About
What we do for you
The Imported Tresses was established to take the stress and uncertainty out of purchasing hair extensions for women of color.
When shopping with us you can expect:
To find quality Remy and Virgin hair extensions that have been hand selected for women of color.
To find the absolute truth about where we source our hair from and how it is manufactured.
To receive one of a kind customer service experience.
Who we do it for
We cater specifically to women who are too smart to follow the pack but do not have the time to filter through the lies and marketing gimmicks within the virgin hair industry. Our clients are career women who value their appearance for professional and personal reasons. They are more likely to visit a professional cosmetologist for extension services instead of going the DIY/ YouTube route. They normally hold professional careers that play apart on their hairstyles but don’t mind switching it up during their off hours.
Our clientele includes:
- Female Service Members
- Recent College Graduates and College Seniors
- Aspiring Models & Actresses
Why we do what we do
We are passionate about this because we understand the struggle of hair care that women are faced with and we have found a solution. Founder Melinda Marie, was determined to solve the problems within her own hair journey and ended up discovering information that led her to establish The Imported Tresses. Read her story below.
“It all started with a big chop, yes, I cut every inch of my hair off down to a brush cut. No transition at all. I actually loved the look but shortly after my kinky natural hair started to grow back and I was faced with a major challenge. Many think that it's just hair but as women of color we know that hair affects our day to day routine and can be a constant battle. My challenge was finding hairstyles that were protective, made me feel confident, and were also acceptable to wear to work. Being an active duty military member, I'm not allowed to wear certain styles and overall TWAs (Tiny Weenie Afros) are simply frowned upon and deemed unprofessional. Regardless of my opinion of the regulations, I knew I had to follow them. I had to find an alternative to wearing a hideous store bought wig, or going back to relaxers. My solution was to wear sew-ins and custom made wigs but I ran into yet another issue. I needed a semi-permanent solution, so purchasing hair extensions every 2 month was not financially responsible. I was basically investing over 800 dollars a year into the beauty supply store and getting polished up throwaway hair in return. Regardless of whether they called it Brazilian, Remy, or Virgin it all ended up being a matted mess that shed everywhere after a month or so.
I began to research and dig deeper for a better quality of hair. I had no intention of starting a company, I just simply want to invest my money in hair that would last. I was sick of being bamboozled by distributors and beauty supply stores. I researched over two years before I got to the bottom of the human hair industry. Along the way, I ran into so many myths, scam artist, and flat out lies. During this time I wasted thousands sampling different companies and vendors that claim to have virgin hair.
Although I took a major financial loss, I learned some valuable information. I learned that the human hair extensions industry is not regulated. This means that beauty supply stores and distributors can label their hair as they please with no consequences if they lied about the quality. I learned that even some distributors had no real knowledge of their product they just wanted to make money. I learned that we as women have built a billion dollar industry but Asians and men are the main ones benefiting from it financially. Clearly, they have never worn extensions a day in their life so how could they know or care about our struggle. Realizing that I was not the only women wasting hundreds to thousands a year on bad hair, I felt morally obligated to expose the truth to others to rid them of the stress and financial hardship that comes with buying bad hair.”
-Melinda Marie, Founder
Our Vision
We envision a regulated standard within the hair extensions industry that protects consumers from fraud and financial instability. We believe that informed consumers and empowered cosmetologist are essential to enforce this standard and bring integrity into the hair extensions industry. The hair industry will be a transparent industry that values cosmetologist and consumers.
Our Mission
Although women are the number one consumers of human hair extensions they are not receiving an equal return on their time and money into the human hair industry. Consumers are wasting thousands annually on low quality hair. Stylist are being undervalued and used to advertise for companies that do not offer fair compensation. This is why The Imported Tresses is on a mission to show consumers how to avoid financial loss. We are also on a crusade to empower stylist to only endorse companies that uphold integrity within the beauty industry. Lastly we will pledge to consistently offer origin honesty and transparency to our clients.
Us Over Them
There are tons of suppliers of human hair extensions on the market. The thing that sets us above is that we are 100% transparent about the sourcing, production, and specifications of our products. When shopping with The Imported Tresses our clients can be confident that they have invested in quality hair and a trusted brand.