionary expenditure causing demand for the industry to remain more resilient than in previous years."

In fact, asking how women can afford the cost might be missing the point. According to Cox extensions, like long fake nails, are status symbols. "If you have long nails, there is a suggestion you have a lot of leisure time. If hair costs a lot to do, and to keep up, there is the same suggestion. It's almost as though you are living the life of a The Only Way is Essex girl or glamour model."

 

[joy2day]

The fact that it does not necessarily look like your own hair also reflects the influence of the sex industry on our ideas of what a woman should look like, says Cox. "The fashion for such a long time has been about the glorification of artificiality. Fake tans, fake teeth, fake boobs and fake nails – and you need fake hair to go with all that. The whole idea of beauty is [now] predicated on artificiality and getting rid of humanness – waxing every hair from your body but putting fake hair on your head."

Recently there has been a move towards a more demure aesthetic, she says, but one that continues to emphasise wealth. "In the recent series of The Only Way is Essex, almost half of it was set in hairdressing salons, and they were all having their hair styled in up-dos." This exposes roots and allows extensions to be clearly seen. "It's a way of showing them off," says Cox. "Today we want to show off that our extensions cost £800."

Extensions also reflect a retrogressive attitude towards women's place in society, she says. "When women try and change their role their hair becomes short and chic like in the 60s and 20s, but when gender roles become more traditional, fake hair comes in."

However, economic woes, and the recent rise in grassroots feminism could spell the end of extensions. "It's beginning to look old fashioned, especially as the recession continues," Cox explains. "I think we are at the height of it; in the fashion cycle we are moving towards a more natural look." Biddulph has already noticed a rise in salons catering exclusively to women who don't relax, straighten or extend their Afro hair. "More people are making a statement with natural hair and more salons are opening up. It's about a 70–30, but I think it will be 50–50 soon."

Yet a natural look does not necessarily mean the end of extensions in the mainstream. Instead they are becoming more discreet – used to add volume rather than length. This trend reflects the fact that older women are turning to extensions: "Young people often have coloured extensions, middle-aged women do it for the 'wow' effect, while older women often want thicker hair," says Emir. Riley agrees: "Women's hair starts thinning at 35 but they want the beautiful hair they had at 20, and they do it by hair addition."

Whatever sparked our love affair with extensions, it has deepened into something more permanent. On a rainy Thursday I watch as one of Kim's stylists works on bride-to-be Jessica Munday, who is having her hair lengthened in time for her wedding. It's a time-consuming, repetitive and expensive process but Jessica doesn't care. "People want longer hair instantly. If I like it I'll definitely have it done again."

 

[ForestRose]

Good article. Thank you.

 

[ms.blue]

I always thought that the afro-textured weave hair was just processed straight/wavy Asian hair? I remember a few websites admitting that they make the hair permanently curly a couple of years back. As for how they're keeping up with the demand in general, I don't want to know

It is. The whole virgin kinky curly hair, yaki and others is just a marketing ploy to get people to buy along with the exotic names of Brazilian, Peruvian, Mongolian, etc.

Then length of hair is where my doubt lies. How many people are growing their hair to 30" to supply the wants of super long hair?

 

[cherishlove]

Nope some is horse and some is sheep... but im still rocking it.

 

[ckisland]

I think the OP is right, and I hope so!!! The whole idea of there being a demand and market for the hair of women is disturbing. The idea that while women are spending years of their life, sleeping with their husbands, raising children, working, eating and sleeping, another woman is waiting for the day that it grows long enough for her to stick it on her own head is sick .

The demand is so high, even just in America. Can we really believe that that many women, all over the world, are willingly shaving off the hair that's valued in their own culture? Or is it very possible that women are being forced, and trafficked, to supply this market? Yeah, I hope that the human hair women are so proud to own and brag about came from a sheep's butt instead of from some poor girl who was shaved bald so that her "pimp" could get paid.

 

[Goombay_Summer]

The salons that hope you can't tell goats and humans apart

In China, hair extensions, wigs and weaves are big business. Buyers in hair salons and shopping malls are often told they are getting real human hair - but when you look closely, sometimes things are not as they seem.

