There is arguably nothing better than quenching your thirst on a sweltering afternoon by pouring a drink over a mountain of crunchy ice cubes. But most of us do not realise that some of our simple, everyday comforts were once met with ethical backlash, stigmas, and harsh societal resistance before we began to consider them as “normal”.
The ice cube, as you may have it, was once considered a dangerous subversion of the natural order of God. Its inventor, John Gorrie, was mocked and criticised in the 1800s for his invention, with the New York Daily Globe calling him a “madman” for believing that he could create ice in such a way that “God Almighty” could (Futuro Prossimo, 2025). This societal reaction had nothing to do with the actual product, it was a reaction to the technology that went against what was common, familiar, and known to the people of the time.
So, what then eventually led to the acceptance of the ice cube as we know it? Was it the newfound accessibility and cheap price of manufactured ice? Was it the unquestionable utility? Or perhaps a more liberal, forward thinking perspective on the product itself?
The answer is a combination of all of the above; it was a collective societal rebranding. A paradigm shift.
The Lens We Look Through
The power of the paradigm should not be undermined. How society chooses to view and interpret the world has cascading effects on every law, every creation, and every decision made. It reaches just as deeply into our individual worlds; Take flying: once a luxury of comfort and speed, it was democratised for the wider public, only to be traded back for the train’s lower carbon footprint. The very same shift is visible in our daily choices, from dutifully separating our recycling (as tedious as it may be), to opting for plant-based meal choices. These decisions are not just personal preferences. They are the meshing of not only our private values, but also the broader paradigms we inhabit — the political and cultural lenses that we all wear over our eyes, whether we are aware of them or not.
The power of the paradigm should not be undermined. How society chooses to view and interpret the world has cascading effects on every law, every creation, and every decision made.
The Real ICK: Some of our daily choices blindly wear the mask of acceptance, even when it is not wise to do so.
The relationship between modern society and textiles is one of the prevalent examples of this. Look inside the average person’s closet, the majority of the pieces inside are the ‘out-of-wedlock’ children of the petroleum industry, polyester. This material is a secondary, downstream product, derived from fossil fuel extraction (Changing Markets, 2026). Polyester not only has a high carbon footprint, it is also a considerable source of microplastics. Observational studies have found that specifically PET, foundational in polyester, is being absorbed into the human bloodstream and can be found in carotid arteries, along the neck and chest, as just one example (The New England Journal of Medicine, 2024). Studies have found that micro and nanoplastics can also enter the human body through inhalation and ingestion, affecting other key bodily systems. Yet somehow, the source of these particles, polyester, is still widely accepted, and even appreciated, due to its mass accessibility, price, and convenience.
In 2025, research at Université de Montréal’s School of Public Health has highlighted the link between breast cancer and its association with chemically manipulated synthetic fibres, as well as exposure to cotton fibres, in postmenopausal women (UdeM Nouvelles, 2025). Even with these devastating risks, our collective protective instinct appears halted in the modern setting. We have been conditioned to overlook the dangers of these materials, prioritising convenience and social adhesion over our biological and environmental wellbeing. We have yet, as a society, to develop the visceral response necessary towards the toxic materials that have woven their way into society.
Textile materials are embedded into every room, every environment we inhibit. From the lobby sofa at a library to your bedroom curtains. The sources used to design these textiles are routinely treated with various chemicals and dyes needed to achieve functional properties such as maintaining colour, fire safety, or stain resistance. However, use of these treatments can come at a cost, over time these chemicals can be released into the indoor living environment and degrade air quality as well as negatively affecting human health (IJSTR, 2020).
Take British sofas for example: they are treated with extensive quantities of chemical flame retardants due to strict UK regulations. These chemicals include TCPP, which the World Health Organisation recently categorised as probably carcinogenic to humans (The Times, 2026). The shocking part about these chemicals is that they do not stay attached to the furniture themselves, they escape into dust and float around the household, where they can be unknowingly inhaled by occupants (The Times, 2026). The very chemicals that are meant to enhance our designs and their functionality are concurrently compromising the health of the very residents they are meant to be serving. A paradox to say the least.
And yet, the desire to move away from chemically intensive textiles has not brought consumers to the most regenerative options. Historically, it has often driven the demand toward animal-derived materials instead. Leather jackets, mink coats, and fur have been celebrated and used as markers of status. Animal-derived materials have been applied across interior design and fashion alike, recognised for their organic origins in a way polyester is not. Yet their sourcing is not only largely inaccessible, it has proven to be unsustainable and highly unethical.
Thus, with the harmful, unethical, and damaging effects of our most popular synthetic materials made apparent, what is the alternative to this dangerous paradigm within which we now exist?
The Source of Change(s)
Enter ādara®, a material weaned from one of the more underestimated, and overlooked resources on the planet: Human hair.
ādara® is the product of Human Material Loop (HML, 2026), derived from the hair collected in everyday salons. Hair that, in most people’s paradigms, should be swept from the floor and tossed to the bin. And yet, ādara® exists as an alternative to that waste stream. Crafted from human hair into a keratin protein fibre, it can be applied across a vast range of design and architectural settings, highlighting hair as one of nature’s most functional materials. Lightweight, strong, biodegradable, and renewable. In scientific terms, it is exquisite.
