Hair Extensions: From Indian Temple to Your Temples

        First, I must preface this by saying that Adorn does not offer hair extension services. Our aesthetic and hope is that we can deliver services that maintain and promote the natural beauty of the client. However, we are obsessed with all things hair and try to be as informed as posible, so today, we take a closer looker at the world of hair extensions.
         Hair extensions aren't often thought of as a controversial issue by the people that use them, only as a slight shock when you discover that your favorite movie star isn't just naturally blessed with 3 ft. of thick, shiny locks that bounce in that perfect way (Zooey Deschanel, I'm looking at you, girl). However, when was the last time you asked yourself where all this hair is coming from?

          The hair extension industry is not a small change business. Scott Carney wrote in Mother Jones in 2010  about "...celebs who might shell out $10,000 or more for a single wig or weave, the demand adds up to a $900 million global trade in human hair—not counting installation."Carney goes on to explain the origins of the hair. Although, much of the extensions we deal with come from China where people can sell their strands to feed their family, a greater amount of the hair we use for extensions comes from temples in India where people offer up their hair as a sacrifice to the Gods. The temple then takes that hair to the "gods of the marketplace" to be sold. This brings the temple an additional $10 to $15 million a year (you can read the full article here).

          One of the largest communities that wear hair that isn't their own are the Jewish communities in which the bride shave their heads and done a wig. An interesting side effect of the hair coming from Indian Temple, is that in some Jewish communities, hair from India is prohibited because the women who gave the hair were doing so as a result of "idol worship". In accordance with Jewish traditions, "The problem is that the Torah not only forbids idolatry itself, but also prohibits deriving benefit from any accessory, decoration or sacrifice to idol worship, (http://ohr.edu/1698)."When you think of how many women in some Jewish communities do wear wigs, you can start to see how avoiding hair from India altogether could prove challenging when the market is so flooded with it and the hair is reportedly thinner and a lot more similar to European hair that the hair from China which is thicker and a lot more coarse even after the processes it goes through to make it seem finer.

       
         A lot of people don't see an issue, arguing that the hair from the temples in India have been reported to go towards hospitals and other good causes, while others feel that the individual whose head the hair came from should be compensated monetarily. In an extremely impoverished society, they are giving their hair away for what Westerners view as "free" when they make a sacrifice of their locks. While a lot of people just see it as a win/win all around; one person feels good about making a spiritual sacrifice, the church earns a profit which it then feeds back into the community, and a wealthy lady gets to walk around with beautiful head of hair she could never have had otherwise.