The Story Behind Human Hair
Posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 9:43 PMBy BellaNaija.com
I read this article some months ago and it gave me food for thought.
As a certified ‘weave-aholic’ who uses only human hair, I was taken aback when I read this.
Apparently, there is a ‘story’ behind the hair that we buy and then attach to our scalps.
Why I’ll never wear hair extensions again, by pop star Jamelia
Interview By Natasha Courtenay-Smith
Standing inside a Hindu temple in Chennai, India, I watch horrified as a two-year-old girl with long, dark tresses has her head shaved.
She screams as the clippers buzz around her ears and her hair tumbles to the floor.
She is clearly terrified and no doubt has little comprehension of what is happening to her.
Beside her, her mother is having her head shaved, too.
Religious sacrifice: Jamelia saw women having their heads shaved as thanks for a child’s recovery from illness or to save the family house from repossession
This is a religious sacrifice: the shaving represents a last-ditch plea to a higher power to save their home from being repossessed.
But to me, it appears to be the ultimate in exploitation.
Their hair is casually tossed into a bin, but it will never actually be thrown away.
Though they do not know it, soon their pigtails and plaits will be sold to hair dealers and then shipped on to the salons of Western Europe.
As I watch the lady and her daughter shuffle out, hopeful that this huge sacrifice will make some tangible difference to their lives, I make a promise to myself that I will never wear hair extensions again.
Splitting hairs: In the Indian city of Chennai there are so many women prepared to chop off their tresses that factories have sprung up to process it
My hair has always been important to me.
As a schoolgirl, I used to get up at 5am to ensure I had enough time to do my hair before school.
Although for a black woman I would be described as having ‘good’ hair – because it is long and straight – naturally, it is not luxurious, thick or sleek enough to meet the demands of the endless photo shoots and concerts I am involved in for my career.
That’s why, in many of the photographs you see of me, I am wearing hair extensions.
For me, putting in my hair extensions feels like a confidence booster, like a man putting on a smart suit.
I wear them to bring out the best in me and to transform myself from busy mum of two into my alter ego, Jamelia the pop star.
And I’m not alone.
All over Britain, girls are clipping, glueing and sewing hair into their heads.
Recent figures show that British women spend a staggering £65 million a year on hair extensions.
As a nation, we now spend five times more on lengthening our hair than we did four years ago.
Shorn: The pop star with Tatiana, a 13-year-old Russian who sold her waist-length hair for just £100 – roughly a month’s wages
Yet most of us give very little consideration to the origin of our hair extensions.
Indeed, until I worked on this BBC investigation, I’m ashamed to admit I’d never once stopped to consider where the human hair I had pinned or sewn into my head had come from.
I was so ignorant about the products I was using that I can’t even say how much they were costing me every month or every year.
Then I heard from a friend, earlier this year, that the hair used in the extensions could be taken from corpses. I was horrified.
How did I know I wasn’t wearing a dead person’s hair?
And if I was, had they agreed to that before they passed away, or had they simply had it shaved off in a mortuary without their family’s knowledge?
Farewell, long tresses: Jamelia has given up her flowing extensions
And if the hair wasn’t taken from the dead, who were this army of women and girls from whom it was taken?
I realised for the first time that there might be a very real human cost to the beauty fad which allowed me to feel more confident on stage.
I wanted to know who on earth was chopping off other people’s hair in the name of our Western vanity, and whose hair I have actually been wearing?
My journey to find out took me via some of London’s most upmarket hair salons and into the heart of rural Russia and India.
What I discovered was truly shocking and distressing.
Did you know, for instance, that in Russia, girls as young as 13 are cutting off their hair to sell for just a few pounds?
This is despite the fact that in the UK, a full head of extensions of the best quality European hair would set you back £2,000.
There is a staggering profit to be made from this trade, and you can bet that none if it is passed back to the girls at the beginning of the chain.
I start my journey by visiting Russia with Tatiana Karelina, a Russian hair-extension expert living in London.
