#wig factory

Sales of human hair in China are booming and are exported across the world. Taihe, in the eastern province of Anhui, where more than 400 human hair factories and companies are based, is where most of the tailor-made wigs are produced. According to one retailer, due to the high value of hair, people are calling it ‘black gold’.

Fu Quanguo pioneered the trade in the 1970s and says that: “We used to collect the human hair locally, but now it comes from all kinds of countries, like Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Vietnam. In the past making hair products was tough, and we did it all by hand. Now we've gone from small to big and are selling internationally.”

In the factories, the hair is first disinfected in huge barrels before workers use paddles to stir clumps of strands in steaming water. It is then dyed in colours ranging from white to black, after which it is then dried in ovens, brushed, and sewn into hair extensions.

Workers on the assembly line of a Hong Kong-China joint-venture factory manufacturing wigs and other hair products for export to Africa, Europe, and the Americas, as well as the domestic market. Taken on August 22, 2004 in Guangan, in southwest China’s Sichuan province by Frederic J. Brown.

A wig factory in Hong Kong in 1969.

From an article in the South China Morning Post: 

In the 1950s and ’60s, Hong Kong’s wig industry boomed. This expansion coincided with the rise of the local plastics industry. After all, only a few minor chemical variations differentiated the ingredients for a bunch of plastic flowers and a curly wig made from natural-looking artificial hair. Hong Kong’s toy industry was also a steady consu­mer of artificial hair; all those plas­tic dolls destined for the world’s Christmas trees needed long, curly tresses, too. High-quality wigs still used human hair and while most was obtained locally, some was imported from China.

By the ’70s, in keeping with the liberated ethos of the period, more natural, less heavily coiffed looks pre­vailed in international fashion, and the wig trend subsided. Some wigs are still manufactured locally but, as with much else, production has dramati­cally declined from Hong Kong’s post-war industrial boom years.