The Million Dollar Business of Human Hair Extensions
Hair extensions are popular and expensive. But it's often poor women who cut off and sell their hair - for little money. For some it offers more independence, for others, suffering and stigmatization.
By Maria Stöhr
12.10.2020, 11.12 Uhr
It’s only hair, the dealers with the scissors say. But everyone knows that’s not true.

Take Prak Sohka, for example. The 42-year-old lives in the countryside of Cambodia, some 170 kilometers away from the capital city of Phnom Penh. She says her hair has won many beauty contests and that she cares for it with a mixture of coconut oil and a special blossom.

Prak has a photo in the apartment that shows her at the age of 18 with long black hair. Shortly afterward, she says, a woman approached her and offered the equivalent of 40 euros for Prak’s hair. It seemed like a fortune to her at the time. Then it took another five minutes until the hair was gone and only a few strands were left on Prak’s head.
Hair As a Source of Income

In India and China, the market for human hair has long been a billion-dollar business. To meet the great demand, other Asian countries have also started getting in on the trade. Cambodia is one of those, a country in which, according to World Bank statistics, 4.5 million people live below the poverty line, meaning they have to get by on less than $2 a day.

"Be more beautiful for a better life."
In Cambodia, especially in the countryside, hair is seen as a renewable raw material they can sell to pay for their children's’ school fees, food and the mortgage on their home.

Photojournalists Louise Pluyaud and Benjamin Filarski spent time reporting in Cambodia in February, just before the coronavirus struck. They met with women in villages who had already sold their hair two or three times. Women familiar with the shame and the rumor that cutting off your hair can create bad luck.
Full article and photos: https://www.spiegel.de/international/wo ... 963c36b122