Make Money Selling Hair

The obvious way one can make money selling their hair is by selling it to hair buyers who then sell it to wig making companies who turn them into wigs and hair extensions. There is still no cure for baldness and hair loss is a major problem for many people. One American woman successfully sold her hair for $1000 proving how valuable one’s hair can be to others.

The Global Wig Industry

The global wig industry is growing at a fast rate because of this plus add to the fact that many people especially women find it hard to devote a lot of time in styling their hair to adapt to ever changing hair fashion trends so they opt to using wigs instead. Many women now even collect wigs and hair extensions the same way they collect shoes or handbags.

A good article from Smallstarter titled Human Hair: How This Business Makes Millions of Dollars in Africa, and the Tricks You Didn’t Know tells how real human hair is a millions of dollar business globally where Indians and Chinese companies are one of the biggest suppliers and players at the same time.

Another good article can be found in Medium titled The Fascinating Business of Hair. It tells how a religious organisation makes good money auctioning the hair of its devotees. Their profits are in the millions of dollars. It also discusses that the end product which are wigs fetch thousand dollar price tags once they reach the western markets.

One thing I can discern from this two (2) articles is that there is good money to be made from selling your hair but if you want serious money you should be a wholesaler of not only your hair but of other people’s hair as well. You can advertise that you are a buyer of human hair or a much better way is to establish a supply network from people who professionally grow their hair for money.

You could go to financially disadvantaged rural areas to persuade people to grow their hair a certain length and to groom it as naturally as possible which means no washing of hair with potentially harmful chemical products. Your suppliers must also avoid having hair split ends which causes their value to decrease significantly.

This can be a difficult business to do considering that hair takes a long time to grow and hairs used for wig making are very long. Competition between hair buyers can also be fierce.

Other Uses for Hair

Wigs however are not the only products that can be made from hair. There are products that are made from hair that do not require very long hair. The main beneficiaries of these earning opportunities are hair salons and barbershops who have consistent supply of hair of all kinds and length.

In fact a salon owner discovered a use for all the hairs he collected at his salon. The hairs were used to absorb oil. In fact the hair collected in his salon were used to contain an oil spill in the ocean. He made a mat from the hairs and these soaked up the oil spill from the ocean.

Oil spill regularly occurs during the processing and transport of oil in both land and ocean. Ships, tankers, pipes and other forms of oil transport and facilities have regular oil spills due to the nature of oil processing.

Materials used to absorb oil are called Sorbents. The commonly used ones are peat moss, straw and hay. But hair has the advantage of not decaying as rapidly as these other products. If one can find an effective way of gathering hair from hair salons and barbershops he can make money from hair being used as sorbents.

Other simple products that can be produced from hair are:
- Cosmetic brushes: They make good brushes for makeup applications.
- Garden mulch: They make excellent protection for plants from weather and insects.
- Fabric material: Due to their flexibility and strength they are excellent reinforcements for fabrics made for hats and coats.

I made a search of brushes made from human hair being sold online and found that there are hair brushes made specifically for paints, cosmetics, art and so on.

Conclusion

Many people especially those who own or work in Hair Salons and Barbershops have literally bunches of hair on their head or just lying on their floors which could make them good money. All they need to do is to find a buyer for it.