Head Start

There’s more than one way to get the headwear you’re looking for. Sheitel sales are always exciting, with sellers sometimes offering a two-for-one sale if the wigs are similarly styled, or a buy-one-bring-a-friend sale, or just reduced prices before Yom Tov. The more daring consumer might try to purchase a wig directly from China through sellers on AliExpress, although that is truly not for the faint of heart. And then, of course, there’s the trusty sheitelmacher, your favorite scissor-wielding therapist.

The advantage of the first two are pretty obvious — lower cost. The savings can be significant: Seasonal sales often mark down wigs by a thousand dollars, and a human-hair wig can be purchased on AliExpress for $1,000 or less.

The disadvantage: You’re buying “blind,” without the guidance of an expert. And once you finalize that purchase, you lose most of your leverage. Any problems in the sheitel are now yours to deal with. An expert in sheitel repairs shares how her busiest times are always after a pop-up sale.

Faigy was excited when she heard of a fantastic virgin-hair sheitel sale, with each wig being sold at an introductory price of only $5,400. In just a matter of months, the ad proclaimed, the wigs would go up to $8,000. It was a steal of a deal, and she was all in.

After making her purchase, the seller gave her a three-month window to make changes. And there were changes she wanted to make — the color was not quite right, and the cut could have used some touching up. But she missed the window, due to, you know, life.

“So I took it to a wonderful colorist in Lakewood, whom I’ve used before, adore, and trust. And she told me, ‘This is not a virgin hair, unprocessed sheitel. It just isn’t. I can tell from the way the wig takes to the dye. The hair had been processed.’ ”

Faigy was furious to have been taken for a ride. She’d done her research, but she had to admit: There are some things only a true hair expert can ascertain.

There’s a lot to unpack in this scenario. Let’s start with the sale.

“Sales are a great resource if you’re an educated consumer who already knows what works for you,” says Chevi Kirschner, a sheitelmacher from Brooklyn with 30 years’ experience. “But while you can find a good deal from a pop-up sale, you won’t get the level of time and personal care that you might want when making a purchase like this. If you’re not sure which type of sheitel complements your face, or you can’t tell which hair texture can support the style you prefer, there’s a good chance you’ll be unhappy with your purchase once you leave. All sheitels look good in the chair — it’s only once you test drive your sheitel that you find out whether it’s a winner or a lemon.  And to be honest, many times it’s not that the sheitel was a lemon, but it’s the wrong sheitel for you, and the money that ‘you saved’ on your metziah will be spent trying to salvage the sheitel after the fact.

“It’s as important to find an honest, trustworthy, and caring person as it is to find someone who is highly skilled and experienced. You want to find someone who will stand behind her work, and has the customer service skills and relationships with the brands to help you if problems arise. You don’t want someone who’s trying to push a sale.”

Dina Groll, a licensed cosmetologist and experienced wig stylist who’s maintained her own business in Passaic for more than 18 years, agrees that it’s always safer to use a trusted sheitelmacher for this hefty purchase.

“Sometimes I’m asked why a client should purchase a wig through me, as opposed to purchasing wigs through AliExpress, or a pop up, or a no-name cash-and-carry sale, or similar companies. My response is always the same: Caveat emptor! Buyer beware!”

A Hair’s Breadth

When buying a wig, “the most important thing is to find a sheitelmacher who has integrity and compassion,” says Gitty of Gitty Friedman Wigs in Lakewood, who’s been in the business for 30 years. She also advises you to find someone who sells a wide variety of brands. “Not having a specific attachment to one specific brand will allow her to be more objective and find the best sheitel to match her customer’s face and budget. The right sheitel should work magic — make a woman look and feel beautiful.”

“People who bounce around from salon to salon lose out on the special bond that a client and hairdresser form over years of shared time, talk, and trust,” Chevi concurs. While a trained professional can tell which color and cut would work just by assessing the customer’s face shape and style, a sheitelmacher learns her client’s likes and dislikes by getting to know her personally. This mutual trust takes time to build; to get the best results, you need teamwork.

