India is the largest exporter of HUMAN HAIR

India is the largest exporter of HUMAN HAIR

Global companies readily pay millions to source it from Tirupati Balaji, making it the richest temple in the world!

But when most of us have a head full of hair, what makes it so valuable?

Here's why Indian hair is so wildly popular:

Human hair is considered the worst kind of waste out there because it takes years to decompose and clogs the drainage system and when burnt, it creates dust that causes respiratory illnesses.
While most of us discard this hair, there’s a huge market for this waste product.

In fact, traders call it BLACK GOLD! It’s that precious! Now, you know hair is used for making wigs and extensions, but we are able to create such products synthetically too,then why is human hair preferred so much?

Because otherwise, the whole purpose gets defeated, right?

Wigs and extensions are supposed to look extremely natural on your head.Anyone can detect that you’re wearing a wig if it looks even slightly artificial.

Nobody wants that kind of embarrassment. Also, human hair is the easiest to style.
Usually, women style their hair with heat. So, if the hair is not heat friendly (that most artificial hair is not), you can’t straighten, blow-dry, or curl it.

For these reasons, human hair has a high demand in the west, and a growing demand among millennials and Gen Z, all over the world.But this quality comes at a cost.

Products made from human hair are expensive because,

— for any woman, it takes at least 2 years to grow her hair to a length that can fetch her money.

And once they've grown that long, it becomes difficult to let go. This makes human hair a very hard-to-harvest commodity and that’s where India has a unique advantage.

India is considered the best destination for hair since most of it is from temples where tonsuring hair is a part of the ritual,

— unlike in other countries.

The temple auctions human hair, and it's a great way to acquire this highly difficult-to-acquire commodity.

Every year in Tirumala, only one of many such temples in India, barbers shave some 1.2 million heads.
The temple auctioned off 157 tonnes of hair, earning more than $1.6 million in 2019 alone! While in countries like Vietnam, most women sell hair to escape poverty.

Not just that, India also has a competitive, natural advantage in this business which makes Indian hair the most sought-after in the international community.

Indian hair is of superior quality and highly versatile — thanks to maa ke hath ke champi 💆🏻

Really!!!

Indian women start using coconut oil at a very young age, which helps in keeping the roots strong and avoiding split ends because of split ends, the hair looks frizzy, dry, and dull. Outside India, women tend to use intense chemical products instead of oils for hair care.

That is why Indian hair is the go-to choice for wigs and extensions in international communities.
In fact, the more luxury hairdressers and designers hardly ever choose any other hair for their clients.

That’s what makes India is the largest exporter of human hair. But the largest importer of human hair from India is China.

And that is a big problem!

They sell the end products for a huge margin, and India remains a mere raw material supplier.

Why take a backseat when we have the potential to be the driver?

Akhir kar ghar ki kheti hai 👀

This is an excellent opportunity for our country to tap into because we have a strategic advantage over the raw material. We can control the whole market and create end-products to fulfil international demand.

Many Indian startups are coming up that have understood the strategic advantage that India has,
& how they can exploit it to create an end-to-end solution to end Chinese dominance over this.

Another problem that needs to be solved is — the smuggling of human hair from India!
Smugglers mislabel the goods as cotton to avoid Chinese tariffs.

In 2021, hair, worth around $243,000 and bound for China, was seized by Indian officials at the border with Myanmar.

Another destination for Indian hair is Bangladesh, where criminals run wig sweatshops.
And this hurts local industries and exports.

So, in January 2022, the Government imposed restrictions on the export of human hair.
With this, only licensed exporters will be able to export the product.
While most exporters have welcomed this decision, some businesses are suffering because

- there are not enough factories in India to process all of the hair available,

- only big firms are easily able to get a license to export, and

- supply is now much more than can be sold, and thus, prices have dropped.

The decision seems to be far from perfect today,but such decisions can push India in the right direction to capitalize on this global opportunity and dominate the hair industry!