She does 1,000 sets of hair every year for private clients, and is known for providing top-quality soft and fine hair.
She frequently travels to her homeland to source top-quality hair straight from dealers.
We head to a remote rural area three hours from Moscow, where we meet Alexander, a hair dealer.
He tells us his hair is provided to him from collectors, who go around small villages and towns persuading women and girls to sell their hair.
I have a lot of questions for Alexander. I ask him if he knows whether the girls whose hair he sells are being treated fairly.
I ask him if he ever gets hair from dead people. He is cagey and evasive.
He says that he knows the hair doesn’t come from the dead, but he won’t elaborate further.
But when I press him, he finally confesses that he doesn’t know exactly where the hair he is buying comes from.
And by way of illustrating that, the girls who sell hair are treated fairly, he simply states that they know the worth of their hair and wouldn’t sell it unless they were getting paid well.
I leave the meeting feeling deeply uncomfortable.
This man is not sure that the hair he sells is not from dead people, and I’m starting to be convinced that someone is being exploited along the way.
Let’s face it – the rich girls tottering around Red Square in designer heels and carrying Louis Vuitton bags do not need to sell their hair.
Next, Tatiana takes me to her home town of Kashin, another rural area, where we meet a 13-year-old girl, also called Tatiana, who has long hair which reaches her backside.
She tells us she wishes to sell her hair because she has been told she will be paid for it.
To my mind, it’s a travesty – this girl’s hair is gorgeous and she seems too young to really know for sure whether she’s making the right decision.
Usually, this full head of luxurious hair would have cost just £20. Today, perhaps because I am watching, Tatiana pays the girl £100.
It’s the equivalent of most people’s monthly wages here, and the girl is over the moon.
But I feel incredibly uncomfortable about the entire process - there’s something so deeply personal about your hair: it should be every woman’s pride and joy.
What British teenager would ever dream of doing the same?
For the next stage of my investigation, I travel to Chennai, one of the biggest cities in India.
As part of the documentary, I have had some of the hair I wear in my extensions scientifically analysed. The results suggest it comes from this region of India.
In Indian culture, a woman’s hair is her beauty, and the longer your hair, the better your marriage prospects are.
Why then, with such value placed on hair, would anyone even consider selling it?
Yet, incredibly, there are so many women prepared to chop off their hair here that factories have sprung up to process it.
On my visit, I go to see one where the workers sort through, shampoo, brush and blow dry the shorn hair of more than 200,000 women a year. To me, it’s a macabre thought.
So why exactly do these women do it?
Well, as I have mentioned already, there are the many Indian women who shave their hair voluntarily at Hindu temples as a kind of religious sacrifice.
And although some of these women know the hair will be sold, most don’t.
One woman I come across is having her head shaved to give thanks for the fact her child has recovered from a life-threatening illness; another to save her property from repossession.
They clearly believe this is the best way to show their faith and gratitude, and I’m told that millions of pounds raised from selling their hair is spent on the homeless and maintaining the temples.
And yet only a quarter of Indian hair sold on the international market comes from Hindu temples, which means that most of it is coming from women who are simply trying to make a little money.
I also travel to an impoverished village to see how poor-quality hair - the sort that sells on our market stalls in extensions for £5 – is collected.
There, I witness men and women working the rubbish dumps, actually searching for and collecting hair that has been pulled out of hair brushes.
Quite simply, this is their family business. It is, they tell me, a job their fathers and grandfathers have done before them.
It might seem disgusting, but it’s the only income they have.
It is a pitiful existence, and it is fuelled by the demand from Britain and other countries.
What I saw in Russia and India certainly set me thinking, and since I returned I haven’t used hair extensions once, not even when performing at the recent Nelson Mandela tribute concert in Hyde Park.
That was the sort of event at which previously I would never have stepped on stage without them.
But what I have unearthed has profoundly changed my attitude about extensions.
