The Market for Human Hair
人发市场
The Venkateswara Temple in Tirumala, India, had a problem.
印度Tirumala的Venkateswara寺有了个麻烦。
Thirty to forty million pilgrims visit the temple each year, and in a gesture of humility and sacrifice, 10% to 25% of them, men and women both, have their heads shaven. Every day, the Venkateswara Temple staff fills giant vats with human hair, and for a long time, its staff burned thousands of pounds of hair—a noxious process that produces toxic gases like ammonia and was eventually banned by the Indian government in the 1990s.
每年有三千到四千万名朝圣者造访这间寺院。为了表示谦恭与牺牲，他们中10%－25%的人会剪掉自己的头发，其中男女皆有。每天，Venkateswara寺的工作人员要把头发塞进大桶里。很长一段时间，工作人员会把上万磅头发烧掉，这一行为十分有害，会产生氨气等有毒气体。1990年代，这种行为最终被印度政府禁止。
By then, however, they had discovered a new way to get rid of the hair: sell it for millions.
不过，那时候他们已经找到了一种解决头发问题的新方法：把它们卖掉，大赚一笔。
When fashion companies make wigs—and when stylists tape or weave hair extensions into customers’ hair in salons—they want to use real human hair. To get it, they rely on places like the Venkateswara Temple, which sells its hair in annual auctions. In 2014, fashion companies bid almost $12 million for what temple employees call “black gold.”
时装公司生产假发时，或者发廊的造型师给顾客接假发时，都想使用真正的人发。为了获得人发，他们依赖类似Venkateswara寺这样的地方。Venkateswara寺会在年度拍卖中出售头发。2014年，时装公司出价将近1200万美元，购买这种被寺院员工叫做“黑金”的东西。
The Tirumala Temple auction is part of a multi-billion dollar market for human hair—a global endeavor that includes collecting long locks to make fashionable hairpieces and its more industrial counterpart of turning hair into fertilizers, stuffing for clothes, and even amino acids used in pizza dough.
Tirumala的寺院拍卖只是数十亿美元规模的人发市场的一部分。这一全球性行当包括收集长发以制作时髦假发，还包括更加工业化的部分：把头发制成化肥、衣服填充物，甚至做成披萨面团制作中用到的氨基酸。
Nearly everyone has hair they discard without a thought. Yet it can also be one of the world’s most precious resources, and businesses can’t get enough of it.
几乎所有人都会想也不想地扔掉头发。但是，同时，它也能成为世界上最宝贵的资源，许多公司对头发的需求总是多多益善。
From Tirumala to the Salon
从Tirumala到发廊
A quality wig made of human hair sells for thousands of dollars in the United States, and hair extensions made of real hair can sell for several hundred or thousand dollars. But it takes a lot of work to turn the hair of Venkateswara pilgrims into a luxury product.
在美国，一顶使用人发制作的优质假发可以卖到数千美元，人发制作的接发材料也可以卖到数百甚至上千美元。但是，要把Venkateswara朝圣者们的头发变成昂贵的商品，有很多事情需要做。
When companies buy hair from the temple for as much as $700 per pound, it contains sweat, blood, and lice. The temple warehouses reek from mildew and fungus. Investigative journalist Scott Carney visited Tirumala and called the hair a “foul-smelling heap.” As 600 barbers each shave a head every 5 minutes, they leave bloody scalps and hair balls littering the floor.
当厂商以每磅700美元的价格从寺院买来头发时，头发中还有汗水、血块和虱子。寺院的仓库散发着霉味。调查记者Scott Carney造访Tirumala时，把那里的头发形容为“一大堆恶臭”。大约600名理发师，每位理发师每隔5分钟剃光一个头，血淋淋的头皮和发球就会杂乱地铺在地上。
It takes someone in the industry to recognize why the hair is so valuable. Only long women’s hair is sold at auction—the temple sells men’s hair at a pittance for industrial uses—and since many pilgrims come from humble, rural towns, they have not used shampoos or styled and treated their hair in ways that damage it.
