Deceptive Hair Grades: Should I buy 9A, 10A, or 12A hair? (2024)

People still believe that hair grades are qualities. we often see questions like: “What is the best grade of hair?” “Do you sell 12A grade hair?” and “What is 9A grade hair?” However,a grade is simply a name a vendor will assign to the hair. This means that the quality could be anything and that there isn’t the best grade of hair.

While hair grades are kind of becoming a thing of the past, we still see people making this mistake. So we want one article about it, so it becomes clear for everyone.

Table of Contents

1. Brief History of Hair Grades

I started in the hair industry in 2015. At that time, the trading company I worked for sold 4A and 5A hair extensions. Those were the best qualities to get. New hair grades kept coming. There were 6A hair, 7A hair bundles, and 8A hair. However, these weren’t the only new type of marketing labels popping up.

If 12A hair is currently the best quality, and vendors start using 15A hair, does that mean that the 15A hair comes from magic rainbow unicorns from the 4th dimension? The quality of the hair extensions doesn’t change by much. Just the names given to them do.

Soon came Brazilian, Malaysian, and Peruvian hair extensions. People started wondering about the difference between Brazilian and Peruvian hair, and when you google this question, you get extensive explanations that completely miss the point. These Brazilian and Peruvian hair origins are the same as the 5A hair you used to get. The only thing which got upgraded was the name.

A scientific term for this is apophenia. It is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. As there are no universal standards that define Brazilian hair, it means that people are looking for patterns where there are none.

When I started Bossique, 9A hair and 10A hair were the most popular hair grades for hair extensions, and that’s why I decided to go with myself as well. Soon people became frustrated about these naming conventions, and Facebook became filled with responses like: “Raw hair isn’t graded” or “grades don’t exist.” And for marketing reasons, we decided to move away from hair grades and differentiate our different qualities by the color line we use.

If our 10a grade hair is the best quality available in the market, then what is 13a grade hair? Is grade 12a hair better than 10a? It’s basically just a way for sellers to be able to say their product is better than others.

2. Brief Quality Explanation

Chinese vendors buy from a Chinese manufacturer. Do all Chinese human hair weave manufacturers use hair grades? About 1/3rd of the hair factories we’ve worked with do. Others mostly use terms such as 泡发 (Paofa), 顺发 (Shunfa), and 辩发 (Bianfa)

• Paofa is the lowest quality human hair. Cuticles are entirely burned off in an acid bath; thus, Paofa is low-quality hair.
• Shunfa is what generally gets marketed as Virgin hair. It’s remy-machine-aligned, chemically processed floor hair and is the medium quality.
• Bianfais ponytail hair and is cut directly from a donor. It’s cuticle-aligned hair, and it’s the best quality hair.

Checkthis articlefor a complete breakdown of hair quality.

3. There’s no universal grading system

Here’s a 2019 price list from our black line (9A) supplier. They sell hair as 泡发, 顺发, and 辩发. They come as A, B, and C, each indicating different fullness. We sold their 顺发B.

You can see that they were not called a hair grade. We’ve been buying their 顺发B since we started in late 2018. We decided to call it 9A as that was the current trend. This is what all hair trade companies and hair manufacturers do. There isn’t any rule we have to follow to name our hair extensions.

There’s no universal standard we must adhere to, to name our hair extensions. If we have 9A and 10A, and we want to add a new, slightly upgraded quality, what do you reckon we should go with? 11A hair? 10A+ hair? Or jump straightly to 12A hair? All of them are options, as there are no universal grades.

4. Are hair grades simply for marketing?

Marketingis getting seen and convincing other people to buy your products. Every action you take is part of your marketing strategy.

How you name your extensions can change a buyer’s perception of your products. If the average buyer is looking for 10A hair, it would be silly not to offer it. If you have integrity and want to stay honest, you simply add that grades don’t have a specific meaning to your website.

If the market reaches a point where everyone says: “Raw hair isn’t graded,” “There’s no best grade of hair,” it’s wise to change the name of your bundles. At some point, we used to say: “We’re selling raw hair, and we randomly called it 10A+ hair. So raw hair can be graded”. However, this is fighting an uphill battle, and it’s simply better to go with the flow.

I’m not against using hair grades, as it is convenient to name our hair. The frustrating part was that people started having expectations from a specific hair grade and comparing it to a hair grade from another supplier. When another supplier’s 10A hair is Shunfa, and our 10A hair is Bianfa, people end up comparing apples and oranges.

We didn’t want other people to compare our bundles to those of other hair suppliers, so we renamed our raw hair extensions to Orange Line, which was part of that marketing strategy. Marketing is standard practice, and everyone should do it, ideally in an honest way.

People often blame vendors or trade companies for using hair grades to market their hair extensions. But it’s mainly supply and demand. If 50% of the clients insist on buying Mink Brazilian hair from a hair factory, most trade companies will start to market themselves as a mink Brazilian hair factory.

Becoming a hair trading company salesperson only requires you to speak semi-decent English. It doesn’t need a university degree or some basic understanding of hair. The boss doesn’t want their salespersons to know that much for fear of them starting a hair business for themselves. After all, why work for a 3% commission on your sales if you can get 10-20% when you’re the boss? The main problem is the miseducation of both salespeople and buyers. It’s a vicious circle.

5. What is the best grade of hair?

As we’ve mentioned, hair grades are void of any meaning. There’s no universal grading standard trade companies have to adhere to. While these numbers and random names can be used for marketing reasons, you’d be wrong to have an expectation of any of them.

If buying Brazilian hair, Indian hair, Malaysian hair, or Peruvian hair extensions from China, chances are high that it can only be bleached to #27 Honey Blonde, as it’s Shunfa: Remy Machine aligned and processed floor hair. While some vendors in China do sell origins like Cambodian or Burmese hair, they’re not better quality than Chinese hair. The best quality hair you could buy from China is Chinese hair, or more specifically, Bossique’s Orange Line hair.Don’t expect quality when purchasing Indian hair from China.

Quality is defined by how the hair is sourced and processed. For example, the best quality raw hair could be bleached to #613 hair and have very healthy and relatively intact cuticles. Inferior quality raw hair extensions would make it to #613 but will no longer be healthy and lose elasticity. Remy machine-aligned hair would only make it to a #27. These are the properties of hair that you can test for, and they mean more than any naming convention could provide you.

Questions & Answers

What is Grade 7A human hair?

A lot of companies use a marketing label to describe their products. Grade 7A is one of these labels, which originated in China and has now spread across the world. There aren’t any real grades. Graded human hair means nothing. It’s basically just a way for sellers to be able to say their product is better than others.

Is there Grade 11A hair?

Grade 11A hair is just a way to say that their hair is superior to lower-grade hair, but it doesn’t really exist. Graded human hair means nothing. It’s basically just a way for sellers to be able to say their product is better than others.

Is there Grade 12A hair?

Grade 12A hair is just a way to say that their hair is superior to lower-grade hair, but it doesn’t really exist. Graded human hair means nothing. It’s basically just a way for sellers to be able to say their product is better than others.

How good is Grade 8A hair?

It depends. It’s simply a marketing label, meaning that vendors can their hair as any grade they want. This means that it could literally be any kind of quality, anywhere from very low quality to AAA. If you’re an educated consumer, you’ll know what your vendor is selling and make a decision based on the specifications you require, rather than the grade.

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