Feedback requested: Article on hair origins

I wrote an article, and I wanted your feedback on it, since collectively, the hair extensions gods are on this board and I bow down to you all! ( Just some background, I wear weaves. And no, this is NOT intended to be a slam piece against those who do.)

here goes:
Tyra Banks. Beyonce. Jessica Simpson. Eve. Rihanna. One of these things is not like the other, and it’s not Jessica Simpson. All but Rihanna are currently sporting the continued hotness that is extensions. At $200 to $8,000 a pop, they’re not cheap. Long before homegirl got your hair and her weave needle, the hair had to come from somewhere, right? So, where does your weave come from?
To find out where your hair comes from, look no further than the label on the package. Although many hair companies can mislead the buyer with names such as “Indian REMY Wave” and “Russian Gold”, it’s fairly easy from the “made in China” sticker on the package that the hair you’re about to sew onto your own is from China. So, how does that hair go from Xi Yu in Ghonzhou province to homegirl’s beauty shop in Inglewood?

Across many small rural towns in China, there are many companies, small and large, that advertise to young women of the small fortunes that can be made selling their locks. Due to heredity, there are many women, often in very rural locales, who are blessed with genetics that allow them to grow very thick, long hair. Light in the pocketbook, selling one’s hair for the equivalent of $10 - $40 every couple of years is a welcome financial bump. But it doesn’t stop there. Some companies source their hair from asylums for the mentally ill, prisons, and hospitals, though most are loathe to admit it. From there, the hair is chemically processed, sorted, dyed, and greys removed before being sewn into wefts, tipped with keratin, or stitched into lacefront wigs.
In India, some hair is marketed as “Temple Hair”, implying its origins from Buddist or Hindu temples across India. Temple hair is supposed to work like this: Many temples in India receive donations to Hindu gods from villagers, who, lacking money, will cut off their long ponytails and offer them to the gods at a temple. The Temple, in turn (having really nothing else to do with someone’s ponytail), will sell the hair to a hair exporter for a certain sum of money, and use the money they get to help repair the temple and serve their community. In the world of weaves, Temple hair is king because often, Indian hair looks and feels closer to straightened African American hair, and it’s less likely to be processed from its natural texture to get it to look like that. In reality, it’s estimated that less than half of this hair actually has its origins in an actual Indian Temple. Some villagers sell their own hair, and that of their children, directly to exporters and businessmen. Still others don’t cut their ponytails at all – they save their hair from combs and brushes, then sell boxes of this hair.

Loving naturally blonde locks? Russian or Ukrainian women have long sold their hair to American companies in the best scenarios. In the worst, human traffickers will cut the hair of young eastern European women in prostitution rings to further profit off them by selling the hair to American companies. Asylums and female prisoners make up the balance of the eastern European bloc of human hair production.

The origins of weaves have long been buried by the American and European companies that market hair for obvious reasons. Who would feel good about having a prostitute or mentally ill person’s hair on their head? Does anyone want to tell the world, “Their sacrifice to the gods is my new tracks!” By letting the true history of the hair become known to the world, companies that produce hair for weaves sidestep the obvious ethical issues that come with the territory.

Does Jessica Simpson have a duty to inform consumers of her HairDo clip-in extensions of where that hair came from? Is Beyonce inadvertently promoting the continued consumption of hair from inmates? Does Tyra Banks rest easy knowing that her lacefront was sewn by a Chinese worker earning less than 75 cents an hour?

I think all hair importers have a duty to be responsible in their procurement of human hair for sale in the United States. We label the origins of our orange juice, jeans, and pharmaceuticals and have laws explicitly requiring proper labeling. Non profits advocate for the closure of sweat shops and safe conditions for workers. Yet, when it comes to human derived products, hair, not one organization has ever stepped up to protest the sale of hair from mentally ill patients or prostitutes who are effectively human slaves. As a society, we cover it up. We trade our favorite tips and suppliers. Our collective curiosities about the origins of the hair go no further than the hair’s texture. Indian or Chinese silky?
It’s time for us to open up about our weaves. Hair is more than just cut and color. That hair belonged to someone once, and there’s a story behind it that we’re willfully ignoring. Our consumerist fetish for all things new and glamorous is frankly unsustainable and unhealthy for someone involved. And it just might be you.