August 11, 2011

Feather Hair Extensions

I've been noticing more and more feather hair extensions lately, so I was curious where they came from and whether they were real or synthetic.

Turns out, most of them are real rooster saddle feathers. On Etsy.com you can buy 3 dyed saddle feathers for about 18 bucks! I can't believe how expensive they are considering they're basically chicken butt fluff.

I'm not a vegetarian or anything, but I started reading about how these hair extensions are produced and it's kind of sad. Read this article if you're interested. Basically, rooster farmers catering to the fly fishing industry are now producing feathers for the hair extension market. The sad part is that the roosters only grow one set of feathers in their lifetime, so the feathers are "harvested" by killing the bird and removing the saddle. The birds also happen to be inedible, so the meat is wasted (at least they said it is composted).

I wouldn't be so opposed to these hair extensions if the feathers happened to be a byproduct of slaughtering the birds for meat (or if they could be continually harvested from the bird, like angora from a rabbit), but they're not. They are grown and slaughtered solely for their feathers.

How is this different from wearing fur?

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