Gimme a head with hair
. . . long, beautiful, virgin hair that hasn’t been coloured, chemically treated or heated with hot tongs or a curling iron
The vibe at 4 Your Hair Extensions, which has been on Queen St. W. just past Brock St. for13 years now, is remarkably chill given it’s where radical transformations take place.
Dr. Phil plays on the TV, babies get jiggled and cooed over, and the walls are lined with rows and rows of possibility: long, shiny, “virgin” Remy hair, in neat cellophane packets co-ordinated by shade — a promise of good hair days for all eternity. Virgin Remy, the Holy Grail of fake hair is the most important factor of the booming extension trend, and this is the best place in town to get the guaranteed quality locks.
The hipsters who have colonized deepest Parkdale have finally caught up to Angela Michael and her staff of four at 4 Your. Women who want to up the wow factor are trekking to the shop for fake tresses that offer instant volume and Kardashian lengths.
A few blocks east at Trinity Bellwoods is a newer entrant into the hair extension stakes: Locks and Mane, which began as a pop-up at now closed Flirty Girl Fitness on King St. W. It opened on Queen and Crawford Sts. this past July.
Owner Jennifer Parrott, whose background is in fashion marketing, was herself a longtime extension fan. “My hair is naturally thin,” she says, running her hands through an extravagance of waist-length, wavy blond hair, bolstered with what she calls a double-dose of extensions.
She also uses Remy hair from India, packed specially for her salon’s proprietary silicone-beading “installation” method in which chunks of supplementary hair are attached to a silicon bead that snaps closed onto client’s own hair.
Virgin Remy refers to Indian temple hair, which means that no colour, chemicals or hot tongs have ever touched the fabulous lengths, which can flow 26 inches in length.
At its peak, as at 4 Your salon, it comes from a single head of hair donated as sacrificial ritual and sold by the temple to profit the community. It is then dyed into a rainbow of options and packaged into 110-gram hanks, ready to be sewn, or clipped, or otherwise integrated into a client’s own hair.
The word Remy comes from the French remis, a form of remettre, which translates as “to put back.” This means that it is cut from a single donor, and the cuticle (microscopic scales along the shaft) all run in the same direction. Hair gets tangled and matted if the cuticle is not aligned, or culled from multiple donors. Synthetic hair? Forget about it, it quickly transforms into a nest.
Beyond the famous double-K family, this is indeed a trend driven by celebrities who use Instagram to flaunt fresh ‘dos that defy the parameters of normal hair growth cycles: from Beyoncé to Rihanna, from Oprah to Eva Longoria, and from Jessica Simpson to Sarah Jessica Parker via Liz Hurley, hair extensions are all the rage. What used to be a secret is now something to brag openly about.
Michael was early on the trend and over the past decade made multiple trips to India to set up her personal pipeline to virgin Remy hair directly from (secret and closely guarded) official agents, who have purchased the ponytails from Hindu temples where hair is ritually sacrificed. The donor makes the offering in hopes of gaining favour from the deities. And the temple then uses the hair trade funds for the community.
Michael wanted to be certain of the provenance and ensure her supply of highest quality hairpieces. India is the most highly sought after source. But there is a lot of dodgy hair and misrepresentation in the extension world: Victoria Beckham made waves in British tabloids by joking that her extensions likely came from Russian prisoners. And with the global market estimated at $985 million (U.S.), growing at approximately 40 per cent per year, there is much motivation to pass off lesser quality hair as the good stuff in online trade.
A package of Michael’s custombranded hair (she sells on her site hairextensioncenter.com) costs between $163 and $239 each, depending on length and texture. Charges are by the hour for creating anchor braids or sewing the hair into a weave; a full head of extra-long semipermanent extensions can run in the $700 to $1,500 range.
Options for attachment are broad, but Michael never uses adhesives: You can have the hair sewn into braids or onto netting (also called a lace closure), or simply use pre-fab clips of hair anchored into braids that Michael’s team weaves in horizontally under your natural hair.
Born in Ethiopia, Michael moved first to Italy, then she trained in hair (and the art of weaving, which tends to be passed down from master to apprentice) in New York City. When she opened the salon, the Drake was just opening on the other side of the bridge and business was local.
Today, Michael’s clientele comes from all over the city, and as far afield as Detroit and New York; it also spans a broad range of cultures. Similarly, Parrott’s clientele at Locks and Mane isn’t what she expected. “We thought it would be the young and hip locals, aged 18 to 35. But it is broader than that: We have girls in for their proms, women in their 50s and 60s who want more volume and oomph. Doctors, lawyers, call girls. It is so widespread.”
For the record, Locks has had one male client to date, a gentleman with shaved sides who wanted to supplement his ponytail.
Parrott says she intends to head to India to work with suppliers herself, after the upcoming birth of her second child. Quality matters, she agrees, “and there is a lot of extremely dodgy stuff out there on the Internet.”
Her concept is to mainstream the extension experience: “I picked a sweet spot for price point — $195 for 16 inches and $235 for18 inches. That adds up to about 110 grams of hair, which is all most people need. But the real key is speed: We are selling a lunchtime fix.”
The process takes an hour, and lasts two to three months. If you don’t like it, Parrott guarantees you can come back in the first two weeks and have the hair turned into clip-ins. These are strips of Remy hair sewn onto a custom comb-fastener that the client can integrate into her hair herself in a temporary fashion.
Locks’ silicone bead attachments are snapped into place in small chunks, integrated into the client’s own hair from ear to ear in a horizontal fashion. Her team of technicians (many of whom were originally trained in the U.K., which Parrott sought out because “hair extension culture over there is way, way ahead”) can complete the process in just one hour; or an hour-and-a-half if they are removing old extensions first.
Her website, currently in the works, will feature a colour-match tool to help customers choose shades to order for home custom clip-ins. Locks features 14 blond tones. Specialty fashion colours can be custom dyed.
Longer, thicker, supplemented hair may be new to the broader world, but weaves and extensions have been a part of black culture for decades. Take a look at Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair from 2009 to get a handle on how important and deeply felt the rituals are, as well as the emotions underlying the desire for long, straight, full hair.
Fake hair across the board is a really big thing right now. “Only about 20 per cent of the hair on the scene is real. People really don’t realize the extent of the extensions out there,” says professional society observer Shinan Govani.
“People who are otherwise worldweary and skeptical about people’s ages, marriages, and how much money they have in the bank, are often much too willing to accept hair as advertised. For both yummy mummies and socialites alike, putting on hair is equivalent to putting on a bracelet.”
There is also a serious side to the business, one that Michael finds her most powerful motivation. Customers come to Michael to problem solve. Parkdale resident Helen Gray sought Michael’s intervention and is now a faithful regular.
“The first time I got a lace closure, because I had had a terrible year, an iron deficiency, my hair was falling out and I felt pretty bad about myself. Angela summoned massive lustrous waves of hair from what was overprocessed and broken.”
Gray says that the feeling she gets from just being at 4 Your salon is deeper than hair roots: “You see tired women come in, they have their hair supplemented and they are totally brightened up, beautiful, happy.”
Gray’s weave lasts six to eight weeks and the hair can be reused for up to six months.
Michael herself wears clip-ins. She demonstrates how easy it is to add and remove clips into a line of hidden horizontal braids close to her scalp, covered by her own hair, taking her from shoulder-length to a thick mane tumbling nearly to her waist. “This is my joy. Making people feel confident and beautiful.”
A few blocks to the east, Parrott echoes the sentiment. “Literally, everyone you see out there with really great hair has extensions in right now. They are an instant confidence boost. A transformation.”