Except for sheep shearers. You guys are still good to go.
We also buy only female hair. There's no real difference in quality, but some of our clients have told us they wouldn't feel right knowing their wig came from a dude, and men tend to be harder to work with, too. The kinds of men who grow their hair long enough to sell it also tend to think way too highly of it. The few guys who have tried to sell to us over the years have balked at the prices we offered. Sorry, guys, but no one's going to pay you a month's rent in exchange for your Sammy Hagar mane.
I mentioned earlier that it's OK if the hair isn't particularly, well, clean. But there is a limit -- many people inexplicably assume that in order to fetch the price for virgin hair, you need to stop washing it. I've never bought hair with any bugs in it (indeed, I am sure that few have), but that doesn't stop people from coming in and trying to sell grimy locks teeming with scalp infestations. Public health concerns aside, it's just bad business -- we need to produce wigs in a quick turnaround, and it would take too damn long to kill whatever is living in that hair to make it worth buying.
Tivoly/iStock
"We would normally incinerate your hair, but the resulting grease fire would torch half a city block."
Also, we can only use hair that comes from the head. So you can imagine how tiring it is to get emails from women trying to sell me their pubic hair. Except for the rare publicity sale, no one buys this. There are several reasons for that -- chiefly because you cannot make a wig from it -- but that doesn't deter some people. I field at least two emails a week from women trying to peddle their bush. One woman who I bought some hair from also included her pubic hair, tied up like her regular hair. There was a note inside the box that said, "Can you buy these for a fair price?" I sent them back with no note. I hope she got the message.
Evan V. Symon is a writer, interviewer, and interview finder guy for the PE team at Cracked. Have an awesome job/experience you would like to tell us about? Then hit us up at tips@cracked.com!
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