Chevi also suggests that people use a sheitelmacher who does it all — a full-service salon. “Don’t buy your sheitel from one person, take it to another to color, then to someone else to add hair and cut. Because as soon as your sheitel is handled by more than one person, you open yourself up to no one wanting to take responsibility if an issue arises.”

After you’ve found the seller you trust, Malky, of Lakewood’s Wigs by Malky, cautions women to pay close attention to the fit of the sheitel they want to buy. “That tends to be the most expensive thing to fix after the fact.” A professionally trained and experienced sheitelmacher will recognize potential problems that many laymen would not. These issues can crop up in the wig’s construction as well as in the quality and texture of the hair.

“Is it comfortable? Do the earpieces fall in the right spot so you don’t get a headache? Is the cap bunching or coning? (Hint: You don’t want it to.) When I give my customers a sheitel to consider, so many of them just plop it on their head without taking the time to adjust it properly and check the fit — and that’s an expensive mistake.”

Malky also recommends knowing the texture of the sheitel you want before going to shop. Certain textures work for certain styles: For example, if you want big bottle curls, you should steer away from the sleek, silky sheitels that won’t be able to hold the curls for long.

This is another score for buying from a sheitelmacher: You can request that the sheitel be washed before committing so you can see how the hair looks when it dries naturally. This is important because the natural hair might be different from how it came from the factory. You might be interested in a pre-styled wig that is curled or waved. But once it’s washed and air-dried, it might actually be limp, sleek, and straight and would not be the right shidduch for you.

Hair-Raising Prices

You’ve got the sheitelmacher, the fit and color, the style and texture. The next thing that drives a wig’s price is its hair. Virgin or processed? In quick terms, virgin hair is hair that has not been processed. It’s softer, stronger, pricier. But it has its risks.

“Processed hair is more affordable, but obviously of lesser quality,” says Chevi, including in feel, look, and life span. Processed hair is stripped of its natural color and texture, weakening the hair shaft. Most often, a processed hair wig will not last as long as virgin hair sheitels.

Virgin hair, on the other hand, is free of any chemical treatments, making it softer and stronger, but it also will be more affected by the weather, just like real hair.

Once again, it comes down to price. Chevi explains: “If you’re speaking about entirely unprocessed or virgin sheitels, anything lighter than a seven — hair colors are graded by number, so a seven is a light brown/dirty blonde — tends to cost more. Blonde is the most expensive color, since there are fewer natural blondes out there in the world — fun fact, only two percent of all blondes in the world are natural blondes! So a virgin-haired blonde sheitel is much pricier than a dark-hued one.”

So how are most premium blonde sheitels made? Chevi does it all the time. “To make a blonde wig look natural, it needs depth. Therefore, we will often start with a darker based color — like a light brown or dirty blonde — and then add highlights, balayage, or ombre, which are all different highlighting techniques.” This gives it a natural and updated look that is more flattering.

Even in processed sheitels, blonde is also more expensive, because their hair comes from places where black or dark brown hair is the norm. The manufacturers have to strip the dark pigment and carefully re-dye it — a tedious, delicate process that makes it pricier.

So… can you luck out and get a good wig from Ali? It has happened, Chevi says, otherwise no one would do it, and she understands why people might be tempted to try one out — life is expensive, and everyone loves a bargain. “I have worked on a couple of Ali sheitels that were surprisingly decent,” she says. “But they were not three hundred dollars. They cost fifteen-hundred dollars each, before any work, like adding hair to the hairline, rooting, or cutting, was done. At this point, the wigs cost over the two-thousand-dollar mark each, which is not a great bargain, and comes with considerable risk.” It’s a gamble.

But a note of caution from Malky: “I’ve seen many Ali sheitels, and the construction is not as good or as durable as a standard sheitel,” she cautions. “And you have no idea where the hair is really being sourced from. That said, it’s possible to get a good sheitel, but you are taking a risk because you won’t know what’s coming your way until it gets there.”

