{"id":43789,"date":"2025-02-17T18:48:31","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T23:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/its-just-thrown-away-but-its-gold\/17\/02\/2025\/"},"modified":"2025-02-17T18:48:31","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T23:48:31","slug":"its-just-thrown-away-but-its-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/its-just-thrown-away-but-its-gold\/17\/02\/2025\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It\u2019s just thrown away but it’s gold’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Zeeshan Ali has been a drag artist for 10 years and has taken his show all over India.<\/p>\n
Central to his performance is a collection of around 45 wigs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an alter of identity, helping me transition from my everyday self into exaggerated, glamorous or whimsical characters. The right wig makes me feel more authentic and empowers me to command the stage,” says Ali, who is based in Mumbai.<\/p>\n
But getting that look right wasn’t easy in the early days.<\/p>\n
“When I started my career the accessibility of the wigs was extremely difficult in India. Most of them were to be sourced from abroad or I used to make wigs sourced from whatever was available to me like wool, fabric,” he says.<\/p>\n
But things are different now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trend is changing. Wigs are no longer just meant for drag or movie artists, but many straight women wear wigs to look different. It’s no longer just a hair accessory but a style statement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indian hair has always been in demand for wig-making. The nation is the world’s biggest exporter of human hair, supplying 85% of global demand.<\/p>\n
Kolachi Venkatesh, based in Avadi, Chennai, has been collecting hair for 20 years. He started at the bottom of the industry as a picker – collecting hair from households and rescuing it from the rubbish.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy parents were hair pickers and then I started doing the same,” he says.<\/p>\n
Hair collected by pickers from homes, salons and barbershops is called non-Remy hair.<\/p>\n
It requires more processing than Remy hair, which is carefully shaved straight from the scalp. Nevertheless, it has value.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s just thrown away but it’s gold,” says Mr Venkatesh.<\/p>\n
Those pickers typically sell hair to local traders like Mr Venkatesh for between 10 cents and $1 (\u00a30.80) per kilogram, depending on the quality and length of the hair.<\/p>\n
Shorter or damaged hair fetches less, while longer strands bring higher prices.<\/p>\n
For the individual picker, there’s not much money in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cA diligent collector might gather 1\u20135 kilograms of hair in a day, earning anywhere from 59 cents to $6 per day. This income level is often below minimum wage standards, particularly in rural areas,\u201d says Mr Venkatesh, who has 50 pickers working for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile our work contributes to a billion-dollar global market our earnings remain meagre. Intermediaries control prices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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Kolachi Venkatesh has been collecting hair for 20 years [Kolachi Venkatesh]<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Most of the Indian hair collected by traders like Mr Venkatesh is exported to China where it is made into wigs.<\/p>\n
\u201cChina has a huge wigmaking industry which is worth five to six billion dollars,” says Benjamin Cherian from Plexconcil, the hair industry body that promotes the Indian industry and liaises with the government.<\/p>\n
If India wants a slice of the lucrative wig market, he says, then it has a lot of catching up to do.<\/p>\n
“When we look at China there are hundreds of factories spread across the country which add value to the hair industry, whereas in India the value addition still needs to be picked up,\u201d Mr Cherian says.<\/p>\n
He says the government needs to help promote investment in the hair industry.<\/p>\n
“It needs automated sorting systems, sophisticated hair treatment procedures for the hair collected, innovative production techniques for manufacturing of wigs which will make India stand out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead of exporting hair for hundreds of dollars, India should be selling wigs worth thousands of dollars says Mr Cherian.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have started working on it but it\u2019s a long way to go. We need to have research and training centres,” he says.<\/p>\n\n