In 2001 I had the brilliant idea to open a factory in India. Russian hair was starting to run out and we needed a new source and new line of hair products. We had been importing Indian hair and I had even visited a couple times to try and establish a good relationship with exporters. Didn’t matter - it was still a gamble from the moment we wired the money to the exporter until we received the box of hair. I knew if I wanted control over the hair quality I would need to set up my own office with my own employees. And from there grew the idea to set up a real factory where we would not just buy Indian hair but manufacture it from beginning to end. And so began my adventure. My name is Isaac. I am the owner of Hair & Compounds, Inc. (USA) and Different Hair Pvt. Ltd. (India), with my partner Elizabeth. The following are excerpts from my emails and journal that I wrote during my stays in India.

“I don’t want to be an Indian hair manufacturer!!!” I’m screaming and pulling my hair out. Someone told me that I should be proud of myself for succeeding to deliver any hair at all from India. I now understand why. If you know someone who wants to buy a hair factory (Sounds terrible, doesn’t it?) just let me know. I promise to take him or her to all the best restaurants around as compensation.
I have so many problems here so I thought to commit suicide today and I went and had the hottest Masala for lunch. I not quite but almost killed myself.
Even breakfast is so hot here. They put small green chilies in the Raita (Yogurt mixture) so even this yogurt side dish that is supposed cool down my pallet set it on fire. And it’s only 7:00 AM. To be on the safe side I asked the waiter for Raita with no chili and coffee with no chili. The waiter is smiling. I’m not.

I never have seen a country that was so messy yet so interesting. I don’t know which of these two descriptions ascribe to the British that left this country in 1947. It seems like they did not spend much time out on the streets. On the other hand, it is so hot and humid here for so many months out of the year that there are days where I feel that parts of my body are just melting and evaporating away, so I don’t blame the Brits much.

My taxi driver drops me at my office in the morning, goes to sleep in the car, wakes up when we go to have lunch, comes back, falls asleep again until 8-9 PM when I ride back to my hotel room. The following day when he picks me up from the hotel, I asked him how did he sleep last night and he replies: “I slept for 9 hours like a baby”. If to judge by his driving skills it seems to me that he never woke up from his long night of sleep. Scary!

I would not be able to summarize in one article the driving situation in India. Not even in a series of articles. CNN will have to send a full crew or otherwise no one will believe my description. I can only tell you that in LA we have 6 lanes on an average freeway and you can see 6 cars across only in rush hour. Here in India there is only 1 lane per direction but you see 6 cars across at all times with no exaggeration! No wonder my eyes feel a bit “crowded” and by the time I get to my office I have cold sweat all over me and I have lost 4-5 pounds.

Customers often ask why a lot of the hair they buy appears shiny, which imparts a feeling of quality, compared to normal scalp hair. I know most hair dealers claims they sell Remy hair or cuticle hair but 99.9% of the hair sent to us by customers are verified as non-cuticle processed hair under the microscope. Now why does it look shiny compared to normal hair? The answer is a simple matter of light reflection.

The above schematic diagram (Csepluch, et al, J. Soc. Cosmet. Chem., 44, 299 (1993) illustrates the many angles along the hair fiber’s surface. The overlapping cuticles are open at an angle of 2-3%. Then you must consider the fact that each individual cuticle has an uneven surface. In order to complete the explanation, I will remind you that a ray of light will reflect off an object at the same angle it hits the object.

Since the cuticles have an uneven surface and lay at an angle, which also creates different angles, light will reflect off the surface in multiple angles. This is called light scattering, and surprisingly enough there are only a few labs (much more sophisticated than my lab) around the world that are able to measure light scattering.

You will have noticed that non-cuticle hair appears shinier and healthier than cuticle hair and can often fool you into thinking it actually is healthier than cuticle hair. This is purely an illusion of reflected light. A non-cuticle hair fiber is reflecting light off a surface that is without the angles of the cuticles. Which means the non-cuticle surface is acting more like a mirror when bouncing back the light rays. Take a look at your desk and see the amount of light reflected off the smooth surface. If you were to take the same desktop, break it into small pieces and reposition them at different angles on top of each other, I can assure you that the reflected light would be scattered and would measure quite differently.