This is a horrible thing in any
business, but it does happen. I was recently doing a Look Good Feel
Better presentation up at
Toronto Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Centre
and was half way through my presentation about wigs when a woman
asked me to examine hers. I told her that it was machine made, with
processed Asian, human hair. She was so upset that she started
crying. She had been told by the owner of the salon that the
purchase was all hand made, with the finest European human hair to
be found. She had paid $2000 for it (it should have retailed for
about $700). Since there was nothing on her invoice to indicate this
there was no way of proving anything. The person that she purchased
it from is well known to me and I have had to clean up after the
trauma she has left in her wake before.
This story joins another where a woman
was purchasing hair systems for almost $4,000 a piece; being told
that they were the very finest available human hair. It was very
badly processed Chinese hair and was the reason that it would tangle
after 7 months (and then she would buy another one, and another
one!)
Because I have had these two stories
only in the past 3 months, and they join lots of others, I decided
to make this addition to our web page. Because wigs and hair
replacements systems are not something that is a common experience
for the public there is room for people to be taken advantage of. I
hope that these points will help you to protect yourself.
1) Machine Made Versus Hand Made:
This is easy to spot. If you examine the inside of a wig or the
underside of a hair system and see lines, then it is machine weft,
or machine made. These lines are not there to facilitate airflow!
They are an inexpensive manufacturing technique were hair is made
into a “weft” (exactly line those inexpensive extensions you see at
the beauty supply), or a line of hair, and then sewn onto a cap of
elastic ribbon. Some wigs now are hand made on top, these can be
called mono tops, and you can see the knots, while the sides and
back are machine made. A wig or hair system that is all hand made
will have no lines and anywhere you look you will be able to see
tiny knots where the hair shaft meets the cap.
In an integration system (a hair
system that you are supposed to pull your own hair through) you will
see lines but they are so fine that it is easy to tell that they are
not a machine made weft.
2) What Type of Hair Is It?
This is more difficult, especially when you are talking about an
inexpensive product. Bad quality processed human hair can seem like
synthetic, but there are high quality synthetics that do feel like
good human hair. The only way to tell sometimes is to take a few
strands and burn them (the smell will tell!) but not many salons
will allow this and I do not blame them. I suggest that you try to
take into account how the hair feels in your deliberations but try
to get something that feels right to you.
It is more common now to try to pass
off processed hair from Asia and India as European hair. Now some
European hair is processed, so it comes out exactly like the hair
from India only a little finer. This is mostly done for a small
percentage of high end men’s hair systems and is not common.
The best way to ensure you are getting
virgin (unprocessed) European hair is to feel for the cuticle. When
Asian hair is processed it is dipped in an acid bath to burn off the
cuticles (the scales), that are on the shaft. After the processing
only the hair’s cortex remains, and therefore is nothing more than a
flat shaft. Virgin hair has not had this done so if you take a few
strands between your thumb and forefinger and rub, you should see
the hair riding up on each other. If the hairs are sliding back and
forth then it is processed. Now there are some companies that are
leaving some of the cuticle on the hair to make it seem more
natural, but then you have to ask yourself if the hair has a natural
feel to it. Does it seem dry? Does it look like a bad dye job? Is
there a lot of hair in the wig? (since European hair is very
expensive you can count on it that we do not pack it in like crazy).
Now a lot of places do not deal in
virgin hair and would not know where to get it. It is a specialty
item and many that sell human hair systems are very proud of their
hair. But ask them if it is virgin hair and they will stare blankly
at you (and possibly check for the nearest alarm buzzer). Most human
hair wigs and hair systems are processed because they are less
expensive and because they (should) not tangle when washed. However,
if someone does tell you that a wig they are showing you is made
with the finest European human hair available and it does not pass
your test, leave the salon. The person does know the difference and
thinks that you do not.
Some salons sell wigs that are made
with a mixture of synthetic and human hair. Continental Hair does
not. I have not seen one that I have liked. This may change in the
future but so far it has held. They seem to have way too much hair
in them (and if it was high quality hair why would they put so much
in the wig?) and the caps are much too big for medical wigs or for
women with thinning hair.
3) This is Custom Made Just For
You!
A custom made wig or hair system takes six to eight weeks to
make. Sometimes even ten weeks if the hair has to be ordered from
Europe. Four weeks is the fastest rush job that you can expect.
Someone local can do it very fast but expect to pay a huge amount
for this. If someone says that they can deliver a custom made wig
over the weekend then what they are doing is ordering something out
of the inventory of a wholesaler and then (perhaps) adding some
highlights or tucking in the cap a bit to make it fit better.
Watch out for amateurish sewing on the
inside of the caps, or highlight hair that does not match the
quality of the rest of the knotting. If you see hand knotted high
lights on machine wefts then you know something isn’t right. Also,
most wholesalers will put a purchase order number on the inside of
the wig or hair system so they can track it (they have retailers
calling them all the time saying that “this unit fell apart after
only four months” but with the P.O. number the maker can identify
when it was made and delivered, so they can say “no, you have had
that for eighteen months). Now when we use our factory directly we
have the name of the client and the P.O. number on the inside of the
wig or hair system. When we use one particular wholesaler (for our
processed hair unit) they make up their own number (it drives us
nuts) so just because you do not see your name in there does not
mean it was not made for you. However, there should be something in
there besides a colour number and style name to say it was not just
taken off the shelf.
These three points should help you out
in making sure you getting something worth the price. It seems that
the studios that do this do this without any regard for what a
person is going through and it is very hard to prove anything once
you have paid for the wig. Most people in the hair replacement
business are decent hard working people that care about their
clients, so don’t get paranoid. However, “know your stuff ” can be
the best watchword. And please note that I am not saying that a
machine made wig cannot look good. Or that a processed human hair
system cannot look good. They can and most often do. But just make
sure that you are not paying too high a price for them because of a
sales job.