只有业内人士才能认识到为什么头发如此宝贵。只有女性的长发能在拍卖中出售——而男性头发则被寺院低价出售，用作工业用途。因为许多朝圣者来自偏远贫穷的村庄，他们没有用过洗发水，也没有做过发型，而且他们对付头发的方式对它造成过损伤。
To transform the best (longest) hair from trash into treasure, teams of workers untangle the hair, sort it by length, pick out lice and other particles, wash and dry it, and dye it a variety of colors. Companies then either ship the hair out to salons where stylists will sew, tape, or bond the extensions into customers’ hair, or sew the hair into wigs.
为让最优质（最长）的头发变废为宝，需要许多工人团队把头发理顺，按长度分类，把虱子和其他东西挑出来，之后把头发洗净并干燥，然后把它们染成不同的颜色。厂商要么把这些头发送到发廊，发廊的造型师会把头发编织、粘贴或者嫁接在顾客的头发上；要么把它们编织成假发。
The process is incredibly labor intensive. “To make a high-end wig,” says Mo Hefnawy of Lori’s Wigsite, one of many retailers of wigs made by Indian and Chinese manufacturers, “someone sat there with a needle and sewed a few hairs at a time. It takes 3 or 4 days.”
这一过程需要大量劳动力。中国或印度所产假发的众多经销商之一，Lori’s Wigsite的Mo Hefnawy说：“为了生产出一顶优质假发，需要有人坐着，用缝针一次编织几根头发。这一过程需要3天到4天。”
Retailers like Lori’s Wigsite sell wigs made of fake, synthetic hair, and they cost $250 where a human hair wig would cost $1,500. But synthetic wigs don’t last as long, can’t be styled, and look and feel less natural. Most people want wigs made of real hair, Hefnawy says, but Lori’s sells more synthetic wigs than human hair wigs because they are more affordable.
类似Lori’s Wigsite这样的经销商也出售人工合成毛发制作的假发，这种假发的价格是250美元，但是真发制成的假发要1500美元。但是合成假发很快就会损坏，也不能做造型，看起来摸起来也没有那么自然。Hefnawy说，大部分人都想要真发制成的假发，但是Lori’s出售的合成假发比人发假发多，因为前者更加便宜。
The majority of Lori’s customers suffer hair loss from chemotherapy or conditions like alopecia. A minority are religious women who buy wigs as an alternative to modestly hiding their hair, and some older men and women buy wigs to cover thinning hair.
Lori’s 的顾客大多是因化疗或脱发症而脱发的人，一小部分女性宗教信徒购买假发是为了隐藏起自己的头发以示谦恭，还有一些老年人购买假发来遮盖自己日益稀薄的头发。
For the moment, though, hair extensions are increasingly popular among young women who want to quickly change their hairstyle or buy the long, thick hair celebrated in shampoo commercials. Among other celebrities, Victoria Beckham, Beyonce, and Kylie Jenner of Kardashian fame are known for wearing extensions.
但是现在，一些年轻女性想要迅速改变发型，或是想要洗发水广告中那样的浓密飘逸的长发，所以接发在她们中间非常流行。明星中间，像Victoria Beckham， Beyonce以及Kardashian家的Kylie Jenner，都因接发而闻名。
Prices have increased with popularity. In several burglaries of hair salons, thieves ignored cash registers and went straight for hair extensions worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
随着接发流行开来，其价格也水涨船高。在一些针对发廊的盗窃案中，窃贼们对收款机视而不见，径直去寻找接发用的假发，其价值常高达数万甚至数十万美元。
When nonprofits like Locks of Love ask people to donate their hair (to make hairpieces for children suffering from hair loss), they are not asking because long hair is hard to find. The human hair market is well established, and anyone can go online and instantly order hair by the pound.
