Entanglement: The Secret Lives of Hair

by Emma Tarlo

Hardcover, 2016

Status

Checked out

Genres

Religion & Spirituality

Publication

Oneworld Publications (2016), 416 pages

Description

"When it's not attached to your head, your very own hair takes on a disconcerting quality. Suddenly, it is strange. And yet hair finds its way into all manner of unexpected places, far from our heads, including cosmetics, clothes, ropes, personal and public collections, and even food. Whether treated as waste or as gift, relic, sacred offering or commodity in a billion-dollar industry for wigs and hair extensions, hair has many stories to tell. Collected from Hindu temples and Buddhist nunneries and salvaged by the strand from waste heaps and the combs of long-haired women, hair flows into the industry from many sources. Entering this strange world, Emma Tarlo travels the globe, tracking its movement across India, Myanmar, China, Africa, the United States, Britain and Europe, where she meets people whose livelihoods depend on hair. Viewed from inside Chinese wig factories, Hindu temples and the villages of Myanmar, or from Afro hair fairs, Jewish wig parlours, fashion salons and hair loss clinics in Britain and the United States, hair is oddly revealing of the lives of all it touches. From fashion and beauty to religion, politics and cultural identity, Emma Tarlo explores just how much our locks and curls tell us about who we are. Full of surprising revelations and penetrating insights, Entanglement will change the way you see hair for ever"--Publisher.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member CryBel

If you are interested in reading something quite interesting, then you need read this book. This book is about hair and the various industries that have sprung up around it. It is written in such a way that you have a hard time putting it down despite it is about a unique subject.

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LibraryThing member dhelmen

fascinating, slightly creepy, slightly sick making, and a perfect book to read on a long road trip. I found the enormous global hair industry a surprise and was totally riveted, learning how various populations make their living picking apart the things we leave behind in combs and brushes.

LibraryThing member frogwindy

Entanglement :The Secret Lives of Hair by Emma Tarlo
Never judge a book by its cover......Admit it, most of us have done it, bypassed the stead respectable looking wallflower with its faded colors in favor of its exciting neighbor with the vibrant jewel tones & eye catching font.
When the book,

Entanglement: The Secret Lives of Hair by Emma Tarlo, arrived in the mail I found the cover so uninspiring I asked myself Why? Why did I pick a book about Hair! Me, whose notion of good hair consists of only two rules; 1) it not poke me in the eyes or ears & 2) it takes less than 5 minutes to style. I had more exciting, & frankly more beautiful, books to read. Besides could anything be more boring than a historical & cultural study of hair?
I am ashamed to confess that once again my love of packaging had lead me to false assumptions because I could not have been more wrong! The secret world of hair that author Emma Tarlo brings to life is anything but boring. It's weird & wild & wonderful. Hair is, the author writes, "A commandment, a privilege, a burden, an opportunity, a fashion statement and a test of faith...".
In spite of being a fact filled indepth study into the history & cultural significance of hair the book reads like a fun & fast paced fictional thriller. I can almost picture the movie now. It made me wonder about everyone around me. Was their hair real or clever fakes? How many hours and dollars did they spend on it? Was I , Unlike my hair obsessed friend who spends hours pursuing the perfect hair cut, actually the strange one for never regarding hair as anything but an annoyance? Did anyone else know about this secret, shadowy world where hair takes on a life of its own? So exciting did I find my newly learned factoids I found myself bombarding friends & colleagues with the perpetual question: Did you know....?
So, do you know...? Well I am betting you don't & I'm not giving any spoilers. Trust me, just read the book, you will never look at your, or anyone else's, hair the same way again.

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LibraryThing member melydia

The blurbs on this book try to convince you it's not all about wigs, but it's all about wigs. To be fair, it's a really interesting book about wigs. I had no idea how extensive the human hair trade was, from hair ritually shorn to wads of hair pulled from combs and painstakingly hand-separated and

sorted by length. I think it's interesting how most hair comes from India, China, and parts of Southeast Asia, and yet lighter colors are so prized. In my own country, blond hair is fairly common, and yet it's hard enough to get people to take your hair as a donation, much less for sale. I look at the hair clogging up the combs of my long-haired friends and boggle at the amount of money they could make if they lived in a place the hair buyers visit. From the inner workings of the hair trade, I also learned about the end product. It's not all fashion and chemotherapy patients. There are cultural norms (especially among African-American communities), religious uses (I did not know, for example, that some Orthodox Jewish women wear wigs that look like their real hair), and even a quick stop by a hair transplant clinic. If you like biographies of things, this is worth a read.

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LibraryThing member librarianwords

Emma Tarlo's book on hair is certainly interesting, and at times captivating. However, I found myself initially confused about the purpose of the book. I knew it was about hair, but at no point did the author mention what he wanted this book to be about, which is usually pretty common for

non-fiction, and helpful for anthropological texts. I initially was uncertain if the book would be about hairstyles throughout the ages, or attitudes about hair through history. It wasn't until I reached the section on "black hair" that I realized the book was really about the uses of hair in hair products such as wigs, weaves, sheitels, toupees, etc. As I came to understand the purpose of the book, I became more absorbed in what the author was trying to convey.

As a piece of work, I find it to be fascinating, and I definitely know more and think more about hair now than I did before. I appreciate the author's discussion of the cultural importance of various cultures' hair practices. However, the writing style was a bit off putting as she often rambled a bit without making it clear what point she was trying to make, and she included a lot of exclamation marks, where I did not think they were needed. I'm being a bit nitpicky here, but both of these things led me to believe this was her first book, which to my surprise, it was not.

Given the coverage the author includes, I would recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand the artificial hair industry, but I would also recommend back-up texts too, because her writing is hard to get though at times. I enjoyed this book, but I didn't love it.

Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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LibraryThing member varielle

I suppose this could be considered a commodity history or expose? This is the story of the wig making industry along with all the cultural baggage that entails. It makes me want to go out and buy an extension or do they still call them falls? Interesting if you are really into hair.

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