HAIR TO ROPE

Higashi Hongan-ji’s original temple complex was burned down a number of times. Its main temple in Kyoto was last rebuilt in 1895. The temple complex of today is one of the world’s largest wooden structures. The construction of the temple’s two main halls required the hoisting and moving massive wooden beams, but unfortunately, obtaining rope strong enough for the job was nearly impossible at the time. The female devotees of the temple got together to help out. Cutting off their long hair, they took the long locks and braided them together to make a strong, thick, gross rope that was able to hoist the heavy beams.

HAIR DONATION

Any world-famous rock star can write a check in support of a pet charity project. John Lennon and Yoko Ono made a very different sort of donation on Feb. 4, 1970. The duo had recently made the acquaintance of London-based activist Michael X, who'd reached out to them after they made headlines for paying fines incurred by anti-apartheid activists who'd interrupted a rugby match between Scotland and South Africa. Inspired by the gesture, X asked John and Yoko to support the Black House, a home for disadvantaged youth in London, and they agreed. But instead of offering money, the Lennons hatched a plan for the latest in a series of publicity stunts. Having recently cut off their hair, they offered to exchange it for a pair of Muhammad Ali's boxing shorts – an odd celebrity bartering program that was supposed to benefit a pair of projects, with the hair being auctioned off to support the Black House and the shorts being sold to raise money for John and Yoko's peace campaign. The haircut took place in Denmark on Jan. 20, 1970, and John and Yoko met up with X on the Black Center's rooftop on Feb. 4, where they held a press conference to announce their plans and posed for photos with the hair. 

CORNROWS

Cornrows were used to help slaves escape slavery. In the time of slavery in Colombia, hair braiding was used to relay messages. For example, to signal that they wanted to escape, women would braid a hairstyle called departes. It had thick, tight braids, braided closely to the scalp, and was tied into buns on the top. Another style had curved braids, tightly braided on their heads. The curved braids would represent the roads they would use to escape. In the braids, they also kept gold and hid seeds which, in the long run, helped them survive after they escaped. They would also use seeds as decoration in the hair, but would later plant the seeds and grow their own crop. It is more than just a simple hairstyle.

HAIR IN INDIA

Where do hair for fashion wigs and hair extensions come from? The answer is: everywhere, but the majority of them come from China and India, where human hair is a lucrative business. Many temples in South India are reaping millions of dollars in profit from the religious sacrifices made by pilgrims without their knowledge. The hair donors, many of which are poor, never receive a penny in return. Venkateswara Temple situated in the hill town of Tirumala in Andhra Pradesh, India. It is the richest temple in the world in terms of donations received, and one of the most visited places of pilgrimage. On average, the temple receives between 50,000 to 100,000 devotees every day. Tens of thousands of them undergo ritual shaving or tonsuring. Every day between 500 to 600 barbers working in rotation shave over 20,000 heads. Baskets filled with hair are collected every six hours and stored in a vast warehouse where it is piled knee-deep. The hair is then untangled and sorted based on length, grades, and colors. Then it is washed, treated, and dried under the sun. Indian hair is most sought after because the hair is naturally silkier, and most rural women who donate their hair have never used artificial dyes or colors. Some hair has never been cut before. The best quality hair sometimes sells for as much as $800 per kilo. The shorter hair is used to stuff mattresses, create oil filters or extracted amino acids. In earlier times, the hair was thrown away into the river. But today they are sold to vendors in western countries through online auctions that fetch the temple between $3 to $6 million every year.

HAIR JEWELRY

Although hair jewelry existed prior to the Victorian era, it was this period that saw it flourish as a trade and private craft in Mourning Jewelry. Hair has chemical qualities that cause it to last for hundreds, possibly thousands, of years makes it a perfect choice for Mourning pieces.

HAIR IN DISASTER

Nylon stockings stuffed with donated hair were used to help soak up some of the oil from the Gulf of Mexico during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and now the same strategies are being deployed in Mauritius. Hair and its oil-absorbing capability can be the most ecological way to deal with oil disasters.

NEVER CUT HAIR

Kesh is the most important of all the Sikhism precepts. It's the practice of never cutting the hair, as a symbol of respect for the perfection of God's creation. Sikhism is a religion that originated in the Punjab region, the border between India and Pakistan in the 15th century, being today one of the more organized religions, with more than 30 million believers around the world. The hair is tied in a simple knot, held in the nape, and covered with a turban.

HAIR FOR THE POPE

French country women allow their hair to be cut off, thinking it will be used to make a cloak for the Pope around 1870.

