Fake Brazilian hair discovered in Lagos

Lagos - Authorities in Nigeria have warned citizens, especially young trendy women, to be on the lookout for fake hair extensions on sale in markets across Lagos.

Ladies are being warned that the fake hair, sold as Brazilian hair, might not come from Brazilian women at all.

Some of the hair, officials claim, might have been shaven off the heads of Asian women, or even in some cases, African women who previously bought and fixed genuine Brazilian hair - in which case the fake hair is at best ‘Tokunbo’ Brazilian hair.

An official of NAFDAC spoke on the matter:

“We are currently clamping down on all distributors of these fake hairs and we are planning to introduce NAFDAC number for genuine human hair, be it Brazilian or whatever else.

“Part of our job as regulators is to make sure that people get what they pay for. A situation in which someone pays for genuine Brazilian hair and gets Argentinean hair or re-packaged used hair is just not acceptable.”

In the most extreme cases discovered during raids of hairdressing saloons in the state, some of the hairs being passed off as Brazilian were not even human hair at all.

“Some of the hair is from animals,” said the NAFDAC inspector. “We do not have adequate equipment in our labs to carry out gene tests to determine the specific species involved, but from the colour and the texture of some samples we have seized, we are suspecting they are Orang-utan hair.”

Users of hair extensions are now being advised to only buy their Brazilian hair directly from Brazilian women or from NAFDAC accredited distributors of genuine human hair.

Users are also advised to avoid buying hair from sellers whose shops are close to zoos, or from beauty spas that have Malaysian beauticians with low-cut hair.

“We don’t yet know the effect of carrying fake hair,” said the NAFDAC official, “But one can’t take chances.”

- Omooba