Hair extensions: Hot new underground commodity
Two young thieves walked into John’s Beauty Supply store in Chicago
last Monday morning, pulled out a bottle of pepper spray and a gun, and
went straight for the good stuff: Remy human hair extensions.
A female burglar pepper-sprayed a worker behind the counter before
grabbing about 10 packs of remy hair, which sell for $100 each. A male
thief held a gun to another employee and had her take $1,000 from the
register and shove more extensions into a garbage bag.
This incident is just the latest in a spate of hair extension heists
that have been sweeping Chicago and cities such as Philadelphia and
Houston. Remy hair extensions, which cost anywhere from $100 to
thousands of dollars per pack, have become highly sought after, and an
underground market for the goods has popped up in response.
“They’re selling them to hair salons,” said Shayna Crosby, who works
at John’s Beauty Supply. “People even sell them online or out of the
trunk of their cars.”
The remy hair frenzy is not without merit: They’re the highest grade
of real, human hair on the market, because the cuticles are kept intact
and not stripped. This means they look natural and stay shiny, soft and
tangle-free.
But the silky locks, which are often sewn in at salons, come at a
high price. The average person uses two packs each time and the hair
needs to be replaced every three to six months. This works out to
hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars each year.
In the last eight months alone, there have been two similar beauty
supply store burglaries in Chicago, according to police officer Jose
Estrada.
Meanwhile, last year, robbers made away with a reported $230,000
worth of extensions from the 35th Street Beauty Supply store in
Chicago’s Bronzeville neighbourhood. A year earlier, thieves bypassed
Beauty One’s register and beelined straight for the remy packs, taking
$80,000 of the product.
Yoonjin Han, who works at Beauty One, said she hears these heists
happen even more often - at least once a month.
They aren’t just happening in Chicago. Hair extensions robberies have
been reported across the country, from Texas to Oklahoma to Florida.
While the thefts are on the rise, there isn’t an official count.
An FBI spokesman said its crime data aren’t broken down by “specific
details such as hair extensions.”
Once the extensions are taken from stores, experts say thieves have
no problem moving them.
“People who have the audacity and the ingenuity to do this will be
able to sell them,” said Neal Lester, an English professor at Arizona
State University who has been lecturing about hair for the last 25
years. They’re even easier to pilfer, and to get away with, than other
products that commonly make their way into underground markets, like
iPhones or over-the-counter medication, since the extensions aren’t
marked with bar codes or serial numbers. Once they’re stolen, they’re
virtually impossible to trace or tie back to a store.
Lester says that the pricey hairpieces have grown ubiquitous in
recent years, as documented by movies like comedian Chris Rock’s Good
Hair, which shed light on the lengths women go to - and premiums they
cough up - to keep up their looks.
“The trend speaks to the notion that hair is so intricately wrapped
to one’s identity that there are risks people take,” Lester said. “And
it’s a telling moment in the economy, that people are now ready and
willing to pay such a price.”
- CNN Money
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