FAIRY TALE

Rapunzel is a Brothers Grimm fairy tale published in Germany in 1812. It’s based on the story of Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force, Persinette, from 1689.  A young couple who want to have a child is living next to the garden of an enchantress, Dame Gothel, who has rapunzel plants growing in her garden. When the woman becomes pregnant, she starts to have strong whims of rapunzel. The husband goes to the garden to grab some plants and he is caught by the witch, who threatens him with punishment. He begs for mercy, and she accepts to forgive him, provided that his first child will be surrendered to her at birth. When the girl was born, she was given to Gothel, who named her Rapunzel and shut her away in a high tower, with neither stairs nor door, one only room, and only one window. At 12 years of age, she hears the witch singing: “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair”. Then she drops down the hair to Dame Gothel, so she can climb up the hair to the girl’s room.

HAIR AND CRUELTY

Prisoners at Auschwitz, as in other German concentration camps, had all the hair on their bodies cut and shaved off during the induction procedures. The SS Economic-Administrative Main Office was directed to store prisoners’ hair and sell it to German companies as an industrial raw material.

FORBIDDEN HAIR

In the 1700s, black women in Louisiana were known to wear their hair in beautiful, elaborate styles, attracting the attention of white men. In order to diminish “excessive attention to dress” among women of color, Spanish colonial Governor Don Esteban Miró enacted the Tignon Laws, which required Creole women of color to wear a tignon, a scarf, or handkerchief to cover their hair as a way to indicate that they belonged to the slave class — despite the fact that some of these women were “free.”

HAIR DEALERS

“What surprised me more than all,” wrote Thomas Adolphus Trollope about his visit to a country fair in Brittany, France, in 1840, “were the operations of the dealers in hair. In various parts of the motley crowd there were three or four different purchasers of this commodity, who travel the country for the purpose of attending the fairs, and buying the tresses of the peasant girls . . . I should have thought that female vanity would have eventually prevented such a traffic as this being carried on to any extent. But there seemed to be no difficulty in finding possessors of beautiful heads of hair perfectly willing to sell. We saw several girls sheared one after the other like sheep, and as many more standing ready for the shears, with their caps in their hands, and their long hair combed out and hanging down to their waists."

RELIGIOUS OFFERING

FASHION AND WIGS

HAIR MAKERS

HAIR COLLECTION

HAIR AND SOYA SAUCE

Human hair is rich in protein content, just like soybean, wheat, and bran, the conventional and legally accepted raw ingredients for the production of soy sauce. In Hubei province, a factory is processing over ten tons of human hair daily into edible amino acids suitable for turning into soy sauce. Rich in proteins and amino acids human hair was until recently widely used to make food ingredient L-cysteine worldwide.

WIG AS A MORTAL SIN

“The woman who wears a wig commits a mortal sin”  - saying this, Saint Bernard de Clairvaux confirmed at the XII century the position of the early fathers of the Church. They denounced the wig as an invention of the Evil One. St Jerome, -the author of the Latin Vulgate Bible-, in the 4th century, condemning the hedonistic lifestyle, declared these adornments not tolerated by the Church and unworthy of Christianity. From the first council of Constantinople, wigs receive condemnation as a serious offense to God. Clemens of Alexandria said that who wears a wig at church when receiving a benediction, must keep in mind that the blessing would remain in the wig, and would not pass through to the wearer. People immediately removed their wigs. St Gregory of Nazianzus, as proof of the virtue of his sister Gorgonia, said: "she neither cared to curl her own hair nor to repair her lack of beauty by the aid of a wig". This point of view would be enforced for several centuries.

HAIR RECYCLING

Nairobi, Kenya - In one of Africa’s largest dumps, some residents are making a living by collecting and recycling hair from mountains of rubbish. An estimated 6,000 people making their living by scavenging in the rubbish. Some people raise pigs on organic waste, while others find items to sell. Buying hair extensions collected by young boys in the dump and then selling them to beauty salons for a small profit. “You can get lucky and find unused human hair. Maybe someone bought it and wasn’t satisfied with it, maybe the color, then they threw it away.” Of the different types of hair extensions, a human hair is the most coveted for its softness and versatility. The rising demand in Africa and elsewhere has countries such as India, China, and Brazil competing for the biggest share of the market. Much of the recycled hair is sold to hairdressers in Korogocho, a slum across the river from the dump. Dozens of women have set up makeshift hair salons in the local market.