当“一缕关爱”（Locks of Love）这样的非营利性组织号召人们捐出头发（用来给脱发的孩子制作假发）时，不是因为长发难以得到。人发市场已经相当成熟，所有人都可以上网，即刻预订头发，按磅计价。
Locks of Love asks for donations because hair is so expensive that many patients can’t afford thousand dollar wigs.
“一缕关爱”号召人们捐头发，是因为头发过于昂贵，许多患者买不起价值数千美元的假发。
The Secret Life of Hair
头发的隐秘故事
The market for human hair has always been a mechanism for getting hair from people in poor areas to those who need or want it in wealthier ones.
人发市场向来是个从贫穷地区的人手中获取头发，然后把头发卖给富裕地区有需要的人的机制。
History is full of examples of human hair being treated as a valuable commodity. Archeologists have discovered human hair wigs held together with resin and beeswax in Ancient Egyptian tombs. Upper class men in 18th century Europe wore long periwigs made of human or horse hair, and thieves commonly worked in teams to steal and resell them. An observer of an annual “hair harvest” in a poor Italian village in the 19th century described seeing girls “sheared, one after the other, like sheep.” Their hair went to Parisian markets that sold 200,000 pounds of human hair each year.
历史上，人发成为昂贵商品的例子俯拾皆是。考古学家们已经在古埃及的墓穴中发现了用树脂和蜂蜡粘合的人发假发。十八世纪，欧洲上流社会的男性会佩戴人发或是马鬃制作的假发。当时的盗贼常常会组团盗窃、转卖假发。十九世纪，在一个贫穷的意大利村庄，有人曾见证了一年一次“头发收割”，他写道，自己看见女孩们“一个接一个地剃头，就像剪羊毛一样”。她们的头发会被出售到巴黎市场，那里每年有20万磅人发售出。
The difference today is that the market has changed with globalization. Hair does not move from provincial Europe to capital cities; it moves from poor countries to wealthy ones. The vast majority of hair and hair products come from India and China and are sold in the United States and Europe.
与过去相比，现在的不同是，人发市场已经因全球化而改变。头发不再从欧洲的乡下被运往首都，而是从贫穷国家运往富裕国家。绝大多数头发与发制品来自印度和中国，并被出售到美国和欧洲。
In the hair industry, no one bothers to equally celebrate each and every person’s hair. For them, hair is a product, and the way they talk about hair reflects economic and social realities—and made us squirm.
在人发产业中，没人会费心去平等的称颂每个人的头发。对他们来说，头发就是物品，他们谈论头发的方式反映了经济和社会的现实——且令我们不安。
“Indian hair is best,” retailers and manufacturers told us without hesitation. They cite the strength of Indian hair and how plentiful it is thanks to places like the Venkateswara Temple. But its most valuable attribute is that it closely resembles caucasian hair. “Oriental hair is used,” one industry expert bluntly added, “because there is a lot of it.”
“印度人的头发最好，”经销商和生产厂家毫不犹豫地告诉我们。他们谈论印度头发的强韧度，以及拜Venkateswara寺这种地方所赐的巨大供应量。但是它最具价值的因素是它和白人头发的相似性。“我们使用东方人的头发，”行内专家坦白道，“因为东方人的头发供应量很大。”
Hair flows from poor countries to rich countries, but when a woman with blond hair is willing to sell her hair, the market pays incredibly well. Destitute Russian women regularly sell their blond hair for fifty to several hundred dollars. Mo Hefnawy says he knows a young woman whom wig makers flew out from Indiana and paid $1,500 for her hair, which they made into an $8,000 wig.
