Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-08-15
VALUE OF HUMAN HAIR
IF PURE WHITE WORTH ITs
WEIGHT III GOLD.
Little of It for sale-$1 400 Wig-Ash
Blonde q Rare
Shade. -

From the New York Sun.
The police reported last week the arrest
of two young thieves who were accused
of stealing 300 pounds of human hair from
a dealer. There is probably some mistake
about that case" remarked another dealer.
IF the hair they stole was only average
quality American hair, and they had 800
pounds of 1t, its value was in the neigh
bOrhood of $4,000. If 1t was fine imported
hair. its value could easily have been $780,
600. Hair is the most expensive commodity
on the market. short Of radium and dia-
monds. 1t costs more than it's weight in
gold. Some hair costs 800 an ounce. That
| Is $1.eo0 a pound. II the youthful sneak
thieves had made away with hair of this
quality. their swag would have been in
the neighbOrhood Of $3.50 100. But this ex-
pensive hair necessarily exists in very
small quantities. That is why 1t is so rare
and SO expensive
This particular hair which costs 500 an
ounce is the pure white hair uncolored by
age, cut from the head of a living person.
and measuring at least thirty inches.
Shorter hair Of the purest white commands
a high price. but in order to get the record
fvalue the length must be at least thirty
inches. And in all the United States there
Is probably not a pound and half Of this
pie have 1t. but those who do will not sell.
A Tinge Of Yellow.
Elderly people with long white hair
should not be tempted to cut 1t OFF in the
hope Of getting 500 an ounce for 1t with
| out first having an expert inspect 1t. If 1t
is tinged with yellow its value is reduced
to almost nothing. We can get plenty Of
long white hair tinged with yellow. but the
pure white is extremely rare and very ex-
pensive. A wig made for the wife of a
Chicago bank president by me two years
ago of this pure white hair. cost the lady
81, 200. And it took me nearly year to
collect the hair from all over the country.
I used about five ounces In the wig.
Girls who live in Harlem or the suburbs
sometimes get dead broke while down
town. and want to know what they can sell
their hair for. mother once brought her
fourteen-year-old daughter in to me to ask
II I would buy the daughters hair. I re-
fused, because l don't make a business Of
buying hair raw. as we say.
II should say that hair on a young girls
head, If about thirty inches long and of
fair quality, would bring the owner from
IS to $40, according to length and thick
| ness. But an American girl who sells her
hair for this trifing sum Is acting very
foolishly. OF course. If she is only four
teen or fifteen 1t win grow long again, and
but / never advise any American girl to
part with her hair.
Mouse-Colored Hair.
"The most expensive shade. next to the
white hair I have mentioned, is what is
known as ash blonde. It is a mouse-col-
ored hair, very rare-not the pale peroxide
blonde produced by artificial means, but
| the natural pale blonde. Hair Of this kind
| is easily worth $50 an ounce. but very few
people have 1t.
THE cheapest kind Of hair Is black Chi
nese hair. cut from the aues Of China
pound 1t is used only for stage purposes,
in making what we call Mikado wigs.
This is the busy season of the year for
wig makers. I estimate that between now
and the LIST Of September. when the theat-
rlcal season opens, the output for the sea-
son will include about 400 soubrette wigs
with fluffy curls to be worn by rough SOU
brettes; about 1,500 white wigs for In
the many Shakespearean plays that are
scheduled for production; about 800 orient
al wigs for Biblical plays; about 500 Jap
| anese wigs for several big productions;
about 600 brown George wigs for general
use and for Shakespearean plays; about the
same number of fright wigs for use in the
rough-and-tumble farce comedies: and
number Of special wigs made for certain
persons.
1.-The seasons output will include also
no less than 1900 fluffy wigs for chorus
girls. These chorus girls buy them singly
and pay for them themselves. whereas
the management usually pays for the wigs
of a big production. The chorus girl in
vests in a wig made for herself because
1t is easier and prettier to wear a wig
every night than it is to curl her own
hair.
THE prices on wigs vary from - for
a rough black wig to 500 for very fine
production. l charged $50 for a most
peculiar wig which 1 made few months
ago.
A Long Wig.
"a beautiful young woman, who refused
to give her name, called on me and said
she wanted a wig to be worn with her own
hair, which would reach to the floor. She
was a blonde and I succeeded after some
difficulty in getting the hair she desired.
I made it up so that it fastened under
her own hair. and when she put it on 1t
touched ground and looked real. She
refused to say why she wanted 1t or who
she was She paid me the $50 and have
never seen her since. Since she was not
an actress and didn look like an aIver-
tisement for hair Oil, can only conclude
that she wanted to appear In some anna
teur theatricals
There are other people who wear wigs.
too Some of them are spiritualistic me-
diums For long time I was puzzled by
orders from the middle west, accompanied
requested to make up wigs and boards
SO that they were exact copies of the par
| ticular style of hairdresing shown in the
photograph.
0plT1t wigs.
IT never found out until afterward that
the orders came from a clever fakir who
posed as a spiritualistic medium. The
photos he sent me were pictures of promi-
nent dead citizens in small western towns.
He had a confederate who visited these
towns a month or more in advance of the
fakir. This confederate collected photos
of prominent dead citizens. These were
Sopf on n ms and 7 made the Uip nd
boards required. They were delivered to
the fakir. and at the proper time during
seance an exact reproduction of the dear
departed would appear as an apparition
from the cabinet confederate cleverly
made up. posed as the spirit.
Needless to 8; the advent of the spirit
of prominent citizen created consterna-
ton, and the fakir was voted marvellous
spiritualist. l don't know where the fakir
Is now, but he coined so much money that
think I deserve q percentage of his
profits, for the way he imposed upon me
and made me an innocent accomplish of his