HAIR AS FERTILIZER

Human hair is one of the highest nitrogen-containing organic materials in nature because it is predominantly made up of proteins. In addition, human hair also contains sulfur, carbon, and 20 other elements essential for plants. In the atmosphere, hair decomposes very slowly, but moisture and keratinolytic fungi present in the soil, animal manure, and sewage sludge can degrade hair within a few months. In traditional Chinese agriculture, human hair was mixed with cattle dung to prepare compost that was applied to the fields in the winter season. In some communities in India, hair has been used directly as fertilizer for many fruit and vegetable crops and in making organic manures. Recent experiments on horticulture plants show that direct application of human hair to soil provides the necessary plant nutrients for over two to three cropping seasons.

HAIR WARDROBE

Khloé Kardashian has an entire wardrobe dedicated to her hair extensions. She is known for being a hair chameleon and regularly switches up her look from a sleek blonde bob to long waves and everything in between. And now fans have been given a glimpse at where Khloé keeps her vast array of wigs and hairpieces. The celebrity has so many different hairpieces she has an entire wardrobe dedicated to her collection, where they are all clipped onto hangers and displayed via color.

CALLIGRAPHY BRUSHES

The tradition of making baby hair brushes originated in Northern China and each brush symbolizes the everlasting bond between parents and their children. They also represent parents’ wishes for their children to become wise, level-headed, and studious individuals, as well as their expectations of filial piety. The brushes are made from the hair of infants aged 3 years and under. Only the first growth of hair is used because that’s the only time when human hair tapers naturally at the tip. In Hong Kong, there are a few remaining practitioners of this rare craft.

HAIR AND BREAD

An important food additive used in commercial bread production is often made from human hair. The amino acid L-cysteine is often made from grain but cheaper production methods include duck feathers and human hair gleaned from hairdressing salons. When used as a food additive, L-cysteine has the E number E920. It is against EU law to use any form of human remains in the food.

HAIR AND LAW

On July 3, 2019, California became the first state to legally protect the hair of black students and employees when Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 188, also referred to as the CROWN Act (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair), a law that declares hair discrimination to be illegal. The new California law reads, “The history of our nation is riddled with laws and societal norms that equated ‘blackness,’ and the associated physical traits, for example, dark skin, kinky and curly hair to a badge of inferiority, sometimes subject to separate and unequal treatment.” The bill goes on to say, “Professionalism was, and still is, closely linked to European features and mannerisms, which entails that those who do not naturally fall into Eurocentric norms must alter their appearances, sometimes drastically and permanently, in order to be deemed professional.”

HAIR AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood unveiled a new extreme shaved hairdo as a protest against climate change IN 2015.  At a demonstration in her local borough of Clapham, the 72-year-old showed off her newly shaven haircut, with just a few grey hairs on show. A spokesperson for her fashion label said: "Vivienne cut her hair as we must all wake up to climate change. And secondly, she wanted to cut the red out for a while and have it white- to show she's proud of her age."

HAIR IN WAR

Blockaded and cut off from overseas supplies, Germany mobilized effectively to find substitutes at home. This poster calls on German women - Especially young women with long flowing tresses - to donate their hair, which was used to make rope. Children were organized by their teachers into garbage brigades to collect every scrap of useful material.

FALSE EYELASHES

At its core, the obsession with longer lashes stems from the idea that lashes get shorter with age. In ancient Rome, it was especially important for women to keep their eyelashes long to prove their chastity. With lashes worn by some of the world’s most famous people, they eased into the mainstream. Fake eyelashes are now sold anywhere makeup is. Putting on fake eyelashes is an entirely mainstream beauty ritual now. Both 100% human hair eyelashes and minks are popular among false eyelashes and eyelash extension wearers. Most notably, this is due to the incredibly natural look afforded by both types. Natural human eyelashes are just like any other hair found on the human body. The majority of human hair used to make eyelash extensions come from India, China, and Indonesia. Human hair eyelashes, for the most part, are hand-assembled from scratch with durability in every lash.

CUT AT ONCE

A thousand miles from Beijing, the village of Huang Luo in China’s Guangxi Region is famous for the dramatically long hair worn by its female residents. As legend has it, thousands of years ago a girl from the local Yao tribe literally whipped an unwelcome suitor with her hair, and to this day many of the Yao women cut their hair only once in their lives: When they are 18 it is shorn in a public ceremony. After that, the locks are left to grow to exuberant lengths, with the cutoff hair woven back into an elaborate coiffure. Unmarried women tuck their hair into a headscarf; married women favor a wrapped-up style with a large bun at the front.

