AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.

The Locks Market.(hair extensions)

Allure

| March 01, 2009 | Zoepf, Katherine | COPYRIGHT 2009 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)Copyright

Byline: Katherine Zoepf

The hair-extensions industry has made it easy to get lush tresses. Answering the moral questions it raises is more complicated.

There's just no way around itthe bald women are alarming-looking. In this small city in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, they're also everywhere: grandmothers and gawky teenagers and pretty young matrons by the hairless hundreds, walking along the road or squashed into the backs of minibuses or waiting cross-legged in the shade in front of the municipal train station. It's impossible to look directly at them, at first. Despite their gold jewelry and bright saris, their palely gleaming scalps call to mind prisoners, cancer patients, inmates of a 19th-century insane asylum.

The womenand men, too, though the sight of men with freshly shaved heads is far less startlingare religious pilgrims visiting Tirumala, a temple of the Vaishnava sect of Hinduism high in the red granite hills above the town of Tirupati. Since the ninth century, devout Hindus have been coming here to pay their respects to the resident deity, Lord Venkateswara, one of the forms of the god Vishnu. And for many of these pilgrims, a visit to the temple is not complete without tonsuringa ritual shaving off of all their hair as a gesture of devotion and gratitude to the god. These devotees believe that if they give up their hair, the god will grant them any wish. But in recent years, the practice of tonsuringaided by the implacable forces of globalizationhas also helped to make Tirumala into one of the richest religious pilgrimage sites in the world.

For the reason, look no further than the pages of the nearest celebrity gossip weekly. The lush, high-quality hair extensions beloved by celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Britney Spears, and Jessica Simpson have helped create a soaring Western demand for "temple hair," as it is often called. Temple hair most often comes from Tirumala, by far the largest of the South Indian temples where tonsuring is practiced. And at Tirumala, the glossy, healthy, waist-length hair from the heads of young Indian womenwomen who typically have not cut their hair since early childhood, and who have never allowed anything harsher than fresh coconut oil and herbal Ayurvedic soap to touch itfetches the highest prices.

Brett Butcher, the national program director for the American arm of the Italy-based high-end hair-extensions maker Great Lengths, is rhapsodic as he describes the strength and beauty of temple hair. Even after it has been sorted, cleaned, processed, stripped of color, recolored one of 56 available hues, stitched into extensions, curled or straightened, and bonded to a woman's natural hair, extensions made with temple hair can last for up to six months, all the while being brushed, washed, and styled just as if they were their wearer's own strands.

"It's the highest-quality hair that's available to the mass market in the world," Butcher says. "And the best part is that it's donated by these women, to pay tribute at the temples."

Related articles from newspapers, magazines, journals, and more
South Indian Co-operative merges with Saraswat Bank.
News wire article from: PTI - The Press Trust of India Ltd. September 1, 2008 700+ words
South Indian Co-operative merges with Saraswat...has taken over Mumbai-based The South Indian Co-operative Bank, offering huge...Saraswat Bank statement said here. South Indian Bank customers with deposits up to Rs...
Rock art and rock music: petroglyphs of the south Indian Neolithic.(Research)
Magazine article from: Antiquity Boivin, Nicole March 1, 2004 700+ words
...social change and site destruction. The south Indian Neolithic This study will focus in particular...early third to first millennium BC, the south Indian Neolithic actually overlaps with the...a particularly unique feature of the south Indian Neolithic, and resulted in the ...
The Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music.(Review)
Magazine article from: Notes THOMPSON, GORDON September 1, 2000 700+ words
The Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music. By Ludwig Pesch...experience as a musician and scholar of South Indian classical music to this informative...collections increasingly hold performances of South Indian music. Listeners who want a handy reference...
Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society,...
Magazine article from: The Journal of the American Oriental Society Davis, Richard H. January 1, 1994 700+ words
...selling, and leather-making. Among south Indian Christians she discusses in the second...begins with a depiction of pre-colonial south Indian society, characterizing it as a world...reflects the now-dominant school of south Indian historiography, drawing on the work...
The South Indian Pentecostal Movement in the Twentieth Century.(Book review)
Magazine article from: Church History Irvin, Dale T. June 1, 2009 700+ words
...10.1017/S0009640709000808 The South Indian Pentecostal Movement in the Twentieth...xii + 380 pp. $40.00 paper. The South Indian Pentecostal Movement in the Twentieth...that are at work as well in and among South Indian pentecostal churches. The result is...
South-Indian Horizons.
Magazine article from: The Journal of the American Oriental Society Monius, Anne E. January 1, 2007 700+ words
South-Indian Horizons: Felicitation Volume for Francois Gros...points to several important areas for Tamil and South Indian studies more generally to pursue: the history of South Indian languages and literatures beyond Tamil, the placement...
South Indian Flutist Tanjore Viwanathan Dead at 76; World-Renowned Musician Was...
News wire article from: Ascribe Higher Education News Service September 11, 2002 700+ words
...Sept. 11 (AScribe Newswire) -- South Indian flutist and adjunct professor of music...of her time. His sister, the late South Indian classical dancer Srimati T. Balasaraswati...professor. He instructed students in South Indian flute and vocals, adapting his teaching...
UTI MF ties-up with South Indian Bank.
News wire article from: PTI - The Press Trust of India Ltd. November 9, 2006 700+ words
UTI MF ties-up with South Indian Bank Kochi, Nov 9 (PTI) Country...strategic tie-up with Kerala-based South Indian Bank Limited for distribution of...Vijayakumar said under the agreement South Indian Bank will offer the entire bouquet...
For more facts and information, see all results
©2009 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
About us | FAQs | Contact us | Privacy policy | Terms and conditions
Other Gale sites: Encyclopedia.com | HighBeam Research | Acquire Content | Books & Authors | Goliath | MovieRetriever | Smart QandA