Now, to me, a packet of hair extensions has a face – whether that is a Russian teenager, a woman in India who is shaving her head as a sacrifice or a two-year-old girl in tears because she doesn’t understand what’s happening to her.
I believe that I – and all the other women who use them – should be more responsible about the extensions we buy.
As consumers, we need to make sure that the hair we use is ethical, and has been given with consent.
We need to know that the people it has come from have been treated fairly.
Just as we have fair trade stamps for food, why shouldn’t we have the same thing for hair extensions?
And as the women who drive the market in hair extensions, we also have a moral responsibility to the women who have cut off their hair or shaved their heads for our benefit.
Their hair may be helping to make us more attractive, but thanks to their sacrifice many of them must now be anything but.
Tags: human hair, jamelia
I should show this post to Chinedu at work who says her extensions which she calls ‘Brazilian Human Hair’ cost the earth and a leg.
Thinking: “It is amazing what some women do to make other women pretty, and here I thought women where their own worse enemy…”
hmmm…
This struck a chord I promise you.
chaiiiii….bella y did u post this now, i just spent 200 pounds on human hair so i can shine this xmas now im feeling guilty ………….i will still sha use it o jare…life is hard my sista lol
bella, i just spent 320 pounds on indian hair oooooooooo!!
but it doesnt change my mind she. as long as these women r not forced into it
I watched the program when it was aired on TV some months ago.. Jamelia has a point, and I respect how far she’s gone in standing up to what she believes in. HOWEVER, i beg to disagree with her cos,
1) some people actually need hair extensions b’cos they are cancer survivours. so to them such products actually help them. There are actually places in London specialising in buying hair from consenting adults. Such adults are blessed with such long hair and decide to sell it to the clinics. Now whether it is ethical to seel your won hair, i can’t decide, but i know they help cancer survivours have some hair, in the form of wigs or extensions. We should not rule them out completely.
2) i dont believe EVERY person ‘selling their hair was forced into it. this may just be a snap shot of what she has shown, in India and Russia.
3) My hair dresser, who’s in a professional hair dressing school told me that there’s actually nothing like 100% human hair. she says that she’s been taught that when the human hair extensions are made, added with fur. Yep. Most people don’t know this. Fur is actually the closet thing to human hair b’cos its from a living organism. I know this sounds slightly worse than what Jamelia has said., but I just thought I’d share it as food for thought.
I use human hair extensions by the way. I’m working on growing my hair and i think putting a weave on my head helps.But also think the synthetic ones are a bit too dangerous for me bcos, they are a fire hazard. Especially in the winter months when I’m around the heater alot…
(ps..im sorry my comment is wee too long..)
wowwwwww!!!!!!!!!
i’m never buying human hair extension again…used them only twice anyways….will stick to synthetic if i need to get braids done.
thanks for this very insightful post bella!
This is too eye opening. For someone who is sworn off perms and weaves, I am grateful to read this. I just wish Oprah will air a show on this topic. What a ruckus that will cause. I wanted a change from natural hair so I had a weave done about 2 months ago. Let me tell you, it felt so uncomfortable, and painfully tight, that I took it out after 2 weeks. Never again. I will stick to corn rows with synthetic hair if I feel the need for a change. Thanks for this once again!
chris rock just did a documentary called ‘good hair’, coming out next year. i think wearing weaves is a personal choice, i don’t judge, but as for me, natural hair is the way forward.
chick has a point but with everything that has an advantage, comes a disadvantage!
At a point while reading this, i felt bad; but then after a while, i was like OMG! IT IS JUST FREAKING HAIR! IT GROWS BACK! and taking d cultures these girls are from, i’m talkin growth in a matter of weeks.
Now after growing up in 9ja where ur actually mandated by some schools 2 cut your hair! it’s like abeg! o jare! ah! these girls r making thier living off their hair so its not necessarily like a bad thing! i mean they know it’ll grow back.
d main thing that really pissed me off is the profit these hair dealers are making from it! Say what?? that right there is GRAND THEFT!
just like China tho, all these kids in sweat shops r paid peanuts 2 work thier butts off 2 make all these clothes and shoes and we pay lots of money 4 them.
i mea will Jamelia stop wearing clothes 2?? the root of the problem is poverty and until we start addressing that, this hair business thing ain’t going no-where!