And about those overwhelming prices, when Family First spoke to the wig sellers, they agreed that one of the most common sheitel myths is that sheitelmachers add crazy markups to pad the price of sheitels and pocket a fortune. It’s not true, says Gitty.

“Sheitel prices have increased accordingly to inflation, but they’ve been relatively stable for the past year or so. The Covid-era price spikes are over. And contrary to what you see on social media, no sheitelmachers are making a fifty percent markup on a sheitel sale.”

According to Gitty, world affairs absolutely affect sheitel prices and availability. “Post-Covid, there was more high-quality hair available for sheitels. A year later, the availability deteriorated. What happened? The war in Ukraine damaged our supply chains. Also, celebrity culture in the non-Jewish world made high-quality hair extensions more popular and mainstream, which translated into more competition for the raw hair supply, inevitably leading to a price increase. Many sheitels are constructed in China; we’re going to need to see whether Trump’s tariffs will affect the prices once the supply runs out.”

“Everything has gone up,” Chevi concurs. “Eggs, car leases, and yes, sheitels, too! Virgin hair is incredibly expensive. But I believe in spending a reasonable amount and not getting caught up in the hype. Unfortunately, even processed sheitels have gone up, and generally don’t last that long, especially when subjected to heavy daily use.” Today, people are mostly buying lower-end price and quality, or higher-end and really expensive. But Chevi insists that these are not the only alternatives. “Despite not being as heavily marketed, there are some great companies that sell virgin wigs at midrange pricing. These wigs give you the best bang for your buck. My advice? Find the best quality you can afford without overspending.”

Cut and Dried

Can we talk about the lasting-for-years-mentality? Styles fluctuate, according to Gitty Friedman. “The rage now is air-dried sheitels — but those have drier hair, which is more brittle and less forgiving. Since we want a flatter and more seamless look, manufacturers are putting less hair on top. This affects a sheitel’s longevity, and thinning becomes noticeable more quickly. While they look nicer than the wig from a decade ago, a wig from a decade ago was built to last. Today, people would rather pay more for an up-to-date style.”

But sometimes, the unfortunate reality is that even a good sheitelmacher won’t know that a wig is a lemon until the customer is already wearing it. Esti Maiman, a Ramat Eshkol-based sheitelmacher with years of experience and the stories to prove it, explains why.

“It’s definitely true that the more experienced a sheitelmacher is, the better she’ll be able to tell how the hair will take and how the wig fits to see if it’s messed up before buying it. But sometimes it all looks good when we wash and air-dry it, and even when we style it in the salon — and then for whatever reason the hair turns out not to be good or it starts balding or shedding hair. And there was no way to know before.”

“No one wants to sell a bad sheitel,” says Chevi, “But unfortunately, lemon-detectors don’t exist. There are many different reasons why a sheitel could fail, from structural all the way to styling. That’s why I recommend working with someone who has a good relationship with the companies, because if there is something structurally wrong with your sheitel, you want someone who has your back.” Many times, what a woman thinks is a lemon can mean “The sheitel doesn’t have the texture to hold the look I want,” or “This cut really isn’t working for me.” This is why it’s so important to be an educated consumer.

What every wig-buyer needs, in case of lemon purchases, is a sheitel seller who will go to bat for them, and a company that will stand by their customer service policy. It’s expected that not every piece will be perfect. If you go to a sheitelmacher who has a good relationship with the brands, she can advocate on your behalf if she feels there is an actual problem with the piece. She should be testing the piece before selling it to you to avoid any potential issues. “There were times that I have taken a loss if I agreed with the client that there was something wrong with the sheitel, even if the company disagreed,” Chevi says. “If you have a good relationship with your sheitelmacher, she will try her best to make good for you.”

On the companies’ side, the service policy can vary widely. The reason for that has a lot to do with the production method used to create the wig, and the level of risk the customer assumes by buying it.

“Lemons” are less prevalent among processed hair wigs, a wig manufacturer explained to Family First. This is because the production process is standardized to a very high degree: Each company processes the hair using uniform chemicals and treatments, and then creates a large quantity of the same exact type of wig, so there’s far less room for random errors.