头发从贫穷国家流入富裕国家，但是当金发女人愿意卖出她的头发，市场给出的价格特别慷慨。贫穷的俄罗斯女人定期卖掉自己的金发，能卖到五十美元甚至上百美元。Mo Hefnawy说他认识一个年轻女人，假发制造商为了她的头发从印第安纳州远道飞来，付给她1500美元，用她的头发制作的假发售价8000美元。
Africa also bucks global trends: despite the prevalence of poverty in many countries, Africa is an importer of hair. Elaborate wigs may no longer separate royalty from commoners, but hair has not lost its political and economic relevance.
非洲则逆全球趋势而行。尽管非洲的大部分国家都十分贫穷，但非洲是头发进口地。精致的假发可能不再能区分王室与平民，但是头发还没有丧失其政治和经济意义。
Projects like My Nappy Roots and Good Hair have explored the efforts that black people, especially women, go through to style their hair, and in particularly the time and expense of straightening their curly hair—often with the help of hair extensions. Responding to this question of why “women adopt a concept of ‘beauty’ that is not based on the natural characteristics of their hair,” Al Sharpton says in Good Hair, “We wear our economic oppression on our heads.”
诸如 My Nappy Roots和Good Hair之类的项目发现，黑人，尤其是女性，会费尽心力给头发做造型，尤其是他们会费时费财地去把他们的卷发拉直——这一过程经常需要接发。在回答“为什么女性不把她们与生俱来的头发特征当作美的标准”这一问题时，Al Sharpto在Good Hair中说：“我们头上戴的是经济压迫。”
As a result, hair extensions and products are popular among African Americans and wealthy Africans, but hair traders have little interest in black hair.
因此，接发和假发产品在非裔美国人和富裕的非洲人之间非常流行，但是，头发经销商对黑人头发的兴趣有限。
Collecting Hair at Scale
规模化采集
If you ask people in the industry where they get human hair, they talk about temples in China and India like the Venkateswara Temple.
如果你询问业内人士他们的原料来自何处，他们会谈到中国和印度的寺庙，比如Venkateswara寺。
It’s no surprise they do; collecting hair from pilgrims is an elegant solution to manufacturers’ need for human hair. Shaving one’s head is a traditional, voluntary practice that avoids the exploitive undertones of desperate women selling their hair. Most pilgrims don’t know that the temple sells their hair. But we have not seen reports of religious leaders pocketing millions. The temple administrators have used the proceeds on gold wall panelling for the temple, but they say they primarily spend the money on charitable endeavors like feeding the needy and running hospitals.
这么做并不令人惊讶；从信徒那里收集头发是满足生产厂家头发需求的完美方案。剃发是一种有历史渊源而且自愿的行为，这就避免了走投无路的女性忍痛卖发的剥削寓意。大部分朝圣者不知道寺院卖掉了他们的头发。尽管如此，我们并未听说寺院管理者因此腰缠万贯。他们用这笔钱给寺院的墙板镀金，但他们声称这笔钱优先用于慈善用途，比如施粥行善或资助医院。
Yet only a minority of hair comes from temples. In India, a regional Minister for Textiles and Commerce told The Guardian, “all the Indian temples together contribute only 20 out of every 100 locks of premium hair sold abroad.” The Minister added, “Where the rest comes from, we have no idea.” Retailers and wholesale providers we spoke to voiced similar uncertainty.
但是只有一小部分头发来自寺庙。在印度，某地方的纺织和商业部部长告诉《卫报》，“印度所有寺庙出售的头发只占出口优质头发的20%。”他补充道：“剩下的头发是哪里来的，我们就不知道了。”与我们交谈过的零售商以及批发商同样语焉不详。
We do know that collecting hair is a large, decentralized undertaking that employs tens of thousands of people in India alone. Barber shops and salons collect and sell hair—both long hair sold to fashion companies and short hair sold cheaply to be used as stuffing, fertilizer, or, once broken down into component chemicals, in industrial uses ranging from food to pharmaceuticals. Waste pickers scrounge hair from trash and dumpsters. Hair traders visit villages—in a slum outside Chennai, a bell announces a trader’s arrival—to buy hair with either cash or trinkets and hair accessories.
