Excuse the stream-of-consciousness-ish nature of this post but I had a few things I wanted to throw out there.

I found what appears to be a really awesome Indian supplier. As you know I'm in the import business so I've been putting this guy through the rigors and he seems to be faring very well. I received my samples and am quite pleased.  If this works well I will be selling it at slightly higher costs than below. The costs below are my costs.

The smallest amount of hair that can be bought is a kilo which is a relatively small amount of hair, but a boatload of hair for an individual(2.2 lbs).  The virgin hair is all double-drawn and in machine-tied wefts; prices below include shipping to the US. AGAIN NOTE THIS IS FOR 2.2 lbs; that is the equivalent of EIGHT good-sized bags of 4-oz. hair. 

The colors are also double-drawn but are on hand-tied wefts and are an additional $45/kilo.

Textures available are straight, wavy, and curly. The straight has body to it; I wouldn't recommend the wavy or curly.

16"- 17" -- $325 (approx. $37 for 4 oz.)
18" - 19" -- $370 (approx $42 for 4 oz.)
20"- 21" -- $425 (approx $49 for 4 oz.)
22"- 23" -- $455 (approx $52 for 4 oz.)

I am checking to see if a kilo can be broken down into various colors/textures.

Below are the dark colors, shown in "straight". The totally virgin "1" is on the right:

Below are the dark blondes, colors 15, 17, and 12. (The hair on the right is this Indian hair; I put it next to color rings so you could compare). These have been bleached to reach this color (by the suppliers) but the hair is in good shape. I have washed it, tipped it, and am wearing it.

I have been experimenting with bleaching this hair to light blonde. I bleached it using the harshest of materials (40 vol. peroxide + bleach + heat in the oven). It came up to this color in about 15 minutes. I am going to try 20 vol and 30 vol next.

I am wearing some of the bleached-to-613 color and will report later on how it holds up.

If you get the totally virgin hair it is machine-wefted. Here is a picture of the weft:

Anyway, is anyone interested in giving this a try?

Comments, suggestions, etc. . .

Sherrie what have you done to bleach virgin hair ? ? I know you wear a 613.  I am a natural, like *2*, so I bleached this hair using the same thing my hairdresser uses on mine.   However I was able to put the hair in the oven (YES I did that. . . at less than 200 degrees) which helped it come up really quickly. . .

Awesome - I'm definitely interested in this as well!

I'd be interested as well! Like Syren said, I'm curious about the texture though. My own hair is so fine. It look coarser in the weft pic than the others, but maybe that's just an illusion b/c of the resolution of the pic.)

I've never heard of putting hair in the oven to process with heat before. That's quite a trick

I didn't get around to further processing of the hair yesterday because I was jacking around with that useless Bohyme weft I have in light orange (what they called 27/613). Anyway the GREAT NEWS is. . .I have toned it to a GORGEOUS beige/blonde!! 

Jenny/Mocha: Yes the weft if funky. . . it's very nice, neat, tiny. . .I don't know if it's a zig-zag cuz I'm not a weft expert. It's unlike anything I've ever seen; it reminds me of teeny-tiny rick-rack  (?). It is no larger than 1/8" from top to bottom.  Jenny I'll keep you posted on creating the 613. As I said, the stuff I put in my own hair yesterday is GORGEOUS.

Amm: I don't think 40 volume bleach is bad per se. My own hair is very very dark and I speak from experience: if you want those gorgeous pale blonde results you have to use high-volume bleach and heat. I was amazed that this stuff came up as quickly as it did, and I think it's because you can do things with it (i.e. put it in the oven) that you could never do with hair-on-your-head.

And yes, everything is available in a beauty supply store but the world of hair color is an entire other black hole of time.

I am limiting the number of colors to what the supplier has (those dark blondes and virgin) because I don't want to get into the unpredictable world of hair color. . .

Syren: The hair doesn't feel coarse. It's not baby-fine either. It has almost the *exact* feel of the straight Softwear I got at EP, and it looks almost exactly the same.

Zapevaj: It is like a mild body-wave. NOT French Refined.  

I'm waiting to hear back from the supplier. If possible I would like to order 1 KG to start with: half of it in, say, a #15 (one of the dark blondes), and half of it virgin. I will get the 20-21" 'bodywave' (straight) and continue to jack with the colors. I'll send samples galore and we can see if we've found a treasure trove. . .