We live in an age where material science has allowed us to strip a substance down to its molecular being, erasing its previous life, rebuilding it into something new, and placing it in an entirely different context.
Salons bin it, but what if that is not the end of it? What if it is just the beginning?
The resistance to this new beginning is because of what some may call the “ick factor”.
We live in an age where material science has allowed us to strip a substance down to its molecular being, erasing its previous life, rebuilding it into something new, and placing it in an entirely different context. And yet, our psychological lenses resist, believing that “waste” materials should remain as “waste”. While we possess the technical capability to transform hair into a valuable fibre, we lack the cultural framework that accepts this biological material as a resource. The question then becomes: if transformation is technically possible and often beneficial, why do we still experience an “ick” response to certain materials and processes?
This is why our paradigm is everything. When hair is attached to a person’s head, it is washed, styled, cared for, celebrated, loved even. The instant it is cut off, a transformation happens, not in a physical way, but in our paradigm, in our world view into something undesired, something to discard. This transformation happens wholly within the lenses we are wearing, not within the material itself.
Human Material Loop is taking off the lenses. It asks us to pick up the hair, not as something to throw away, but as something to work with. To shift how we see the cycle of hair life, not only through its stages of growth on our heads, but then what happens to it after it is removed.
The “ick” factor, it seems, is not really about cleanliness or the source from which it is manifest. It is about societal acceptance.
The material itself does not change, our perception has to.
Of course, a physical transformation does happen before ādara® reaches its final product form. Hair collected from salons undergoes an intensive cleaning process before it is spun into the final ādara® fibre (HML, 2026). The result is a pure, functional material. It is less toxic, lower in environmental impact, and arguably healthier than the many synthetic alternatives accepted by our current world view. This raises a great question:
Why does polyester, a fabric derived from petroleum-based chemicals and equally harmful dyes not trigger the same “disgust” reaction in us?
The irony of these choices is shocking: fibre, grown by people, just as fur is organically grown by animals, cleansed and spun into something purposeful and radical is met with the “ick” while unethical animal-derived fibre, or synthesised fibre from fossil fuels and harsh chemicals is embraced. Thus, the “ick” factor, it seems, is not really about cleanliness or the source from which it is manifest. It is about societal acceptance.
From Untapped Opportunity to Fundamental Change
The scale of throwing away human hair highlights a largely untapped opportunity. 2200 ktonnes of human hair waste are generated worldwide each year (TriplePundit, 2026). Of this, over 150 ktonnes are discarded into European landfills alone (Lampoon, 2025). Although the environmental impact of hair waste is markedly lower than many conventional materials, the real issue is one of missed potential. Hair as we know is a remarkably diverse and functional material, owing to its rich keratin content and strong yet lightweight nature. However, despite this, hair is routinely incinerated after its first lifetime– on the human head. By rewiring the course of this waste stream away from traditional disposal methods holds wondrous potential. Not only in terms of reducing incineration and its associated energy costs, but also to introduce a new class of bio-based materials, applicable across a vast range of design contexts.
With the environmental factors pleading for it, the science supporting it, and applications endless, what stands between human hair and its place as a functional material is not a question of feasibility. It is a question of perception: shifting from the paradigm of the “ick” to seeing this previously cared-for waste as an opportunity to create lasting, positive impact.
Some people feel the “ick” knowing microplastics are diluting their blood from synthetic fibres, others feel the “ick” knowing animals were kept in cruel conditions, and some feel the “ick” knowing children picked their raw material.
We know that paradigms are not permanent; they are not facts of nature, but rather frameworks through which we view and interact with the material world around us– and these frameworks can themselves be changed.
Once we make this shift, we won’t think about knowing hair was used in interior, clothing, or other applications. It will feel unremarkable, practical, or boring even. Similar to the ice cubes, from what we resisted to what we now accept without thought. All that needs to change is the “ick”.
Some people feel the “ick” knowing microplastics are diluting their blood from synthetic fibres, others feel the “ick” knowing animals were kept in cruel conditions, and some feel the “ick” knowing children picked their raw material. We all have values, norms, and emotions that guide what choice we find acceptable or not. It depends on our individual contexts, upbringing, personalities, and information. Sometimes our emotions overcome our logic. Sometimes our rational thinking cannot convince the sentimental.
But shifting our view to how our pleasure of a haircut can coincide with modern science so as to create not only zero waste, but also a tangible, purposeful product is a new and radical paradigm.
We are sentimental creatures, and that is part of our beauty. It is logical for us to question new things and be wary of the unfamiliar, but it is also embedded in us to constantly look for improvement. Is it not the essence of science to seek out the highest performing, functional, and sustainably sourced materials to shape our everyday worlds?
What is the point of living if it simultaneously kills our earth and drowns us in our waste?
The lesson of the paradigm exists to teach us that just because something is new to us, does not mean it is deficient, and just because something is normalised does not mean it should continue.
