A Head Trip: Indian Hair Finds Parts in Hollywood

TIRUPATI, India -- For two months, Pushpa's husband was ill with a high fever. When he finally recovered, she traveled 10 hours by bus to a temple here in southern India to thank Lord Vishnu in the best way she knew: by shaving her head.

Pushpa, who declined to give her last name, had her 32-inch locks cut off by a temple barber, a gesture intended to thank the deity for good fortune. The hair itself headed in a more secular direction: to an auction where hair brokers bid for it. Some strands bought at auction are made into hair extensions, which are sold to Western women for as much as $3,000 for a full head of hair.

The temple at Tirupati, one of India's busiest, is doing a brisk business selling hair. Many of the temple's 20 million visitors each year shave their heads in gratitude for some blessing in their life. Last year, the temple says it took in $5.6 million through hair auctions -- twice as much as the year before.

Although India is a small part of the global hair business, compared to the market leader China, so-called Indian temple hair fetches among the highest prices. Indian hair is generally finer than Chinese and more similar to much European and American hair, hairdressers say, making it the lock of choice for certain clients.

But few of the benefits of the global market trickle down to the women who provide the raw material. Unlike women in other countries who knowingly sell their hair for pocket money, those who get their head shaved at the temple don't receive payment. Some have no idea that their hair is being sold. "It's just waste," says a woman named Sandhya, of her 26-inch mane shaved to thank the deity for giving her a son.

The hair certainly looks like waste inside the "tonsuring" room, where devotees sit cross-legged on the floor, and bend their head forward to let a temple barber shave their scalp with a straight razor blade. Attendants mill about, collecting bundles of hair in dustpans and depositing it in large bins.

Temple officials say it's no secret that the hair is sold -- although that fact isn't advertised. The hair donation is "basically an indication of surrender of the ego," says Ajeya Kallam, executive officer of the foundation that runs the temple, one of the world's most visited religious sites. Pilgrims donate about $40 million in cash, jewelry and other items to the temple each year, he says.

One reason for their generosity: According to Hindu belief, Lord Vishnu borrowed money to celebrate his marriage and promised to pay interest on the debt. "Basically, the people are donating so he can pay off his interest," says Mr. Kallam.

The temple is one of the wealthiest religious institutions in India, with an annual budget of $120 million, Mr. Kallam says. The temple uses the money to provide free food and housing for pilgrims, as well to operate five hospitals, 12 colleges and other charitable institutions. In the past year and a half, the temple's marketing staff has been trying to modernize its hair sales to maximize its revenues.

"In the beginning, we were ignorant of the international hair market," says Mr. Kallam. "Now we grade and classify the hair and get a better price." He says the temple is beginning to explore ways to sell hair via the Internet.

One of the temple's largest hair customers is Mayoor Balsara, a goatee-sporting, British-educated resident of Bangalore. Mr. Balsara makes the bone-jarring, five-hour drive to Tirupati at least once a month to buy hair by the ton. Tirupati hair more than 16 inches long can sell for as much as $165 a kilogram (2.2 pounds), he says. Shorter hair goes for about $100 a kilogram.

Mr. Balsara says his biggest problem is supply. When he met a scientist at a party recently, he asked her, only half-jokingly, "Can you figure out how to grow hair?"

At Mr. Balsara's factory in Bangalore, the only sound is that of bracelets clinking as workers pull the temple hair through the long metal teeth of a hackle. With practiced movements, the workers sort the hair into piles by the length of each strand. A strand has about 200 individual pieces of hair. Once the strands are sorted, cleaned and fumigated, Mr. Balsara sends them to his sole customer, Great Lengths International in Italy.

Great Lengths founder David Gold buys hair from Mr. Balsara for about 30 cents a strand. At its factory near Rome, Great Lengths dyes the hair, attaches a patented keratin tip to each strand and ships it to international distributors who pay about $1.50 a strand. Beauty salons in the U.S. generally charge between $1,500 and $3,000 for the several-hours-long process of weaving a full head's worth of strands into a client's hair. "The salons make more money than we do," Mr. Gold says. Still, he's not making bad money. He says his annual revenues are about $70 million a year.

The U.S. imported $47 million of human hair from around the world last year, mostly for wigs and hair extensions, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's foreign trade division. At the high end of the market, the biggest competition to Indian hair is European hair, which is more expensive and more difficult to find. Still, it's not perfect for everyone. Susan Lipson, who specializes in procuring and inserting hair extensions for movies, says "European hair is too slick" for many actresses to use. That's why it's important, she says, to be able to choose from hair of many different textures.

Earlier this year, Ms. Lipson spent several months in Prague installing and maintaining Indian hair extensions for actors Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale during the filming of a forthcoming adventure movie called "Van Helsing." At one point, Ms. Lipson slipped away from Prague to meet Drew Barrymore in Los Angeles to retouch her Indian hair extensions, dyed blonde, while she was shooting the upcoming film "50 First Kisses."

Mr. Gold, the Italian hair-extension maker, likes catering to the celebrity crowd. The day before his daughter's wedding in June, he was standing by the swimming pool at his Roman villa talking to the fireworks coordinator -- when he says he got an urgent call. Lisa Marie Presley needed some hair right away.

Ms. Presley was in London, promoting her debut album, and she needed a fresh batch of 18-inch hair extensions to attach to her own locks, Mr. Gold says. Within an hour, he says he had arranged for a bundle of hair to be delivered to her hotel room.

One day, Mr. Gold says, he wants his hair extensions to be a brand-name product. "I hope it will be like wearing a Fendi bag or a Gucci bag," he says.