Virgin hair is human lace wigs with silk top that has not been permed, coloured, or chemically processed in any way. (It’s basically been carefully cut off in a ponytail from the person who grew it and has had nothing done to it (except been washed!).

Virgin hair can be of any ethnic origin, but the best quality hair used in making silk top lace wigs omes from Europe. This is the most expensive, and most sought after hair of all because of its soft texture, and also because it’s in such short supply. It simply isn’t available in the large quantities that Asian hair is.

Sadly, often people have been sold human hair wigs and can’t work out why that the hair doesn’t look or feel much different to a cheap synthetic hair wig even though they paid for expensive human hair. This is because most human hair wigs are made from Asian hair, starting off black or very dark brown in colour, then bleached and dyed to become lighter colours. In the process, the lace front wigs for black women become very damaged and the cuticles are stripped off (think of a roof and the shingles all going one way), and so the hair no longer sits smoothly in one direction but tangles easily and looks unnatural after the first wash because it’s so damaged and processed.

When the hair is initially cut off the cuticles are all going in the same direction and in virgin hair are kept like that. For Europeans, Asian hair is a lot thicker and coarser than Western hair and so feels and looks different on those who aren’t from an Asian background.