**SAS’s Treating Unprocessed Hair Tips **

Please note: This is for archiving purposes only.

SAS’s Treating Unprocessed Hair Techniques:

“I import Indian hair, and I do like it, but it’s a lot of work.

Indian women are known for giving up their hair to the Indian Temple, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam. They give up their prized possession, their “virgin” hair as devotion to God for a blessing they have received in their life. The sad thing is many of these women have no idea their hair is being sold to hair traders the minute it is cut off into ponytails, then exported to many other countries worldwide. The money at least goes back into the Indian community.

Split ends are a big problem. The hair is years and years old so it’s very common in any hair of this length. You definitely want to order 2 to 3 inches longer in length than you want and taper the ends off.

I have also found many nits still in the hair when it arrives from India. The hair comes washed and they claim they treat it for lice and nits. It has definitely been treated with something as it has a chemical smell to it when it arrives. I have yet to receive unprocessed Indian hair that came "perfect" and ready for use. Anyone who sells Indian or any hair for that matter should treat, wash and condition the hair before selling to the public.

Not all sellers will take the time to treat the hair and carefully pack it. I spend hours on the hair and there's still a chance I may have missed something. I strive for perfection, but nothing is perfect!
 
If the nits are still present nothing will take them off but a very fine flea comb or by using your nail edges to pry them off all the way down the hair shaft. You will never just brush the nits out of the hair!! You have to treat the hair completely with a lice treatment and go over and over the hair to remove lice or nits. I have never seen any living lice in the hair at all in any of my shipments. I only find nits left behind, which is the shell left after the lice have hatched. Lice cannot survive longer than 24 hours off the human scalp, so when the hair is cut off the donor it dies shortly afterwards.

The nits are mainly in clusters, and they look very different from dust balls/lint. The egg shells look like oval flakes, which vary in color. Dust or lint will comes off the hair very easily with picking it off or with brushing it. I sometimes get the hair delivered to me with colored threads still in the hair and a few pieces of dust or lint. If you cannot remove without prying it off with your nail edges easily then it is most probably the shells of the nits, still left in it. Which again can be removed with the lice treatment and a small flea comb.

Remember:
Lice are reddish brown wingless insects; they do not fly or jump, they crawl. Nits (lice eggs) are grayish white to a brownish color, always oval shaped, and are glued at an angle at the side of the hair shaft and is slightly smaller than a sesame seed (flakelike).

Nits can be confused sometimes with irregularly shaped clumps of dandruff stuck to the hair shaft.

You girls don’t have to worry about live lice in Indian hair, because by the time it is imported and delivered to the hair buyer and then processed again, the lice cannot survive this long away from the scalp. The nits (eggs) have been hatched already and are harmless to you they just need to be removed from the hair. You don’t have to throw away the hair, you’re not going to catch anything. It just takes a little work to get them out, that’s all.

For more information, read this:

http://www.headlice.org/faq/lousology.htm

I know you don’t want to deal with any of that when buying hair but you have to remember where it comes from, that goes for any raw hair. Just know you won’t get lice from the hair! If you girls are finding the hair in this condition, you are getting it right out of the box from India untreated.”