PHENOMENON- For the sake of fashion

The Locks Market- The hair-extensions industry has made it easy to get lush tresses. Answering the moral questions it raises is more complicated. By Katherine Zoepf

Recently I ran across an article that caught my attention for two reasons: my students' obsession with women and culture and the fashion module. I find the article fascinating as it tells a controversial story about religious pilgrims visiting Tirumala, a temple of the Vaishnava sect of Hinduism. Devout Hindus pay their respects to the resident deity, Lord Venkatwswara. When they are there, a ritual shaving call a tonsuring is part of the devotion. These devotees believe that if they give up their hair, the god will grant them any wish. Naturally, most of these girls have virgin hair that they have hardly trimmed, let alone cut since childhood. What's more important though is that recent boom in the hair-extension industry has enterprised (very quietly) on the ancient ritual by buying the hair at low prices and selling it for extremely high prices in the United States. Certainly the hair has always been sold and some of the profit is said to be returned to the temple and the surrounding community but recently due to the prices that the extension are fetching, many wonder just how much money is not going to the temple and rather to the industry. The moral question arises. Is this ethical or not?