History of Hair Extensions

June 16, 2008 by · Leave a Comment 

Believe it or not but hair extensions go as far back as the Egyptian days. They were worn by both genders for cosmetic adornment. In addition to cosmetic vanity, wigs served another purpose as well, to avoid infection of head lice. Egyptian men shaved their head but wore wigs to protect them from the different elements.

Fake hair for women became frowned upon after 1800 and women wore hair more naturally. In the early 20th Century Edwardian women wore false hair additions to create the pompadour hairstyle, shown below.


Fake hair returned once again with the elaborate “Appollo Knots” of the Romantic era, shown below.


Later human hair additions were used so extensively in the mid Victorian era that 51,816 kgs of fake human hair were sold in France in 1871 and 102,900 kgs in 1873.

By the 1920′s less hair rather than more was considered “in”. In the 1940′s long natural hair like that of Lauren Bacall was one of the few remaining luxuries a woman could indulge in.


Lauren Bacall

Many eons later Asian countries learned to process and manufacture hair extensions to be sold all over the world. Like now most of the wigs and hair extensions were made of human hair, the main difference was the way they were worn by each individual. Wigs were coated ith beeswax or plant resin to adhere to the scalp. Now, we have fusion techniques, clip on hair extensions and strand bond weaving, back in the day, they were fastened with a thread to the wearer’s natural hair.

Extensions were worn mostly by the very wealthy who could afford the cost and sit still for about 12 to 15 hours . Others followed when they saw what was possible when hair extensions were applied in a glamorous way. In particular black women used hair extensions to improve upon hair texture that some found difficult to tame. It became common to see pop singers sport a wide range of looks that centred around hair extensions.


So you see we have come a very very long way with what we can do with actual human hair. It’s quite amazing knowing that the Ancient Egyptians were doing it long before we even knew what they were. Till next time Good Luck,