Hair helps pay the rent Za Za Lin, whose eyes stuffed with tears as expert hands combed, cut and combed her long black mane at a roadside stall in Myanmar’s business center, Yangon.
“It just hurts somewhat,” said a 15-year-old girl as hair buyer Zin Mar handed over the equivalent of $13 for the 20-inch device [51cm] the hair she cut is roughly comparable to the minimum weekly wage in Burma. “It’s time to pay the rent.”
On the opposite side of the world, hair processed and repackaged as “raw Burmese hair” shall be sold for lots of of dollars to consumers demanding wigs and extensions constituted of the sought-after material.
Long hair is taken into account an indication of beauty and has deep religious significance in Buddhist-dominant Myanmar, where monks and nuns shave their heads as an indication of humility.
“People from everywhere in the world want hair from our country because whenever you wash it and condition it, it shines with the colour of pearls,” said Win Ko, 23, who buys hair from private individuals and small suppliers like those available in the market.
It isn’t as silky as Indian hair and isn’t as coarse as Brazilian hair
Although the human hair trade dates back centuries, it was only within the last decade or so, as Myanmar opened as much as the surface world, that its people began to reap the benefits of economic opportunities. The country formerly often called Burma is now at the guts of a multi-million dollar industry. Since 2010, it has quadrupled the quantity of hair it ships annually, becoming the world’s fourth-largest exporter, based on the United Nations.
In 2017 alone, Myanmar earned $6.2 million from exporting hair comparable to 1,160 medium-sized cars. The trade has attracted 1000’s of people that harvest, process and export hair, whether from desperate people like Za Za Lin or purchased by the kilogram as dusty hairballs.
Once collected, the hair travels from sellers to factories where it’s detangled, combed, washed and repackaged before being shipped, mainly to China, where it becomes extensions and wigs.
In this largely unregulated industry, it’s hard to pin down company numbers, but Min Zaw Oo of Tet Nay Lin, a hair retail company founded within the mid-2000s, says he sells mostly to black women within the UK, Nigeria, South Africa and South Africa. United States. A recent YouTube seek for “Burmese hair” returned 1000’s of videos of ladies reviewing wigs and extensions.
“It’s not as silky as Indian hair and it’s not as coarse as Brazilian hair. But it’s kind of in the middle,” said beauty blogger MakeupD0ll, who boasts more than 600,000 followers and earns as much as $900 from some of the wigs she produces.
But demand for Burmese hair outstrips supply as modern fashion trends make it difficult to source long, straight and chemically unaltered products, according to two vendors clustered around stalls in Yangon’s Insein district.
Are you going to Burma soon? The visa process just got easier if you have a Hong Kong passport, but it’s also more expensive
Are you going to Burma soon? The visa process just got easier if you have a Hong Kong passport, but it’s also more expensive
“Hair is now dyed, permed and short,” said Hmwe Hmwe, 44, who has spent 13 years within the industry.
Vendors say April, the time of the brand new yr in Myanmar, is their best month, when many ladies preparing to turn out to be nuns sell their hair before ritual shaving.
Most of the hair exported from Myanmar isn’t freshly cut, but swept from waste. One of the corporate’s owners, whose name is “Aunt Cho”, said she bought “comb hair” that fell out naturally.
He pays about 55 cents an oz for hair stuffed into plastic bags in order that family and neighbors can untangle it and arrange it into bundles that he sells to middlemen.
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Inside a ‘snake temple’ in Myanmar, now nirvana for dozens of huge pythons
Among them is Win Ko, who loads his hair onto a truck and sets off on a several-hour journey to the border town of Muse in Burma, where a dozen or so Chinese traders are waiting.
“You just choose the one you like and he arranges the sale to Chinese buyers,” Win Ko said.
Sensing Za Za Lin’s sadness over her hair loss, buyer Zin Mar, owner of Thiha Hair Purchasing and Sales, expressed sympathy. “It’s like paying for a haircut,” she said.
This article appeared within the print edition of the South China Morning Post as: Western trends nicest cut on the market human hair
