A Head Trip: Indian Hair Finds Parts in Hollywood
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.
印度头发的环球之旅
普什帕(Pushpa)的丈夫高烧了两个月。当他终于康复之后，普什帕乘了10个小时的公共汽车来到印度南部的一座庙宇，以她所知道的最佳方式──剪去长发，来表示对印度教守护神毗湿奴(Lord Vishnu)的感激之情。
普什帕让庙里的理发师为她削去了32英寸长的头发，以此感谢毗湿奴给她带来好运。然而，这些头发却进入了一个世俗的领地──拍卖会，被头发经纪人争相竞购。拍卖会上成交的一些发束制作成了加长发卖到西方国家，一头假发价格最高可达3,000美元。普什帕拒绝透露她的姓氏。
座落在提鲁伯蒂的这座寺庙是印度香火最旺盛的庙宇之一，出售头发的生意也十分活跃。该庙每年约有2,000万香客，其中许多人都以剪发表达对神灵保佑的感激。去年，该庙称头发拍卖收入达560万美元，是前年的两倍。
和中国相比，印度只是全球头发生意的沧海一粟，但所谓的印度庙宇发束的售价却是最高的。美发师称，印度头发的发质总体上好于中国，且更接近于欧美人的发质，因而成为某些客户的首选。
然而，那些提供头发的妇女却没有从全球头发市场上获得分文利益。同其他国家那些为了钱
而卖掉头发的妇女不同，这些到庙宇中剪去长发的妇女未得丝毫报酬。一些人根本不知道自己的头发被卖了出去。一位名叫桑得亚(Sandhya)的妇女称：“这些头发只是废物罢了。”她将自己26英寸的头发剪去，籍此表示对神赐给她一个儿子的感激。
在寺庙的剃发室，这些头发看起来当然形同废物。朝拜者盘腿而坐，向前俯下头部，以便让庙里的理发师用直刀片削去头发。服务人员在厅里走动，将成束的头发收集在簸箕里，然后倒入废物箱中。
虽然未曾大肆宣传，但庙宇里的管理人员表示，头发被出售并不是什么秘密。这个庙宇是全球朝拜人数最多的宗教胜地之一，由一家基金会管理，其执行长官埃塔?卡兰(Aeta Kallam)表示，贡献头发“是牺牲自我的一种表示”。每年朝圣者捐赠的现金、珠宝和其他物品价值约为4,000万美元。
朝圣者如此慷慨的一方面原因在于，在印度教中，守护神毗湿奴借钱举行结婚庆典，并承诺对借款偿还利息。卡兰称：“人们捐钱是为了让毗湿奴偿清利息。”
该庙是全印度最富裕的宗教机构之一，年度预算为1.2亿美元。庙里用这些钱为朝圣者提供免费食宿，并运营著五家医院，12所大学及其他慈善机构。在过去一年半里，该庙的市场人员一直试图采用现代化的营销方法，以获得最高收入。
卡兰称：“起初，我们忽略了国际头发市场。现在我们将头发进行分级归类，售价也提高了。”他表示，庙里已经开始在互联网上探索出售头发的方法了。
该庙最大的头发主顾是留著山羊胡子的马约尔?巴尔萨拉(Mayoor Balsara)，此人在英国受的教育，住在印度的班加罗尔。巴尔萨拉驱车走上五小时崎岖不平的路来到该庙成吨地购买头发，每月至少采购一次。他说，提鲁伯蒂长16英寸以上的头发每公斤（2.2磅）能卖到165美元，短一点的头发也能卖100美元左右。
巴尔萨拉先生表示，他面临的最大问题是货源。最近他在聚会上遇到一名科学家时问半开玩笑地问：“能告诉我怎样促进头发生长吗？”
在班加罗尔巴尔萨拉的工厂里，听到的唯一声音就是当工人从梳理机的长金属锯齿上拖过这些头发时手镯的叮当碰撞。随著熟练的操作，工人将一缕缕的头发按长度分类摆成几堆。每缕头发大约有200根。头发经过份类，清洗和消毒之后，巴尔萨拉先生将其送到唯一的客户──意大利的Great Lengths International。
Great Lengths的创始人戴维?戈尔德(David Gold)以每束30美分左右的价格从巴尔萨拉手中购买头发。这些头发在罗马附近的工厂进行染色，上角蛋白，之后运到国际分销商手中，每束售价约1.5美元。美国的美容院要花几小时为一名顾客完成一头假发编织制作，收费为1,500-3,000美元。戈尔德先生说：“美容院赚钱比我们多。”但他也承认，自己赚钱也不少了，年销售收入在7,000万美元左右。
据美国统计局(Census Bureau)负责国际贸易的部门称，美国去年从世界各地进口了4,700万美元的假发和加长发，主要用于假发制作。在高端市场，印度最大的竞争对手是欧洲的头发。欧洲头发价格更贵，也更不易获取。然而，欧洲的头发也并非在所有人心中都完美无缺。专门负责为电影演员选择假发的苏珊?利普森(Susan Lipson)表示，对很多女演员来说“欧洲发质太光滑了”。因此，能识别选择多种不同质地的头发十分重要。
今年早些时候，利普森在布拉格花了几个月时间，给影片《怪物猎人》(Van Helsing)的主演休?杰克曼(Hugh Jackman)和凯特?贝金赛尔(Kate Beckinsale)安装并固定假发。她一度从布拉格溜到洛杉矶，为主演新片《50个初吻》(50 First Kisses)的德鲁?巴里摩尔(Drew Barrymore)补染原为金黄色的印度假发。
戈尔德乐于迎合明星的口味。6月，在他女儿结婚的前一天，他站在罗马别墅的游泳池边与负责焰火的协调人员交谈，忽然接到紧急电话。猫王之女丽莎?玛莉?普莱斯里(Lisa Marie Presley)急需一些头发。
戈尔德说，普莱斯里在英国为她的首发专辑促销，需要18英寸的加长头发固定在自己的头发后面。一小时后，戈尔德已准备好一束长发，将其送往普莱斯里的酒店房间。
一天，戈尔德说，他希望自己加工的头发成为品牌产品：“我希望戴我们的加长发就像使用芬迪(Fendi)或古驰(Gucci)的包一样。”
