Introduction
“We thought European hair has the best quality” – Our client said, during a video meeting.
As we mentioned in the blog post Production Process of a Toupee , there are many different human hair types. Which one is the best? Which one, should be applied for a customized hairpiece? We will look into the different human hair materials and check them out in this blog post.
Hair Types
According to which country or area the hair materials are from, the hair types in this industry are divided simply into Indian hair, Chinese hair, and European Hair.
Indian Hair has the highest supply and accordingly the lowest price. The hair materials are mainly black and slightly waved at about 3.6cm. Indian Hair is almost as thin and soft as European Hair. Benefiting from its characteristics, Indian Hair is largely applied in the industry of hair system making.
Chinese Hair– Thicker than Indian Hair and European Hair. As a result, Chinese Hair is not suitable for custom orders that ask for short hair length, otherwise, it will give a lifted appearance if cut short.
European Hair – Lowest supply and highest prices. European Hair has a shiny appearance and soft textures. It’s the thinnest and softest of these three hair types. The hair materials often come in different colors.
According to how the hair materials are collected and processed, the hair types are divided into Non-Remy Hair, Remy Hair, and Virgin Hair.
Non-Remy Hair are collected from different sources. The main source comes from the hair that falls to the floor while combing. Some of the hair strands are upside down, which means the cuticles on the surface of the hair are in different directions. This could cause the hair to get tangled easily. To avoid this, acid treatment will be applied to remove cuticles.
Remy Hair is gathered directly from the head of donors so that the cuticles of Remy Hair are all in the same direction. An easy way to distinguish between Remy Hair and Non-Remy Hair is to see if there is a hair follicle at the end of the hair. There will be no black dots at the end of Remy Hair.
Virgin Hair– Similar to Remy Hair, but the quality is better because of no bleaching, dyeing, or perming curl. It is an original, raw material.
In Bono Hair, there are four types of hair material, including normal Indian Hair (Non-Remy Hair), Indian Remy Hair, Chinese Virgin Hair, and European Hair.
Is European Hair the Best?
Yes and no.
For raw material, yes, European hair has the best quality, soft, and shiny appearance, especially for the European market. However, as we described in the previous blog post Production Process of a Toupee, there are three processes that mainly determine the hair quality, including the acid treatment to remove cuticles, bleaching to a lighter color, and then dyeing to the target color. All of these chemical treatments will cause different extent of damage to the hair. The thin European hair could not afford this kind of damage. So, for the custom-made hair systems that ask for European hair, we would try our best to match the target color by picking up the most similar color shades and blending them without bleaching and dyeing. By doing this, we could minimize the damage to the hair and further save the high quality of European hair.
Anyway, it is not realistic to match all the possible target colors by mixing available European hair material. Both for those colors that are not workable to match and for the clients who could not accept the difference of color shade caused by matching color, bleaching, and dyeing process would have to be applied to get the finished colors. On this occasion, the damage to the hair quality could not be avoided.
Coming back to the beginning of this blog post, one of our clients found that for some custom orders hair systems experience faster hair loss. We had a video meeting to try to find out the real reason and improve the quality. After checking all the order details one by one, we found that the same character of these orders is that they are all in European hair, which should be the key point that causes hair loss. There is no doubt that European hair material has the best quality, but after a series of chemical treatments, the hair root may get damaged because of its thin character, which could not afford such heavy chemical treatment as we described above.
So, for the orders that have to apply bleaching and dyeing process, European hair is not the best choice.
How to Choose the Right Hair Type for the Custom Orders?
Color– For a color lighter than #12, Chinese Virgin Hair is the best and only choice. That is because the hair needs to be bleached to a lighter color and then dyed to the finished color, which means heavy chemical treatment and heavy damage to the hair. Both the Indian Hair and European Hair are too thin to afford this damage. So, we pick up thin strands of Chinese Virgin Hair instead, which could keep the hair quality good even after all those chemical processes.
Curl / Wave– Both for small curls, such as 0.4cm Afro curl, and for silky straight, Chinese Hair/ Chinese Virgin Hair are the only choice we suggested.
Finished Hair Quality– As we described previously, the main processes that determine the finished hair quality include acid treatment to remove cuticles, bleaching, and dyeing. Besides these three main processes, perming curl could also affect the quality to some extent, especially for heavy treatment when perming small curl or doing silky straight. So, the finished hair quality depends on what kind of processes would be applied during the production. Facing the same processes, different hair types would appear in different quality. On the other hand, the same hair type would also appear in different quality after different processes. The below table will give you an idea.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it’s not a straight and simple answer to which hair type is the best for a hair system. Factors such as color, curl/wave, production processes, and even the final price level are all key contributors. However, our specialist team is ready to provide you with free consultations and support in making the right decisions to meet your requirements and your customer’s needs.
In the near future, we will be publishing a blog posts regarding the types of Grey Hair used in hairpieces. We hope you found this post informative and welcome recommendations about future blog post that you think would be interesting.
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