Personally tho, ive chosen 2 lay off the weaves a little sha… its just that dealing with black hair is a daily struggle and i do not have time nor sleep 2 spare.
p.s- d chick that mentioned buying indian hair and then saying “life is hard o!”, is just 2 funny! was rolling with lafta
Much ado about nothing. Hellooo, its just hair we are talking about here, not organs been harvested!! It will grow back and the process of hair cutting is very very painless abeg. Next topic please
whatever Jemelia. if u dnt like it get urself synthetic hair !
;-b
Interesting piece…. But common ladies, surely you all must have know the process to get Human Hair, its general knowledge man.
To be honest, this is not going to change anything for me as i will continue to use human hair. This is not worse than the children in the factor in China who loose linbs while making the clothes we wear (louis Vuitton included) or the farmer who gets exploited by Starbucks. It is all the same sin. So for those who will stop wearing weave (its a good thing for the cause) but perhaps you want to stop drinking starbucks and buying clothes too?
Oh, as for Jamelia, its very cool that she has another side to her other than her boring music…can she perhaps not wear those leather boots… its against animal rights
seriously,much ado about nothing.hair and nails are actually just dead cells.
lol…. thanx bee….. u just too the words outa my mouth, about people needing extensions due to chronic diseases that could lead to hair loss…and it aint 100% Human hair as they say it is…….. abeg… she might as well, drop the fur,the leather clothes,furniture wat eva it is that they use these days… Jamelia stop usin human hair.. ko…. she’s the same person that said no 2 teenager pregancy n guess who got knocked up… @ age 19…J… so pls, if u want to use human hair… fine.. if u dont.. good 4 u…
Exactly! It’s just hair… dead cells. No permanent harm done, it’ll grow back in a jiff.
Thank you, its nice to see her show a deeper side… but really, which is worse, killing animals to wear their skin or buying hair (that will grow back in a matter of days). If she was campaigning against organ sales (a HUGE problem in countries like India) I would be totally behind that. That said, it’s of course wrong that people who do it for religious reasons or whatever are getting exploited, and it’s nice that Jamelia has a cause, but really… there are many more important problems in the world…
bella,dis piece is all so revealing.i mean who would have known that all dem weaves that we use to demo cud well might hav com from…..anyway dont want to tink about it
very reavealing.i mean who would have tought that all dem weaves that we use come from………dont want to talk about it.
she should stop wearing leather and fur coats as well, i think dat is more inhuman than selling of hair that will grow back in mnths! these pple r blessd with beautiful hair and if they r selling it in order to survive wats rong? its nt like prostitution or anytin like dat…if i could sell my hair 4 100 pounds each time it grew to my waist i’ll gladly do so…
its just hair
They are talking about picking hair from rubbish dumps. Wow, thank goodness, i take care of my own hair and dont wear weaves or use synthetic hair.
A lot of black women are of the opinion that we cant grow hair, which is extremely false. Like many other things, dedication and care improves it.
Bella Naija, you should do a feature on this sister here, she is not African, but black American with very nice locks( hair). http://www.k-i-s-s.biz/
Also the part of Africa you come from also impedes how much your hair can grow, I’ve noticed my igbo sisters usually have nicer hair than my yoruba sisters. That’s just within the same country, not to talk about the continent itself. My point is, there are alot of factors that contribute to a nice long hair, not just taking care/or not taking car of it.
its all good…………thanks jemila for giving us an insight………..but……..they were not forced to sell their hair, they did it willingly……..
true say ..it will grow back..
I have thick, healthy long hair and I CHOOSE to wear weaves.
We make choices and we must live with them.