When it comes to virgin hair, though, there’s a lot more opportunity for differences to creep in. Every ponytail of purchased hair is different — with different texture, thickness, color, bounciness, and potential for frizz, among other variables — and they are treated minimally, if at all, before being incorporated with other ponytails in one wig. So you might get stuck with that staticky tuft of hair, but you won’t know until you’re wearing it.

Still, as a general rule, you get what you pay for: If something goes wrong with a processed wig, the company often doesn’t back the faulty product. If a virgin hair wig turns out to be a lemon, however, and it’s within the year warranty of the sale, a reputable company will usually take responsibility.

How that plays out can vary widely. They might treat the hair to make it more amenable to styling, replace the hair in the existing cap, or provide the purchaser with an entirely new wig.

Blimi can attest to that service ethic. She spent a pretty penny on a high-end sheitel from a well-known luxury line. “I’d bought from them before, and I was excited about my new purchase. It really was a gorgeous piece. And then, maybe several days after I brought it home, the hair started knotting — to the point where I was brushing it every half hour, and it still didn’t help. It was appalling.

“I took it right back and without missing a beat, they practically handed me a new wig on the spot. Maybe I’m exaggerating about how fast it happened — but not about the attitude. As soon as they saw it was flawed, it wasn’t even a question that they’d replace it. When you charge that much for a wig, if it doesn’t work out, there’s nothing to discuss.”

To a point. RX wigs, a branch of Renaissance wigs, uses a very rigorous and detailed process to make sure the company’s repair services are only used for actual, objective problems. “Almost anything can be fixed,” RX says. “Cap size, baby hairs, coloring? Anything can be improved. But we have a checklist of questions, and every single one must be answered before we fix a wig. We don’t do guesswork. When a customer sends pictures of wigs and says, ‘I want it this color,’ we say, ‘Get us a number, a color name, something. We don’t work off of photos and videos.’ ”

RX further cautions that, as is standard policy for many in the industry, their warrantee is only valid if all repairs are done by them. “Yes, sometimes it takes longer to send your wig back to a company rather than the colorist on your block. But you can’t have your friend color it and then tell us the hair is damaged. That’s not fair. Your mistake can’t become our problem.”

A Good Name

Sometimes it’s not the sheitel companies that swallow the sour cost of a lemon, but the sellers themselves. And most of them do so, they share, in the name of customer service.

The sheitel-buying process, Dina Groll says, is a “shidduch” between the company and the customer, and the sheitelmacher is the shadchan. If there is an issue, she is the one who works with both the client and the company to properly identify and articulate the issue, and then have it resolved. It’s a time-consuming process, but she’ll always do what’s best for the customer, even if it requires cutting/styling a new replacement at no additional charge.

“It’s very rare that a sheitel I sold has ended up being a lemon,” Esti Maiman says. “Sometimes, after a few wears, a customer will tell me the hair has turned frizzy or coarse. When that happens, there are treatments for the hair itself, without requiring that I replace the entire wig.”

But sometimes the issues are too hairy and knotty to be solved by a deep conditioning. “In that case, if it’s a high-end sheitel and it’s within the first year, the company will probably swap it — but usually only after the sheitelmacher pushes and pushes. Other than those super high-end companies, in my experience it’s rare the company will take back a faulty item, and usually the responsibility lands on the sheitelmacher.

“Just this week,” she shares, “a customer who bought a wig only four months ago said that the hair in the front was settling flat after just a few hours of being set. This was not normal for this company, especially when the rest of the wig was looking totally fine.

“I spoke to the company, and they did not want to cover what needed to be fixed. I weighed my options: Make the customer pay for it since the problem had nothing to do with my service, or pay for it myself. I decided that I’d rather have good customer service, and happy, satisfied customers — so I paid for the repair out of pocket.”

Shani is another sheitelmacher with extensive experience and a large client base — and some bitter experiences with wig producers who wouldn’t stand by their product.

“I had two different customers purchase wigs of the exact same color. Shortly afterward, both came back to me, complaining of balding and patchiness.”

