Companies that make and sell hair extensions and wigs have protested
over allegations that the industry habitually uses unethically sourced
human hair from Asia.
Media reports and online rooms have
increasingly suggested that vulnerable individuals in India, south-east
Asia, and inland China are being put under pressure to sell their hair.
In the worst cases, hair is allegedly obtained by force.
However,
companies in the sector say there is little basis for such allegations.
One of the largest, the London-based hair extensions and wigs business
Hairaisers, says it sources all its hair from willing Hindu devotees at
the Tirupathi temple in India’s Andhra Pradesh district. Up to 50,000
followers visit the temple every day, many of whom shave their hair in
a religious ritual known as ‘tonsuring’.
Hairaisers has
undertaken to buy ten tonnes of hair every year from the temple. It
says the temple uses the income from hair sales to invest in local
schools, hospitals and other community projects. ‘We have gone to great
levels to ensure that our 100 per cent human hair arrives from
volunteers and that no unethical measures are forced upon the
individuals,’ said Ubaid Rehmann, director of Hairaisers.
The
company, which sells 800 kilos of hair per month, says it uses
independent agents in India to ensure ethical standards are met and
that hair sourced from poor or sick people would be of low quality.
‘This is not the hair that Hairaisers wants or sells,’ the company told
EP.
Concerns have also been raised about labour violations in
Chinese processing plants, where much of the hair in the £160million
($305m) export market is sorted, fumigated and weighed before shipping.
Hairaisers says it uses a ‘reputable company’ in China ‘with
skilled workers’, although it has yet to develop systematic workplace
monitoring.
Another large trader in the sector, UK-based
Racoon International, said the main companies were suffering
reputational damage because of occasional black market trading by
disreputable agents in India.
‘We are the UK’s only hair
extensions company with ISO 9001 accreditation, so we have a proven
supplier management system that is audited every year,’ said Eva
Proudman, Racoon’s general manager. The company says it buys ‘just a
small percentage’ of its real hair from India but meets hair suppliers
twice a year to discuss issues and tries to reduce the demand.
‘Real
hair is a scarce commodity and we actively educate our customers in
using hair responsibly, which has meant that less hair is used,’ said
Proudman.
She said the company ‘polices the internet on a
daily basis to ensure that the brand is not wrongly associated with
hair sold to the consumer via websites’, where it believes some of the
abuses take place.
Consumers typically pay £500 for a full head of human hair extensions and from £150 for a partial head.
