Where Does Extension Hair Come From?

How is the hair obtained? How does it go from someone's head to a final product? Let's shed some light on what really happens behind the scenes of this shady industry.

How is factory hair obtained?

In most countries that manufacture hair extensions, the factories rely on "brokers" to go out into the communities and collect the raw ponytails of donors and present them to the factories for a price. In some regions, women of certain religions will sacrifice their hair to the gods in a temple and the temple collects the hair and sells it to the manufacturers in bag-fulls. In the temple the hair is collected off of the floor, and you cannot guarantee that they are following any fort of sanitation protocols with their tools or that the women were treated with dignity. Some brokers will take advantage of impoverished family's and pay them next to nothing for their hair. Some brokers will recruit someone to physically assault women and cut off their hair against will. Children are victims of this too. I even know a stylist who's stock of hair was stolen from her salon by these people to sell back to the factory. Her stock was later retrieved by police and had been repackaged and the origins were mislabeled, proving that unless you source it yourself you truly have no idea where it comes from. These factories are simply taking the brokers at their word that it was "ethically sourced"

How is factory hair processed?

When the hair arrives to the factories, they combine it all together for chemical sanitation. In cases where the hair is low quality or not all aligned the same way, it will undergo a stripping process that dissolves the outer cuticle layer. Then the hair goes through a bleaching process. This usually consists of soaking in a bleaching solution for 3-9 days. Even if the desired shade is brown, some sort of bleaching still usually occurs. Then the prelightened hair is tinted in large batches with textile dyes. Finally the hair is coated with a silicone top coat to produce a shiny healthy-looking final result. Which after a handful of washes will come right off and the hair will begin to break and tangle. Not to mention that those coatings when heated can release toxic fumes. Now the hair can actually be made into the intended extension product, ktips, machine wefts, tape ins, or hand-tied wefts.

The logistics of this

First of all, the final product that you receive will most likely have strands from hundreds of women, especially in longer lengths as the hair in someone's ponytail naturally tapers and only a small percentage of that tail is actually use in the longer extensions. Now imagine how many ponytails it would take to create an entire set of long extensions if only a small percentage of hair from each tail is being used.

The sanitary conditions and the way the donors and workers are treated in some of these factories I can simply not support. Now, it is important to note that not ALL factories are like this. There are some outliers who do things better. Still, when you order from a brand they will NOT disclose which factory they use because then everyone would just order straight from the manufacturer and not from the brand. You simply have to take their word for it. And their word is only as good as the factory's word. And unless the factory is collecting the hair themselves on site, the factory's word is only as good as the broker's word.

The ethics of this

I want you to think about how many people and how many hours it takes to produce one set of extensions. You pay your stylist, who pays the brand, who pays the manufacturer, who pays the worker who works for days to actually create the extensions, and the workers who process the hair for days, and the broker who delivered the hair, who supposedly pays the donor for her hair that took years to grow. There is just no logical way that everyone down the line was compensated fairly when the final product costs $200. The factories have to rely on MASS production to stay ahead and that means lower quality output and overworking employees.

Doing it differently

I didn't want to support the use of factory hair any longer. I didn't want to take some broker's word for it. So I took matters into my own hands. I found a few collectors in Russia who welcome willing donors into their (clean) salon and offer them a haircut (with dignity) to collect their hair (In a sanitary way) and compensate them (fairly) for it. I have seen the salon, I see pictures of the girls who come in, everything is clean and everyone is happy. It goes right from that salon to my doorstep where I am able to create the extensions myself strand-by-strand. No funny business. Is it easier? No. Is it cheaper? No. Is it faster? No. Is it the right way to do it? YES.

I know that the process was clean and dignified. The hair remains in it's natural state without harsh chemical processing. And I am able to create the extensions from 1 or 2 heads of hair instead of hundreds of thousands. Besides that, I am able to select a match that is the exact same natural color and texture as your own. There is simply no better way to do it!