Grossed out! The shadowy human cost of £1,200 hair-extensions revealed

At Yadagirigutta Temple in southern India, poor women wait patiently in line for their heads to be shaved. Most have never coloured, blow-dried or even cut their locks, and this so-called ‘virgin hair’ is particularly prized by the barbers, who will take just five minutes to cut it off with steel blades. Among them is Lavanya Kakala, a dignified 28-year-old in a deep pink sari who has just had her waist-length hair shorn. She will receive nothing in return — and insists she wants nothing.

The temples are far from the only players in this international trade. More contentious is the rise of hair dealers, who travel around Asia and Eastern Europe offering destitute young women a pittance for their locks. In India, they’ve been known to target men, offering them £6 if they persuade their wives to sell their hair.

There have been reports of husbands forcing their wives to do so, and of women being attacked and shaven by gangs. Slum children have been tricked into having their heads shorn in exchange for toys. ‘I was held down by a gang of men who hacked at my hair,’ one girl said. ‘I know of other women who have been blackmailed and threatened.’


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