In a tiny village in Hunan province, central China a man dressed in a white vest and shorts rides around the dusty streets on a rusty bicycle, shouting and ringing his bell.

I stop him and ask what he's up to. "I'm collecting hair," he says. "When I ring my bell women come out and I cut their hair. I make hair extensions."

I ask him how much he pays women for their hair. "I offer them a good price, but I need to make a profit," he says with a smile.

The streets of the village are covered in hair drying beneath the scorching sun. Some of the hair is definitely human hair, yet the number of shaven goats wandering the streets suggests otherwise.

After collecting the hair, he takes it to a small factory where ten women weave it together into hair extensions.

Looking on, I can see that some of the hair being woven together is human and some of it definitely is not. He then sells it to larger factories where it is treated with chemicals before being sold to shops around the country.

left Hunan wanting to see where the hair went next. So I visited the megacity of Guangzhou. The city - formerly known as Canton - has always been one of China's most important trading hubs and wealthiest cities.

Massive hotels and office blocks dominate the skyline close to the vast and murky brown Pearl River. The tops of the skyscrapers are hidden amid the thick palpable pollution.

Beneath the smog is where I met Lily. She owns a shop selling wigs and hair extensions in Guangzhou's enormous beauty exchange centre in an area known as Sanyuanli.

Here you can buy anything from nail polish and night cream to foot spas and foundation. The lower floor of the market however is dedicated to hair - terrifying mannequins sport wigs and weaves of every colour the rainbow has to offer.

Lily sits on a stool in her shop, bunching the recently delivered hair together into fringes, curls and metre-long straight extensions.

The hair is held together with labels which supposedly tell us their country of origin. Here, apparently, one can buy hair from Peru, India and Brazil.

There are no Chinese customers here though - every buyer seems to be from Africa. Nigerians, Ghanaians, Congolese, South Africans, Angolans and Ugandans scour the impressive hall for the best-priced hair extensions available. They tell me they can triple their money when they get home.

Towards the end of a busy day I ask shop owner Lily how her business is doing. "It's ok, we used to sell to Europe and America, but now nearly 100% of my clients are in Africa," she says.

Lily shows me a list of the nationalities of the traders she sells to - of the 39 countries on the list, 37 are in Africa, reflecting the large African community in this city.

"It's good business for me, but the problem is we pay more for the hair now, as living and production costs in China are higher now."

Lily then describes,how in order to make her business profitable, she has to use fake scales when weighing out hair to customers and buy a mixture of human hair and synthetic or goat hair to lower costs.

"We say it is Indian hair or Brazilian hair, but in fact it is normally Chinese hair or even goat hair. They never realise. This is the only way we can keep things cheap," she says, adding that her customers always drive a hard bargain.

Before we can finish our conversation Marie from Uganda comes in, demanding: "I want Brazilian hair, only Brazilian, give me your best quality and best price."

The negotiation goes on for hours under the watchful eyes of the wig-wearing, angry-looking mannequins. As the sun sinks and the moon begins to rise over Guangzhou's polluted skyline, Marie leaves empty-handed.

I run after her as she leaves the shop to ask if she knows that some of the hair isn't human.

"Of course I know. The Chinese think we're stupid. I come all the way from Uganda and they think I don't know hair," she says.

Marie pauses and then lets out a huge, hearty laugh before coming close to whisper in my ear: "I laugh a lot when I go home and I know that the beautiful women of Kampala have goats on their heads."

BBC News - The salons that hope you can't tell goats and humans apart


Brazilian Kinky Curly

Peruvian Wavy

Italian Remy

Malaysian Wavy

 

[krissyhair]

Cute goats

 

[Cendra]

This is news to me. I thought weaves were basically synthetic, Indian, Mongolian, Indonesian, etc....but not from animals. What in the hell are women doing? This is nuts.

 

[nothidden]

Cute goats

LOL!!!

 

[smores]

I call it unicorn hair.

 

[DarkJoy]

And I thought it was bad I actually liked the toyekelon and kenekelon synthetics. Well now I dont feel so bad. least I know that mess is fake from jump.