…Well Janelia, I know that in India people sacrifice their hair to their “gods” and they in turn sell the hairto boost their economy…if you choose not to wear hair extensions, then thats perpect for you but I believe it is wrong for you to make people that still wear them feel like the are doing something wrong or questionable!!
I don’t think it is that much of a sacrifice, and I do not think that it is something to be made a big deal of.
Granted, there are individuals who might have a hard time regrowing their hair, but in general, the hair of Indian and other Asian peoples as well as of most Caucasian people grows very fast and very easily.
So, if a poor woman/girl sells her easily re-grown hair for money, then there’s nothing wrong with it. Admittedly, her poverty is regrettable, but it would not be AS regrettable as say, a poor black woman with waist length hair who was forced to cut it and sell it for money to live. THAT, we all know would be the tragedy.
The whole world is no stranger to the battle most (I know there are exceptions) black women go through to grow their NATURAL hair to lengths that women of other races (particularly INDIANS) take for granted. Therefore, Jamelia shouldn’t even be shocked or horrified. Indians have been shaving their heads for centuries as part of festivals or religious rites. Has she ever wondered why they do it, even those of them that are well off? Why does a dog wag his tail? Because he can. The average Indian’s hair probably regrows at five times the speed of the average black person’s hair. And it attains lengths to the same proportion too.
On that note, Jamelia’s horror is not enough to stop me buying weaves, wigs, etc. I have natural hair and usually don’t wear them, but if I decided I fancy it one day, the plight of Indians with shorn heads won’t be enough to stop me.
when i lived in africa, i wore weaves. because the humidity does not allow regular relaxed hair styles to hold, of course, we all want that polished sophisticated corporate big girl look. since i’ve lived abroad, the weather is better for my hair and i no longer need to use weaves. after reading your article, i have decided not to wear human hair weaves. and will consider going natural or twists or dreadlocks, but pls tell me how is the synthetic hair made. we still like the occassional braids or cornrows. please we need more enlightenment, this is a very interesting topic. thanks.
I only have a problem with the fact that they persuade these women/ girls to sell their hair and then get paid for less. Apart from that, I really do not care. These women agreed to do it and will grow their hair faster.
Anyway, I usually leave my hair out in the summer because my hair breaks in this harsh Canadian weather. Thanks for this putting this up Bella. I will still use my weaves tire.
Hey…
I’m currently wearing a special weave of VERY, VERY high grade synethic hair. It is a “Flexi-Strand” weave which was created in Chicago about 5 years ago. It is excellent hair! The best, imho. This weave is special because it is braided in, not sewn in and it blends in perfectly with your own hair. I love my natural hair. It’s thick, healthly and pretty, but it’s tough working with it and I’m not a big hair person, but I make sure that’s it’s well oiled and take natural supplements like Biotin to make sure that it grow properly. My stylist is Yourmar Herr and she’s based in DMV area. Here’s her website with photos.
http://www.BlackStylists.com/HerrnaturalHairDesign
Children are being deprived of their rights and abused even as i type, Women are being beaten and killed by their husbands and boyfriends. In Africa, children are dying from hunger and no water and this young woman is talking about hair ???
If you really want to make a difference why dont you pick an area that will help you change lives, I really dont care if you wont put on a weave ever again (yeah right i know i will, cos there are certain things as synthetic weaves ) but pls dont try and turn ur dumb blond moment into a world movement to abolish weaves….,why dont u decide not to drink water until every child in Africa has clean water ? Then il respect you and listen its a shame i cant get the time i used to read this back .
Gimmie a break!!!
Juwee you obviously are too daft to grab the essence of the story!seriously
i don’t think this info is groundbreaking. big deal. really….
anyway, that’s why we should wear our hair natural. lol. a nappy sister is a happy sister. paix!
Where in Africa? the continent, country or village called Africa? You know you can’t genenarilize huh? Not everywhere is humid relaxed hair hold up North and South of the continent! I guess you mean Nigeria?
