THE STORY OF INDIAN HAIR

The best Raw Indian Temple hair Extensions, Frontals
and Closures. Proudly made 100% in India.

India is simply ravishing indeed! Steamy, spicy and spiritual - India is a land that has delighted many a traveler since the beginning of civilization. Indian women are blessed with hair that is held as the most luxuriant in texture and feel across the globe. Everywhere you go in India, you will see women with gorgeous, long, silky, voluminous hair that catches every ray of light to make it dance and vibrate in joy. Most women in India use only natural vegan products for beauty care - ensuring that the hair is absolutely healthy and virgin.

Every year, well over 40 million devotees visit the temple in the town of Thirupati, in the state of Andhra Pradesh which lies east of the BigLove Indian Hair Extensions factory. On an average 65,000 devotees visit the temple every day, and on certain special days, the number can surge well over the half a million mark! Over half of the devotees who visit the temple shave their head and offer their hair in an act of sacrifice to Vishnu - the presiding deity in the temple. The temple itself traces its routes to the 2nd century AD and remains in continuous worship.

Legend has it that a shepherd mistakenly hit the Lord on his head, making a portion of his scalp bald. A princess noticed this bald spot, and feeling that such an attractive face should not have a bald spot, she immediately cut a portion of her hair and offered it to the Lord. Ever since then, it is said devotees who visit the temple "follow suit" and offer their hair in an act of self-sacrifice.

Today, over 1 tonne of hair is collected at the temple every day. Every bunch is carefully tied individually at the top, making sure we at BigLove can produce the world's most beautiful and finest Indian hair products that are single donor and cuticle aligned. The money that the temple makes is reinvested into the community; funding free schools, food aid programs, free quality health care and other rural development programs. This is hair that is sourced ethically and spreads BigLove!

A timeline of the Indian hair trade

1940 and before -Simply Spiritual

All hair that was given up as a spiritual offering was simply collected and burnt. The hair trade that was to become a multi-billion dollar did not exist.

Early 1940 - Enter Korea

Koreans see the vast business potential of cuticle aligned hair. They start buying hair from the temples.

1945- 1950 - A Korean Monopoly

Korea monopolizes the hair industry and starts manufacturing wigs and other hair pieces. They start exporting the hair to the western world. Demand slowly but surely picks up steam.

Early 1950 - India Wakes Up

India discovers the potential of the hair trade and what Korea is up to. The temples decide to sell hair to only Indians. Indian companies start exporting hair to China.

1980 onwards - China Dominates

China starts dominating the hair trade by making wigs and other hair products with hair sourced from India.

2000 - Demand Grows Exponentially

The demand for quality hair booms, especially in the USA. India starts manufacturing quality hair products locally and uses the best quality raw hair. Export to China of cuticle aligned hair slowly starts going down, through export of non-remy hair (hair that is collected after brushing / salon cut) continues.

2010 - Cheap Chinese Tactics

China invents and perfects methods to make non-remy hair feel cuticle aligned with a "cuticle free" treatment that uses machines and chemicals to neutralize cuticle direction flow. In addition, China starts to use many marketing gimmicks and tactics such as branding low grade non-remy Indian hair as Brazilian, Cambodian and Malaysian hair. Price of this hair is kept low.

2015 - Awareness in the USA

The USA is saturated with sub-standard and low quality hair that is often mixed with synthetic fibers. Awareness of true chemical free natural cuticle aligned Indian hair takes root. Consumers in the USA start to get more educated and better understand the value of an authentic product.

2015 - Enter New Indian Hair Vendors

Indian companies manage to break the stranglehold that old Indian hair exporters had on the market. The government of India steps in and mandates that hair should be bought from temples via an online auction. Smaller companies begin producing products that are innovative and better in design and quality than that of the old vendors. Pricing becomes much more competitive. The hair trade, already a multi-billion dollar industry is set to BOOM.

2019 - Indian Government bans export of Raw Hair to China

The Government of India finds that vast amounts of Raw Hair from temples is being smuggled to China, without China paying due taxes. China employees local goons to coerce small temples to sell hair for cheap to smugglers. Some large Indian hair vendors are found to be helping China smuggle hair. Indian Government bans all exports of hair to China.

2020 - COVID 19

COVID 19, arguably orchestrated by China to affect the hair industry and other industries, hits. Lockdowns cause major shortages of hair. China buys large amounts of hair through vendors based in Europe to push hair prices at temples as high as possible. Raw Hair prices increase by over 300% at temples. China continues to engage in unethical practices to ensure Raw hair prices are kept extremely high.

2023 - Post COVID 19

Demand for raw Hair decreases as prices are to high. People start going back to temples and offering hair and supply of hair is vastly increased. Temples refuse to sell at old prices, and hoard hair. Stocks at temples start increasing and temples no longer able to stock hair. China continues to buy hair from India through unethical means. Prices of Raw Hair start showing signs of decreasing. Demand starts picking up slowly.