By: Nomi Kaltmann as seen in Plus61J Media

Published: 19 July 2021

NOMI KALTMANN talks to ‘sheitel machers’ in Melbourne and discovers a service that has burst out of its Orthodox origins into the mainstream

WHEN CHAYI GLICK moved from Brooklyn to Melbourne more than 30 years ago after marrying an Australian, she was unable to find a wig that would reflect her personality and style.

So, when Glick flew back to Brooklyn, she bought herself a new sheitel – the Yiddish term for wig – along with a few wigs for a small number of friends in Australia. When she returned to Melbourne, she set up a spare room in her house to style the wigs, they all sold very quickly, and her business, Wigs by Eva, was born.

“There is a Torah-based requirement for women to cover most of their head once they are married,” says Rabbanit Judith Levitan, a Sydney-based lawyer who has worn a wig for the past 20 years. “In Jewish communities across the world there are different practices as to how women cover their hair; in some communities scarves are common practice, while in others, wigs are more popular.”

To meet the needs of women who cover their hair with sheitels, Jewish communities have developed a niche market for sheitel machers, people, usually women, who sell, style and customise wigs.

In Melbourne, with an estimated 60,000 Jews in its population of five million, sheitel machers have been around for at least 60 years, particularly with the increase of Chabad Hasidic women adopting the practice en-masse following the encouragement and recommendation of their use by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in New York City. Today, there are at least 10 sheitel machers in the city..

 “People think that being religious and covering your hair means that you cannot be stylish,” Glick says, “but, that is simply not true.”

Buying a human hair wig for everyday use can be expensive. Wigs start at around $1000 and can cost more than$5000 if the hair is long or a natural red or blonde colour.  

Despite the cost, Glick estimates there are about 4000 Orthodox Jewish women in Australia who wear sheitels that require styling, colouring and maintenance on a regular basis.  

But what started as a niche market is growing globally. “In recent years it has become very trendy to wear a wig,” Glick says. “Wigs are not taboo anymore, women feel comfortable putting in fake fringes, extensions and hair toppers; you just have look on TV and everyone is wearing a wig, and why not? They help women look good and feel beautiful.”

Glick’s clients range in age from seven to 100.  “I had a seven-year-old girl with alopecia who came to me with her mother and father; they were concerned that she was about to start school … so we customised a little black bob and fringe. She looked really good and felt so beautiful.”

Another client is 100-year-old Mrs Philips, who has been coming for many years for maintenance on her wig topper. “She takes very good care of herself … she really is a special lady,” Glick says.

Liron Murdachayev, owner and founder of LC Wigs, runs her salon from a small room in her home in Caulfield. When I visited her salon recently, the walls were covered in wigs, differing in colour, texture, and lengths. Some were drying on wig heads, others were in various states of colouring and repair.

Abi Katz was sitting in the salon chair with the wig she had just purchased on her head. With concentration and expertise that has earned her a legion of fans across Australia, Murdachayev starts cutting the lace front of Katz’s wig to perfection.

Lace fronts are a special transparent fabric that are hand woven with hair by expert wig makers and then attached to wigs, to create an even more seamless hairline. They are one of the latest trends that allow sheitels to look even more natural. Katz’s wig looks flawless, and to the untrained eye, it is impossible to see that she is wearing one.

When asked whether covering one’s hair with a wig that was perhaps more glamorous than one’s own hair defied the concept of modesty, Katz says: “This is a Mitzvah [commandment] that I hold in high regard, I don’t see anything wrong with covering one’s hair with a wig that is beautiful. If anything, it adds to the overall beauty of the Mitzvah.”

Katz found Murdachayev about three years ago, after she stumbled onto LC Wigs’ social media accounts. “I was looking for something new, for someone who doesn’t just style wigs, but who feels the same way about them as I do,” she says.

“I also love being part of a community that allows me to support other women to make a parnassah [living],” she adds.    

With more than 1000 followers on her  Instagram account, Murdachayev’s posts display a mesmerising array of video reels, tips and pictures that demonstrate her skills. Before and after shots, where Murdachayev rejuvenates old wigs by colouring, cutting and reweaving them, are especially popular.

She describes wigs as her life and passion. “I went to Israel about five years ago and studied with a specialist wig teacher in her studio,” she says. “The course usually takes 12 months, but I couldn’t spend that long in Israel, especially as I had two little kids.”

She convinced the teacher to take her on for a month and with her natural affinity for hairdressing, Murdachayev picked up technical wig making and repairing skills surprisingly fast.

“Wigs fall differently to natural hair; they contain usually about three times as much hair as an average person’s head,” Murdachayev says. “It is a real skill to be able to make it look and feel comfortable for people as well as align it with a person’s face and parting.”

She is used to unusual requests from her clients and is always happy to oblige. “[A] most recent request was for a white wig topper for a man who had male pattern balding,” she says. “Matching all his white hair was very hard!”

Over the years there have been concerns that hair sourced for wigs may come from poverty stricken or abused women in countries where desperation leads them to sell their hair. While sources of hair are a closely guarded secret, both Glick and Murdachayev confirmed that they had longstanding relationships with people they trust in the industry that supply them hair.

In addition, Murdachayev has an Australian contact who sells her locally acquired hair. “While there may be some dodgy suppliers in the industry, some of my hair is Australian and sourced locally, so I can be assured that this hair comes from women that are doing it because they want to, and not because they are poverty stricken or abused,” she says.

Over the past decade there has been a steady increase in customers from an unexpected source.

“About 30 per cent of people who buy wigs from me are not Jewish,” Glick says. “They come from all around Victoria, often they have seen me on social media, and they come here because they have cancer or have a condition, such as alopecia, which causes hair loss, and they are looking for a beautiful, quality wig.

Helping non-Jewish clients who have an illness that causes them to go bald was initially difficult for Glick. “I am a sensitive person; when women with cancer would come to see me, I used to cry with them as they bought a wig; I really felt their pain.

Natalie Sinclair is a non-Jewish customer with alopecia who was referred to Glick by a Jewish doctor. “I am 32 years of age and I started to lose my hair in my late teens,” Sinclair says. “I had gone to lots of people to try to find a wig before I found Eva’s wig salon.

 “Her knowledge is incredible, the quality of the hair is great, and I have two wigs which I wear daily; I wouldn’t go anywhere else to buy a wig.”

While losing one’s hair is challenging, wearing a wig has some perks. You never have a bad hair day and regrowth is not an issue.

Glick even has clients who continue to wear wigs after they finish their treatments and their hair has grown back. This is something Sinclair can relate to, chuckling as she recently told me, “When I wear my wig, people stop me all the time to comment, letting me know that my hair looks so healthy and shiny. I owe it all to Eva’s wig salon.”