“The whole world is no stranger to the battle most (I know there are exceptions) black women go through to grow their NATURAL hair to lengths that women of other races (particularly INDIANS) take for granted. Therefore, Jamelia shouldn’t even be shocked or horrified. Indians have been shaving their heads for centuries as part of festivals or religious rites. Has she ever wondered why they do it, even those of them that are well off? Why does a dog wag his tail? Because he can. The average Indian’s hair probably regrows at five times the speed of the average black person’s hair. And it attains lengths to the same proportion too.”
Would you like to back up those assertions with some scientific docs? Really…
I think this was a good article and anybody who’s all defensive is protesting just a little too much. The article, while not news at all, helped refresh for me the current state of various beauty industries. People just writing this off as “oh well whatever” don’t amaze me b/c most people don’t give a sh*t about anything beyond their own backyard.
I have (proudly) natural hair and occasionally use synthetic wigs/extensions. I’ve never even had human hair b/c I didn’t want to pay that much. What would be interesting is to see the conditions of the workers to manufacture synthetic hair. I’m sure those conditions are no better. I think it’s good to be at least AWARE, even if you don’t CARE.
some people donate their hair free for cancer patients while others sell theirs. big deal. yeah they probably are cheated in terms of overall gain but, if selling their hair will provide them food and shelter or whatever, then y shouldnt i buy it? if i was able to determine the hair was from a dead person i definitely wouldnt want it but otherwise bring it on. i personally think what madam jamelia should be fighting about is more pay for the original owners of the hair…. finish!
Arguments do not always have to be backed up with documentation. I’m not presenting a dissertation I’m leaving a bloody comment for goodness’ sake. Besides things classified as common knowledge do not need documentation floating behind them every time they are asserted. Did you not see me say in GENERAL?? Yes, there are exceptions. There are ALWAYS exceptions. BUT IN GENERAL, and noone can deny:
1. INDIANS and other ASIATIC PEOPLES have longer hair than most Black people…..IN GENERAL
2. The hair of INDIANS and other ASIATIC PEOPLES grows/regrows faster than that of most Black people…..IN GENERAL
3. INDIANS and other ASIATIC PEOPLES do not have the hair hangups that most Black people do ….. IN GENERAL.
Alright, I’ve spelt it out for you. And since you quoted me, I’ll requote:
“The average Indian’s hair PROBABLY regrows at five times the speed of the average black person’s hair. And it attains lengths to the same proportion too.”
honestly jemelia’s holiday to india/russia isnt going to do much a thing to the business, she got good hair tell this to Rita Dominic and millions of other women that dont just have hair…. this documentary would possibly have been well founded if she was fighting for cheaper extensions for people with cancer or some rear illness.
honestly ladies its true we, black people in general dont have so much hair and its more difficult to handle but you could do your hair alot of good by: letting it out a couple of months a year all natural.
avoiding over relaxing else your hair is thick (2-3mnths)
avoid over braiding or weaving (fixing)
treat and trim as often as possible
and pls dont relax your 3yr olds hair or fix it you damage their scalp before they have a choice.
and vitamins are really good for keeping your hair healthy
for ladies that spend £200,£320 or even £2000 pounds!!! on hair help us raise money by donating the cost of one weave a year to any cancer org of your choice
When you say ‘black women don’t have much hair’ what exactly do you mean? We have an abundance of thick, curly or wavy or kinky hair in its natural state. As for it being ‘difficult’ to handle, I think it is just a misconception that we need to remove from our minds.
Remember that most of these industries are owned on the top of the chain by white people, in the labs making dangerous relaxers so we could have straight hair, giving us conditioners that will prevent the already chemically damaged hair from falling out, making cheap, pore-clogging, unhealthy pomades from petrolatum and mineral oil to restore the sheen stripped off by the harsh products…Not to talk of countless other vitamins etc.
Let us be proud of our natural hair. I have had mine now for almost three years and I do not regret the decision nor the journey. Do you know how versatile black hair is? You can do ANYTHING you want to it. if you are so keep to wear it straight you can use a hot comb or straightners (with protecting serum), you can wear it in plaits, dreads, an afro, corn-rows, curls, rolls, waves…all of which are reversible once you wash your hair. And healthier for the hair too!
