Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/11/14/meet-the-hair-dealers-from-gr.html
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There’s actually a market for this stuff? I had been given to understand that most of the hair donated to charities like Locks of Love gets rejected and discarded.
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Hair products and straight-follicle human hair itself is a multi-billion dollar industry.
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I wonder if i can gather enough drain hair to sell on the market
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Pubes don’t count.
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I think the Smithsonian article is from “Entanglement: The Secret Lives of Hair” by Emma Tarlo. “Hair: A Human History” is by Kurt Stenn, although also interesting looking.
The tradition in Jewish Orthodox circles is that married women cover their hair. But, if you want to walk out in public without having to always wear a hat or hair covering, wearing a wig is acceptable. My sister owns three, and you can’t tell that it’s not actually her natural hair at first glance. Since they’re custom-made, they’re very expensive.
About a decade or so back, one rabbi on a power trip tried to ban them, on the “logic” that since most of the hair sources are from non-Jews who sold their hair for pay, it counted as “supporting idol worship”. What followed was a wonderful example of how, even in an extremely patriarchal society like Orthodox Judaism, there is a limit to how far you can push women. IIRC, even the man’s own wife of thirty years joined in on the protests, and he found out exactly how much he had been depending on her.
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Oddly related to the BBC article I am about to google and link
Edit one the link:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/37781147
Edit 2 the quote:
And then at the opposite end of the scale is “standard hair” - often used as a more marketable term for comb waste. Yes, Chinese or otherwise, many sleek and shiny hair extensions start life as hairballs, collected from combs and plugholes.
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Wait. ::counts on fingers:: What?
It sounds like she didn’t cut it all off, just those 38 inches, leaving her with still-long hair.
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Oh. Yeah, of course! 
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Wait, wait…only $800 for a blond virgin who washes 2 to 3 times a week? I can’t say as I’m in the market but that’s way cheaper than I would have guessed…maybe he’s trying to raise funds for more D&D manuals or something… 
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You must have incredibly long pubes! I donate hair for cancer charity wigs and it must have shoulder length to be accepted.
I didn’t say it had to be my hair 
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A long time ago there was a trend of (no joke!) hair stealing. Assailants would target teen girls with long beautiful hair and cut their hair short at gunpoint to sell it God knows to whom.
If there’s money on it there’s someone trying to get it in questionable ways.
Yeah i’ve heard of it. Also heard it’s pretty lucrative to steal extensions from beauty shops to resell
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