What Does Virgin Hair Actually Mean?

If you've spent any time shopping for a sheitel, you've almost certainly come across the term virgin hair. In fact, it's probably the single most common claim made throughout the hair industry.

And with good reason.

Virgin hair is considered the highest quality hair available. It is expected to move naturally, style beautifully, respond to humidity much like growing hair, and generally last significantly longer than chemically processed hair. Naturally, that's exactly what everyone wants.

So...

What does virgin hair actually mean?

If you've researched virgin hair, you've probably noticed something confusing. Some companies distinguish between "raw" and "virgin" hair, while others use the terms almost interchangeably. There is no universally accepted industry definition. As a result, the same word can describe very different products depending on who is using it.

Part of the confusion stems from the fact that there is no universal regulatory standard governing many of the terms used within the hair industry. Words such as "virgin" and "Remy," may be used differently from one supplier to another. 

For the purposes of this article, when we refer to virgin hair, we mean hair that has never been chemically altered and whose natural cuticle remains intact.

It has never been bleached, dyed, permed,relaxed or otherwise chemically processed, allowing the hair to behave much more like the hair growing from your own head.

The questions worth asking:

At first glance, everything seems fairly simple. Virgin hair is considered the highest quality available and nearly every company claims to sell it.

How can companies with dramatically different price points all claim to be selling the highest quality hair?

If some wigs cost only a few hundred dollars while others cost several thousand, can they all truly be made from the same quality of virgin hair?

And if so...

Why do some wigs look beautiful for years while others quickly become dry, tangled or difficult to manage?

Perhaps the biggest question of all is:

If virgin hair is the standard everyone is looking to market, then what is processed hair, and why do so many processed wigs look and feel so silky and smooth?

The answer begins long before a wig is ever made.

It begins with how the hair enters the industry.

Not all hair begins as beautiful ponytails.

When most people picture hair collection, they imagine long, healthy ponytails cut directly from a donor.

Sometimes that is exactly what happens. But that represents only one part of the industry.

A great deal of hair enters the market as loose hair. Throughout parts of Asia, hair collectors purchase hair from many different sources. Women in villages save the hair collected from their brushes or showers. Hair salons collect what is swept from the floor after haircuts.

Another significant source of hair comes from Hindu tonsuring ceremonies, during which devotees shave their heads as part of a religious offering. While this raises important halachic considerations for Jewish women, it also represents another major source of hair entering the global market. It is likely to be the main source of hair entering the market, since India exports important amounts of hair annually. The hair shaved off during the tonsuring ceremony is sold for a higher price to wig and extension companies. The fallen hairs are all swept up and sold in bagfuls to hair collectors and end up in processed wigs, whether they are marketed as such or not. (You can learn more about the halachic aspects and MySheitel in our Kosher Certification section.)

By the time much of this hair reaches a collector, it is often a tangled mixture of thousands of individual hairs coming from countless different people. Ironically, much of this hair may still technically be virgin. It simply isn't usable in that condition.

Why processing becomes necessary:

Imagine trying to create one beautiful hair bundle from thousands of loose strands. Each hair differs in thickness, texture, strength and quality. Most importantly, every hair is facing a different direction.

Hair cuticles naturally overlap like shingles on a roof. When they all point in the same direction, hair feels smoother and tangles much less. When those cuticles face opposite directions, they catch against one another constantly. The result is hair that mats, knots and becomes almost impossible to work with.

Something has to be done.

 This is where chemical processing comes in. 

This is not some hidden or unusual practice within the hair industry. Quite the opposite. Many manufacturers openly show this process because it has become a standard way of producing lower-cost hair products.

To make tangled hair workable, it is commonly soaked in an acid solution that removes the cuticle since removing the cuticle greatly reduces tangling.

But it also removes one of the hair's greatest natural protections. The hair becomes weaker, more porous and considerably more fragile.

So then, why does it still look so beautiful?

If the cuticle has been removed, how can processed hair often look so healthy?

Because removing the cuticle creates another problem. Without the cuticle, the hair feels rough and dull. To restore its appearance, manufacturers typically apply conditioning treatments and silicone coatings. These coatings create the smooth, silky finish people see when the wig is new. 

But silicone doesn't repair the hair, it simply coats it. As those coatings gradually wash away, many processed wigs begin to lose their shine, become drier, tangle more easily and require significantly more maintenance.

This is where things become especially confusing for consumers.

Many manufacturers openly advertise chemically processed hair, often highlighting the consistency of the colour, the ability to create specific textures, or the lower price made possible through processing.

At the very same time, it is not uncommon to find hair marketed as virgin displaying characteristics that naturally raise questions.

Perfectly uniform curls. Exceptionally silky textures despite pronounced curl patterns. Identical wave patterns repeated from one bundle to the next.

None of these characteristics automatically prove that hair has been chemically processed, but they do illustrate why relying solely on the word virgin can be misleading.

Compounding the confusion is the fact that many wig makers and retailers purchase their hair from large, established factories. If the manufacturer describes the hair as virgin, they may genuinely believe that is exactly what they are selling.

This is why understanding the journey of the hair is often more valuable than relying solely on the label attached to it.

Looking beyond the label

At MySheitel, this is why so much importance is placed on verified sourcing.

Rather than relying solely on terms such as virgin or Remy, MySheitel begins much earlier,with the journey of the hair itself.

The factory works exclusively with hair collected locally in Cambodia. Rather than purchasing hair through traders or from large international markets, the people who operate the factory personally oversee the collection process. Teams travel to villages throughout Cambodia, where women who wish to sell their hair choose the length they would like cut, receive a professional haircut, and are fairly compensated for their donation.

Our Kosher certification is there to help ensure that no hair enters production from sources that would raise halachic concerns. Rabbi Hartman personally visits the factory and understands the sourcing process.

For Jewish women, this offers something that words like virgin or Remy alone never can.

Confidence.

Confidence in where the hair came from. Confidence in what is being purchased. And confidence that the mitzvah can be fulfilled with genuine peace of mind.

Beautiful hair is important. At MySheitel, the goal was always to source beautiful high quality hair, but not stop there. The goal was to source hair whose journey could be understood and halachic status verified. 

So... How do we know?

Unfortunately, there is no simple test a customer can perform after receiving a wig. 

 

This is precisely why understanding the journey of the hair is often more valuable than relying on the label attached to it.

Rather than asking simply,”Is the hair virgin?” Consider asking questions such as: Where was the hair sourced?

Can the sourcing be independently verified?

Has the hair undergone any chemical processing after collection?

If it isn’t naturally curly or wavy, how was that texture achieved?

If it is naturally curly or wavy, can you show me different bundles of the texture side by side?

Who can answer these questions, and how much do they know about the hair before it reached the factory?

The answers to these questions often reveal far more than the word virgin ever could.

These questions naturally lead us to another term you'll see almost everywhere in the wig industry...

Remy hair.

If virgin hair refers to the chemical history of the hair, what exactly is Remy hair, and why does it matter?

We'll explore that in the next article.