Dirty Deals behind Brazilian Hair

Adeyinka Olaiya, Sao Paulo, Brazil/

Brazilian hairs are hot with African women in every season especially during the Yuletide, but there is a story behind the business that is not heartwarming.

Hair merchants plying the trade in Brazil told NewsmakersNG about some dirty deals behind this product that most women are dying for.

In Nigeria, the cost of Brazilian hair ranges from N100, 000 to half a million naira.

The merchants in Brazil are now working with African dealers to buy directly from countries where the living standard is low. Families in India and Pakistan are camped in rented houses, fed and taken care of till they have grown hairs that are later cut off, bought for a token then transported to Brazil for industrial treatments, after which they are sold at exorbitant prices.

Marcos Lacerda, a Brazilian hair merchant told NewsmakersNG, “Dealers of natural hairs in Brazil now visit India and other Asian countries where the living standard is low to buy their natural hair, paying peanuts. They are transported to Brazil for sales as Brazilian hair.”

NewsmakersNG also learnt that the mafias in the hair business are no longer supplying Africa and other parts of the world with the real Brazilian hair because of the exorbitant prices charged by the Brazilians who wish to sell their natural hair. Now, the merchants cross the borders of Brazil to Bolivia, Peru, and Paraguay to get natural hairs from the indigenes offering them little money.

The Nigerian market and the American markets are strong targets of hair merchants, who supply these products constantly under the umbrella of the famous Brazilian hair.

Investigations show that many women wrongly obtain the Bolivian hair, Indian hair, Peruvian hair or even Ethiopian hair in the form of the famous and expensive Brazilian hair.

This is one business that has made the dynamic Brazilian economy the fastest growing in the western hemisphere.

Thambo Phillips, a South African hair dealer, said, “I produce plastic hair and I take them to Brazil for chemical treatments. They are later sold to Africa as 100 per cent natural hairs.”

Rugiat Dixon, a Sierra Leonean hair stylist in Sao Paulo, Brazil, who now lives in French Guiana, said, “No one knows which is a Brazilian hair, Indian hair and even South African hair since all are resolved in the laboratory. The merchants are so involved to the extent that even elongated hairs are turned to coiled hairs in the laboratory, making it difficult to identify the hair type.”

The Brazilian customs often impound cargo shipments from India to Brazil fully loaded with natural hairs from India.

When Brazil was declared as a “Sleeping Giant Awakening” in 1994 under the leadership of the past president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the poverty rate dropped and hunger was relatively conquered.

Following this sudden improvement in the economic situation of the country, the living standards of the Brazilian people rose, thus making it difficult for just anyone to buy the products in the Brazilian market cheaply as it used to be before 1994.

Because of this development, shady deals took over and selling of wrong products came into existence so as to maintain the commercial values of the Brazilian products even though they are not the real ones.

In Brazil, most Nigerian women are getting extra dollars working as a hairstylist. A complete mall has been dedicated by the state government to support the Africans with hair weaving talents at locations to practice their trade.

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