Hair extensions, like the locals wear

“Human hair! Human hair extensions! $10! Colour them, cut them, curl them, put life into them! They’re human hair! Treat them like you treat you own hair! These extensions retail at $145 at the hair salon. We’re giving them to you for just $10,” called out the twenty-first century equivalent of the Town Crier, a woman holding a microphone standing next to a loudspeaker, as I walked down the main shopping street, intent on studying the locals in my area of Sydney.

I pushed past the compère, noting her puffy lips, which she had outlined with a black lip liner, gothic style. I went inside to investigate the shopping habits of the locals.

“Botox lip-lift balm! 50 cents! It actually works!” yelled the woman into her microphone.

Inside the shop was heaving with people. I fought to get to the crate of hair. The excitement was palpable, and at that moment, I just had to get my hands on a skein of human hair.

“It comes in 26 different colours, but no worries if you can’t find your colour. You can dye it!”

I pulled out an impossibly blonde lock of human hair.

“Secret Slimmers! Every girl should have a pair in her underwear drawer! For the days you’re feeling bloated – almost 100% off the actual price! These would cost you $85 in David Jones! We’re giving them to you for $5!”

The crowd around the bin of Secret Slimmers was feral. Women yanking the heavy-duty items out of boxes, grabbing onto them like wild dogs gripping meat at feeding time.

I threw the human hair back into the crate. In this time of economic crisis, as the global financial markets collapse, I know that I should do my bit to revive the economy by spending all my money immediately, but I’m selfish and fixated on my own private financial crisis, which dictates that I spend no more money on fripperies this month. I wiped away my feelings of guilt about shirking my responsibilities to the dying economy, with the thought that it would be morally wrong to buy human hair, without knowing that it had been grown ethically. It would be wrong to unwittingly boost the trade in human hair from the heads of sweatshop workers.

Back at home, I ran into my neighbour. It will be her fiftieth birthday on Saturday, and, apart from a stint in England married to an alcoholic Policeman, she has spent her entire life locally, and she did indeed come home from the hairdresser one day a few months back with a hair extension, dyed a pinkish colour, which contrasted vividly with the copper-coloured hair that was growing out of her head.

I feel that I have scratched the surface of my neighbourhood and can say that, in their urban habitat, in times of economic distress, the locals adorn their heads with cheap hair extensions grown on the heads of other humans.