我们知道，收集头发是一个巨大的去中心化产业，仅在印度就有数万人参与。理发店和发廊收集并出售头发，长发卖给时装公司，短发则被低价出售，用来制作填充物、化肥，或者被分解成化学物质，制作从食物到药品制剂的各种产品。垃圾分拣员在垃圾堆中寻找头发。头发收购人们寻访村庄——在Chennai周边的一个贫民区，铃声宣告着他们的到来——用现金或是小装饰品以及发饰购买头发。
The traders may buy hair that women have collected from combs and brushes, or the scenes may resemble the shearing of 19th century Italian villagers. No one can say exactly how often, but hair is not always sold willingly. Press has reported on husbands who receive $10 for their wives’ hair. One Indian woman told The Guardian, “I was held down by a gang of men who hacked at my hair… the police don’t care, they will do nothing to protect women.” In Russia, prison wardens have admitted to forcibly cutting female inmates’ hair in order to sell it.
收购人买到的头发可能是妇女们从梳子或是刷子上收集来的，也有可能出现像十九世纪意大利村庄中一样的剃发场景。没人知道剃发的准确频率，但是，出售头发并不总是自愿的。媒体曾经报道过丈夫出售妻子的头发获得十美元报酬的事情。一个印度女人告诉《卫报》：“我被一群男人按倒在地，他们抢走了我的头发……警察漠不关心，他们不做任何保护妇女的事。”在俄罗斯，有狱卒承认曾经强迫女性犯人剃发，然后卖掉。
Whether it’s people scrounging hair from dumpsters or men forcing women to give up their hair, the hair business can be a dirty one.
不论是在垃圾桶里搜捡头发，还是男性强迫女性出售头发，头发行业有时十分肮脏。
So far, the hair industry has not had its ethically-sourced moment.
到目前为止，人发行业还没有遭遇其道德溯源时刻。
American customers are typically unconcerned about the origins of extensions, the founder of a hair extensions trade group told the New York Times, other than to ask if they are hygienic. For retailers and manufacturers, the demand for hair makes it a financial necessity not to ask too many questions.
一位假发销售公司的创始人告诉《纽约时报》，美国顾客很少关心假发的来源，他们只在乎假发是不是卫生。对于零售商和制造商来说，在假发需求的驱使下，为了赚钱，最好还是不要问太多问题。
“The hair business is unlike any other,” the owner of an Indian hair-exporting business told journalist Scott Carney. “In any other business, buying a commodity is easy; it’s the selling it to retailers that is difficult. Here it’s all reversed. It’s simple to sell hair, just difficult to buy it.”
“人发产业跟其他产业都有所不同，”某印度头发出口企业的业主告诉记者Scott Carney说，“在其他行业中，商品买进很容易，将它卖给零售商就很难。但人发行业是颠倒过来的。头发卖出去很容易，买进来很难。”
Better synthetic hair is coming. As China and India’s economic growth has reduced poverty, hair donors have been harder to find, which has increased prices and pushed companies to research alternatives. In the last 5 years, Mo Hefnawy of Lori’s Wigsite tells us, progress has been made on making synthetic wigs thicker and more heat-resistant. “I’d give it a few more years and they will have it,” he says.
更好的合成头发即将面世。随着中国和印度经济的增长，贫困有所减少，卖头发的人已经比以前更难找到了，这抬高了价格，促使企业研究替代方案。Lori’ Wigsite的Mo Hefnawy告诉我们，过去5年，在制造更浓密、更耐热的合成假发方面已有所进步。他说，“我想再过几年，他们会成功的。”
Until then, though, a resource everyone has growing on the top of their head will remain a secretively lucrative commodity.
不过，在此之前，这种每个人头顶上都在生长的资源，仍将是一种鲜为人知的厚利商品。
翻译：Horace Rae
校对：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy）
编辑：辉格@whigzhou