Author: Julia Angwin
Publication: The Wall Street Journal
Date: August 21, 2003
Temple Locks Are in Demand For Western
Hair Extensions
For two months, Pushpa's husband
was ill with a high fever. When he finally recovered, she traveled 10 hours
by bus to a temple here in southern India to thank Lord Vishnu in the best
way she knew: by shaving her head.
Pushpa, who declined to give her
last name, had her 32-inch locks cut off by a temple barber, a gesture
intended to thank the deity for good fortune. The hair itself headed in
a more secular direction: to an auction where hair brokers bid for it.
Some strands bought at auction are made into hair extensions, which are
sold to Western women for as much as $3,000 for a full head of hair.
The temple at Tirupati, one of India's
busiest, is doing a brisk business selling hair. Many of the temple's 20
million visitors each year shave their heads in gratitude for some blessing
in their life. Last year, the temple says it took in $5.6 million through
hair auctions -- twice as much as the year before.
Although India is a small part of
the global hair business, compared to the market leader China, so-called
Indian temple hair fetches among the highest prices. Indian hair is generally
finer than Chinese and more similar to much European and American hair,
hairdressers say, making it the lock of choice for certain clients.
But few of the benefits of the global
market trickle down to the women who provide the raw material. Unlike women
in other countries who knowingly sell their hair for pocket money, those
who get their head shaved at the temple don't receive payment. Some have
no idea that their hair is being sold. "It's just waste," says a woman
named Sandhya, of her 26-inch mane shaved to thank the deity for giving
her a son.
Lisa Marie Presley wearing Indian
temple hair extensions.
The hair certainly looks like waste
inside the "tonsuring" room, where devotees sit cross-legged on the floor,
and bend their head forward to let a temple barber shave their scalp with
a straight razor blade. Attendants mill about, collecting bundles of hair
in dustpans and depositing it in large bins.
Temple officials say it's no secret
that the hair is sold -- although that fact isn't advertised. The hair
donation is "basically an indication of surrender of the ego," says Ajeya
Kallam, executive officer of the foundation that runs the temple, one of
the world's most visited religious sites. Pilgrims donate about $40 million
in cash, jewelry and other items to the temple each year, he says.
One reason for their generosity:
According to Hindu belief, Lord Vishnu borrowed money to celebrate his
marriage and promised to pay interest on the debt. "Basically, the people
are donating so he can pay off his interest," says Mr. Kallam.
The temple is one of the wealthiest
religious institutions in India , with an annual budget of $120 million,
Mr. Kallam says. The temple uses the money to provide free food and housing
for pilgrims, as well to operate five hospitals, 12 colleges and other
charitable institutions. In the past year and a half, the temple's marketing
staff has been trying to modernize its hair sales to maximize its revenues.
"In the beginning, we were ignorant
of the international hair market," says Mr. Kallam. "Now we grade and classify
the hair and get a better price." He says the temple is beginning to explore
ways to sell hair via the Internet.
One of the temple's largest hair
customers is Mayoor Balsara, a goatee-sporting, British-educated resident
of Bangalore. Mr. Balsara makes the bone-jarring, five-hour drive to Tirupati
at least once a month to buy hair by the ton. Tirupati hair more than 16
inches long can sell for as much as $165 a kilogram (2.2 pounds), he says.
Shorter hair goes for about $100 a kilogram.
Mr. Balsara says his biggest problem
is supply. When he met a scientist at a party recently, he asked her, only
half-jokingly, "Can you figure out how to grow hair?"
At Mr. Balsara's factory in Bangalore,
the only sound is that of bracelets clinking as workers pull the temple
hair through the long metal teeth of a hackle. With practiced movements,
the workers sort the hair into piles by the length of each strand. A strand
has about 200 individual pieces of hair. Once the strands are sorted, cleaned
and fumigated, Mr. Balsara sends them to his sole customer, Great Lengths
International in Italy.
Great Lengths founder David Gold
buys hair from Mr. Balsara for about 30 cents a strand. At its factory
near Rome, Great Lengths dyes the hair, attaches a patented keratin tip
to each strand and ships it to international distributors who pay about
$1.50 a strand. Beauty salons in the U.S. generally charge between $1,500
and $3,000 for the several-hours-long process of weaving a full head's
worth of strands into a client's hair. "The salons make more money than
we do," Mr. Gold says. Still, he's not making bad money. He says his annual
revenues are about $70 million a year.
The U.S. imported $47 million of
human hair from around the world last year, mostly for wigs and hair extensions,
according to the U.S. Census Bureau's foreign trade division. At the high
end of the market, the biggest competition to Indian hair is European hair,
which is more expensive and more difficult to find. Still, it's not perfect
for everyone. Susan Lipson, who specializes in procuring and inserting
hair extensions for movies, says "European hair is too slick" for many
actresses to use. That's why it's important, she says, to be able to choose
from hair of many different textures.
Earlier this year, Ms. Lipson spent
several months in Prague installing and maintaining Indian hair extensions
for actors Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale during the filming of a forthcoming
adventure movie called "Van Helsing." At one point, Ms. Lipson slipped
away from Prague to meet Drew Barrymore in Los Angeles to retouch her Indian
hair extensions, dyed blonde, while she was shooting the upcoming film
"50 First Kisses."
Mr. Gold, the Italian hair-extension
maker, likes catering to the celebrity crowd. The day before his daughter's
wedding in June, he was standing by the swimming pool at his Roman villa
talking to the fireworks coordinator -- when he says he got an urgent call.
Lisa Marie Presley needed some hair right away.
Ms. Presley was in London, promoting
her debut album, and she needed a fresh batch of 18-inch hair extensions
to attach to her own locks, Mr. Gold says. Within an hour, he says he had
arranged for a bundle of hair to be delivered to her hotel room.
One day, Mr. Gold says, he wants
his hair extensions to be a brand-name product. "I hope it will be like
wearing a Fendi bag or a Gucci bag," he says.