Shani appealed to the company, explaining that they seemed to have produced a bad batch in this specific run. The company refused to reimburse the damages, and Shani, too, was faced with the dilemma: Tell her customers that she tried, but now they’ll have to pay for the repairs themselves, or pay out-of-pocket and achieve customer satisfaction. She ended up paying out-of-pocket, and while it was a financial hit, she did feel that in the long run, it would be worth every penny.

“You can’t buy a good name,” she explains.

Not Perfect Is Normal

Malky says that some clients are too quick to panic and write off their sheitel as a lemon the minute they encounter a knotty strand. These customers often don’t realize that adjustments are a normal part of buying a sheitel.

Almost everyone at some point will need a keratin treatment done or the cap taken in or new baby hair added, she claims. It’s part of buying a wig and doesn’t mean anything is wrong with the sheitel.

“The most common issue I receive is people complain of knotting,” she says. “Instead of panicking along with them, we just offer their sheitel a deep conditioning or keratin treatment, and it really helps.”

Gitty Friedman says a lot of it comes down to buyers knowing what they want in a sheitel. “How do you want it to look? Feel? Don’t just follow the trends — ask questions and do your homework if you don’t want to be disappointed. For example, the air-dry look is very in style. These sheitels are permed, and they look frizzy. They take special work to maintain, and don’t behave as well as a sleeker sheitel does. If you request an air-dry style from your sheitelmacher because you saw it somewhere, but then get annoyed because it keeps frizzing up, is the sheitel a lemon? Is there something structurally wrong with it, or did you purchase one that didn’t match your expectations?”

But sometimes a wig is really and truly a lemon. Take Rivky, who gave in her perpetually knotty sheitel for what the seller promised was a “simple keratin treatment that will solve the problem” — only to find it knotting again and again, even after multiple treatments. For months, she kept washing and setting a long-expired sheitel so she’d have something to wear while the new wig underwent “just one more treatment.”

After the seller finally admitted that the wig Rivky had painstakingly scrimped and saved to purchase was a faulty model, the best she could do was offer Rivky a new wig at cost price.

“I didn’t have any money left to buy another wig,” Rivky says, her frustration still evident. “And even if I would have managed to borrow or save up again, why would I go back to a seller who kept misleading me, and never took responsibility for a faulty product?”

Next time you buy a sheitel, remember: It’s not just hair — it’s your look, your wallet, your sanity. So before you hand over that credit card, make sure you’re not just buying style, but also accountability.

What’s the Psak?

By Rabbi Doniel Neustadt

I recently bought a new sheitel. The cap was too large, and it didn’t sit well on my head, but the seller promised me that with a few adjustments, it would fit perfectly. Well, the adjustments were made, but it still doesn’t fit right. Do I have to keep the sheitel? The seller told me that she put a lot of work into it, and I committed to it… but that was assuming that her fixes would solve the problem!

The seller is required to make the sheitel “fit right,” and if she’s unable to do so, then you need to return the sheitel to her and she needs to refund whatever you paid for the sheitel. If the seller claims that in her professional opinion the sheitel does “fit right” and disputes that it’s too large, then you would both need to agree to ask a different sheitelmacher for her opinion on this dispute.

I bought a sheitel through my sheitelmacher, but it was a disaster. Full wefts came out, the hair kept knotting, etc. Now I’m stuck in a loop. My sheitelmacher keeps sending me back to the manufacturer, who isn’t helping me. Who is responsible, the manufacturer of the wig or the sheitelmacher who sold it to me?

You don’t have any halachic relationship to the manufacturer since you made the deal with the sheitelmacher. Unless it was clearly stipulated otherwise, she’s responsible to you and then she needs to take it up with the manufacturer.

I bought a sheitel that turned out to be a lemon. The manufacturer told me it was just a bad batch of hair. She’d assumed it was of similar quality to her usual wigs, but later discovered that the batch had been of inferior quality. She offered to treat the hair, which will improve it, but it’s nothing like her usual quality. Is she obligated to replace it?

