Why We Decided Not To Purchase Hair From China

When we first decided to open a raw virgin hair store, we assumed that the hair we would sell would be sourced from China. This experience was based on where we saw hair being sourced from, that we were purchasing hair for ourselves online and locally. 

Additionally, while doing our competitive analysis, we noticed that most  hair businesses (which appeared to be Black owned or Black run) were actually owned by companies in China! So, of course we assumed that the good stuff came from China.

We had two factory visits planned for March 2020 which were cancelled due to Covid-19,  so we took the opportunity to visit India in February instead. We figured we would take a trip to India in February and still do China later in the year but, an experience in India opened our eyes to the fact that we would not be going to China ever.

While visiting more than one vendor in India, we noticed many many trash bags of hair and plastic and other leftovers from the deloused and washed hair. We asked what that was, and they said, "That's the hair that we ship to the Chinese factories."

Well, we were floored. All these years, that was the hair we were putting on our heads? No wonder our heads itched!

This led to our decision to only source un-processed  hair from countries where there are actual donors. We shot a short video while in India, see below.