10 Weird, Cool And Gross Uses For Human Hair

I’m sure that you’ve gathered from the title that this is not going to be a ‘helpful to your hair regimen’ type of article but every now and again there’s nothing wrong with letting your hair down (pun intended) and look at the stranger side of hair use.

I am an artist at heart. It may not come as any surprise that I know my way around a graphics program but before blogging and my daughter took over my life, I was a dab hand at oil paintings too. Point is I have very strong ideas on what I consider art.

I’ve heard of a few alternative uses for hair including cleaning up oil spills but more often than not, it involves some degree of artistic expression. Prepare to be surprised, shocked, mildly disgusted or even completely unmoved by the uses people have found for the stuff that grows out our scalps.

1. Sculptures

Chinese hairstylist Huang Xin made this sculpture below to celebrate President Obama visiting China. It took him 7 days and 4 kilograms of human hair to complete. If you can get over being grossed out by the idea that the entire sculpture is made from hair, it’s actually pretty cool!

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This second one also qualifies as a sculpture . They are the creation of Jenine Shereos who has re-created the intricate natural pattern of leaf veining using human hair. She creates these little works of art by stitching hair onto water soluble backing material after which the backing is dissolved leaving the intact leaf. Pretty cool by my estimation.

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2. Necklaces

Hair is one of those things that people love and take care of while it’s on our bodies but once out, we somehow develop an aversion to it. In fact, some people will not wear hair extensions* simply because it grosses them out. Student Kerry Howley created these beautiful symetrical and aesthetically pleasing necklaces out of hair in an effort to make discarded hair attractive again. They certainly look pretty but would you put them next to your skin?

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3. Glasses

Designed by Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves these glasses among others are a combination of human hair and resin. The hair actually gives the resin a wood like pattern which looks pretty cool. I suppose it’s weird that anyone would think of using hair to create glasses frames but honestly I would wear these with no aversion at all!

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4. Embroidery

With hair being a similar width to thread I suppose it’s not that far fetched that some people are using human hair for embroidery. Columbian artist Zaira Pulido uses long strands of human hair to create these lovely looking embroideries. Some people may find these creepy but as far as wall hangings go, they are no more creepy than ones made of reeds or animal pelts.

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5. Bread

Oh yes, a common ingredient found in commercial breads labelled as either l-cysteine or dough conditioner actually comes from human hair gathered from barber shops and hair salons in China. The hair is dissolved in acid and l-cysteine is isolated, packaged and sent off to producers. Some L-cysteine is synthetically produced but majority of it comes from natural proteins like hair, duck feathers and cow horns. Gross doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about this.

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6. Leg Hair Font

A 20 year old student from Tama Art University in Japan created this font using leg hair. While you will probably not see this font on any on my graphics any time soon, it’s certainly an original idea!

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7. Banner

This massive banner runs the length of the foyer at Dartmouth College and was made using a whopping 420 pounds of human hair. Art or not and even though I don’t mind human hair extensions*, I would seriously have to fight the urge to run in the opposite direction screaming at so much human hair in one place. Too weird for me.

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8. Clothes

This certainly falls into the weird category for me. Designed by Fatich & Young the suit called a predator suit is made from human hair, dentures and glass eyes. They even have matching shoes with the entire heel made from dentures! Not the kind of thing you will see in your local shopping mall but it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that lady Gaga already owns one in every color!

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9. Soy Sauce

Ok this is not a common nor an acceptable occurrence but it was uncovered that a Chinese company was distilling human hair to produce amino acids, a primary ingredient of soy sauce. Soy sauce is usually made from soy beans and wheat. This is gross without a doubt but funnily kind of resourceful too don’t you think?

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10. Staircases

If this isn’t the most impressive, weirdest and grossest thing that you have ever seen, I don’t know what is. This is an art installation created in the abandoned Mountainaire Hotel by Jessica Wohl. The fact that it’s made from synthetic hair does nothing to improve it’s itch inducing creepiness. Creative but ewwww!

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Are there other strange uses for hair that I have missed?