You have a right to expect to receive a sheitel that you assumed to be her usual quality. If you will not wear the sheitel in its improved treated state, then the manufacturer is required to replace it. If the sheitel is good enough to be worn on certain occasion, e.g., weekdays as opposed to Shabbos, then you have a right to keep the sheitel and demand a partial refund from the manufacturer.

I bought a new wig and went to have it cut, but the sheitelmacher accidentally cut it shorter than I requested, and I’m really not happy with the cut. Does she owe me anything?

If you gave her very specific instructions as to exactly how much to cut the sheitel and she disregarded those instructions and now you will not wear the sheitel, then she is obligated to replace the sheitel. But if you gave unclear or general instructions like, “The sheitel needs to be cut shorter” and she cut it too short for your taste, she’s not obligated to replace the sheitel, and you’re required to pay for her services.

I bought a new (and very expensive!) wig. The seller says that she stands behind her product, but the warranty is in place only if you wash and set it by her. If I buy the wig knowing this, am I bound by its limits? Is that a fair warranty? For the entire first year, I can only wash and set my wig with her (and she charges more than twice as much as the woman I usually go to).

Fair or not, this is the condition of sale which she stipulated and you agreed to follow. It is binding.

I have blonde hair, and it’s hard to find a sheitel in just the right color. When I needed to buy a new wig, I went to a couple of different sellers. The first woman spent a long time with me, but nothing worked, so I went somewhere else and found something. Then the first seller called me back: She contacted all the manufacturers she worked with, and she has something perfect. Do I have a halachic obligation to go with the first seller?

If you already completed the transaction with the second seller, then you can’t back off from that deal. If, however, you just found something that you like but didn’t yet close the deal, the proper thing to do will be to go back to the first seller, but you’re not halachically required to do so.

I’ve made end-of-season sales where I sell leftover stock at bottom-rate prices. Sometimes I will buy wigs from other sheitelmachers to include at my sale. Since these are such cheap rates, and often involve overstock from other sellers, I can’t offer any warranty or follow-up service, even if a product later turns out to be defective. Is there any potential problem with that, as long as I communicate the terms clearly?

As long as you communicate clearly, preferably in writing, which is signed by the buyer, there’s no halachic problem at all.

Sensory sensitivities: Our sheitelmachers share their top-secret tips on how to make sheitels more comfortable for people with sensory issues.

Chevi: I learned that if the sheitel is properly in place and doesn’t move, the lack of friction stops the itch! I use a hairspray called “Got2b Glued” for daily use. For special occasions like weddings, I recommend using wig glue (Yes, glue).” I discovered it before my son’s wedding, when I was worried that my sheitel would slip. It works wonders! To use it, brush your hair back, spray a little on the top of your head where your band goes — it won’t move. Then spray again on top of the band, put your sheitel on, and press down for a second. And since I’m extra sensory with lace, I also apply a tiny bit on my forehead, and hold the lace down for a second, and it won’t budge. I can wear my sheitel all day with no itch — it’s wonderful! It’s also water-soluble. To remove, wet your fingers and touch the spot you sprayed, it’ll come right off.

When it comes to headaches, make sure your band isn’t too tight. Many times, it’s not the sheitel, it’s the band.

Malky: A newer sheitel is constructed very differently from a sheitel that was made five years ago. They’re lighter and more comfortable. However, for those who get headaches from their sheitels, or have sensory issues from the weight, hand-tied sheitels are wonderful lightweight options.

Additionally, I recommend asking your sheitelmacher for help to make your sheitel more comfortable. There are so many options, from thinning hair to removing clips, to attaching a velvet grip to the cap, that can improve your experience.

Gitty: An experienced sheitelmacher will have plenty of tricks to make sure that your sheitel cap won’t irritate your skin. For example, a lot of the technology used in medical wigs to make them more comfortable for post-chemo cancer patients — like specialized tape and silicone pieces for caps — is starting to make their way over to our market. If the weight of a sheitel bothers you, I strongly encourage you to try out a hand-tied sheitel. They do have downsides, but they’re the lightest sheitels on the market.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 939)