So please, let us forgo this warped view that our hair is difficult, unmanageable or whatever. There has got to be a reason why out of all the races in the world, we are the only ones with our type of hair. Celebrate it, embrace it, use it!
HA HA. I knew there’d be a fight on this article.
black women dont have hair compared to our western/ eastern counterparts…i must admit am an expection my hair goes all the way to my back, so i dont really need a weave but i understand that for some reason some people cant live without it
and if you read my comment properly, i was trying to encourage people to let out their hair i.e be proud of it but as you may know it difficult for some people to do. and I also said something about not over relaxing it or using too much chemicals as you said. I dont not know the chemical materials in these products as much as you do but i know too of it wont do your scalp any good…and product are bad for everyone black(relaxer/straighteners) or white (dye/straighteners)
i agree with most of what you’ve said but you know the dreads, corn-row etc its easier in my opinion when your in naija to play around with your hair than in UK for example where you plait cost just about same as a corn-row which people to be more cost effective.
@AM
thank you o jare i bin wan ask am sef. sha even in naija, the north is not very humid
the women and girls that are selling their hair have something to bargain with to give them food, money, clothing for their families, since most are poor no matter what country they are from, cutting and selling their hair is better than starving or being homeless, after all hair is just waste material coming out of the head.
Cat Fighting. Damn this is some stupid shit to fight over. The woman I think has done a service to let people know what is going on. And for those that think it’s a stupid issue, you lack compassion too. Hell there are a million damn issues facing women that we all should be aware of and work together to fight but we don’t. Not in enough numbers. I say whatever your issue, stick with it and make a difference. The bottom line is most Black women are so damn brainwashed by a white standard of beauty (white women get extentions too) that we just can’t love our natural curly, kinky hair and if i hear of one more woman talking about it’s difficult to deal with when all you have to do is wash and oil it I’m going to scream. I’d rather do that than sit for hours to get it sewn, glued or whatever onto my scalp and I’ve heard some of the hear get’s parasites in it too.
What about the hair and the spiritual meaning. Those poor women that are giving from a spiritual level and being used. Then some dumbass is walking around throwing the hair around as if it’s theirs with now clue. This sickens me and I will pass the word as well. It’s just seems it’s too hard to just love yourself as you are.
maybe ur hair is easy to deal with, doesn’t mean u hv the right to say watever u like about african women dat use extensions, so live wit it…
If folks have to sell their hair to eat or live..so be it ..at least its better then a 12 year old girl selling her body for sex…people guess what hair grows back a natural resouce in helping on live…Peace
Better selling hair than body/innocence. At least hair grows back.
what about cancer patients who get wigs made for them made from human hair? are they “horrible” too?
Your comment about having “good hair” b/c it is long and staright. when will you people learn there is no such thing as good or bed hair. embrace what you have been given and stop looking like fools w/ all this “human”, synthetic hair sewn and glued to your scalps. A question I have is when you woemn wear these weaves, are we to believe this is your real hair? it looks ridiculous. hair does not equate to beauty!
Its a personal choice. Regardless of if you have $2000 for a lace wig or 350 naira for X-Pression, that’s nobody’s business. Yes, its sad but please don’t try to insult others for wearing weave or praising those who don’t. I don’t see the big deal. Let’s face it Jamelia is not the only one who has touched this topic, I am sure many others who have more influence have done the same. I will say it was a good and informative article but nonetheless she CHOOSES not to wear it. Doesn’t make anyone her and the others who don’t “good” and the rest of us “insensitive”. Even if those reading start to “boycott” extensions, the industry will continue to be VERY successful. Get real ladies. As for me, I will continue to wear my Milky Way, Sentionnel, use my Revion relaxer, wear my lace wigs from China as well as slick my REAL hair into a ponytail
There is really no need to be “fighting” over this. That is my 2 cents on this issue.