WEDDING GOWN

Mr. A. L. Kishore Kumar is a third-generation Indian hair trader. In his office on the wall is a photograph of himself seated on a huge golden wedding throne, in it, he is wearing a gown and scarf woven from human hair. The wedding gown, a tailored ackhan, is made from Indian temple hair that has been bleached and dyed to a pale goldish blond. The hair, which forms a loose weft, looks almost like raw untwisted silk floss and the whole garment is edged and decorated with red and gold sequins. “What was God’s gift to us to protect the human body? - Human skin and human hair! Human-hair cloth offers good protection from heat and cold and you don’t get any side effects. Why do people wear animal hair when they could be wearing human hair?” - A.L. Kishore Kumar

MOURNING HAIR

Some Madagascan widows are forbidden from washing or tending to their hair for 12 months following their husband's death, as a sign of self-mortification and to make them repulsive to other men.

VENUS OF BRASSEMPOUY

The Venus of Brassempouy, which dates back to 23,000 BC, is one of the earliest known realistic representations of a human hairstyle. The Venus of Brassempouy - the surviving head and neck of the original figure - was sculpted from mammoth ivory. The carving is roughly 3.5 cm in height, 2.2 cm deep, and 1.9 cm wide. Unlike the other venuses found at Brassempouy and elsewhere, this particular one contains clear facial features of forehead, brows, eyes, nose but no mouth. The top and sides are incised with a representation of braided hair or an Egyptian-style headdress.

ROYAL LONG HAIR

By far the most famous for their coiffure is the Merovingian kings of Gaul (modern France), known as the ‘long-haired kings’ (reges criniti) in medieval sources.  The practice of the Frankish kings never to have their hair cut. Custom has reserved this practice for royalty as a sort of distinctive badge and prerogative. Rival claimants to the throne were often tonsured and sent into a monastery. The act of tonsure was apparently so humiliating that the rival lost his royal aura  ̶̶ At least until his hair grew back. When queen Chrodegildis was forced to choose between having her grandsons tonsured or killed, she preferred the boys dead rather than shorn. Finally, the last Merovingian king was deposed and then tonsured by the short-haired Carolingians who replaced him.

UGLY CARNIVAL

French women who, accused of having intimate relations with German troops during the WWII Nazi occupation of France, had their heads shaved and were paraded in front of a jeering mob. These women weren't injured - hair grows back. And yet this is truly an act of torture and humiliation. It is extreme evidence of the fact that hair is one of the seats of human dignity.

POWER OF HAIR 

The story of Samson comes to us from the Book of Judges in the Old Testament of the Bible and from the Tanakh. An angel came to Samson’s parents and told them that Samson would have superhuman strength – but this strength would last provided his hair was never cut. And so, Samson’s hair was never cut and he grew up to be an extremely strong man. Samson was betrayed by his lover Delilah, who, sent by the Philistines officials to entice him, ordered a servant to cut his hair while he was sleeping and turned him over to his Philistine enemies.

HAIR DYEING

At the time of the Roman Empire, one of the most popular ways for people to ornament themselves was through hair dyes. The many traders and slaves that came to Rome and other Roman cities as a result of the empire's great expansion exposed the Romans to a wide variety of hair colors. The most popular hair coloring in ancient Rome was blond, which was associated with the exotic and foreign appearance of people from Gaul, present-day France, and Germany. Roman prostitutes were required by law to dye their hair blond in order to set themselves apart, but many Roman women and men followed suit. The other most popular hair colors were red and black. The most striking hair coloring effects of all could only be afforded by the very wealthiest Romans; some of them powdered their hair with gold dust. The emperor Commodus, was especially famous for powdering his snow-white hair with gold.

HUMAN HAIR EMBROIDERIES

Human hair embroideries are a very special Chinese tradition, coming from the Tang Dynasty, in the 7th century. It is a special needle-work of making patterns on silk with human hair as the thread. As Chinese hair is mostly black, that’s the monochromatic color predominating in these works, although sometimes they use to dye the hair to give a variation to the embroidery. This kind of work is considered in China a valuable gift and an excellent piece of the collection.

MORE HAIR MORE THOUGHTS

The Navajo, Native American tribe populates the states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. They arrived in America across the Bering Strait, crossing through Canada, thousands of years ago, and they still keep rites, traditions, and very ancient beliefs. For them, the hair has a profound significance: they believe that thoughts originated in the head emerge along with the hair, and they are into it; new thoughts are close to the scalp and the old ones at the end of the longest strands. The longer the hairs are, the more thoughts they have.

MANCHU WOMEN

Ancient Chinese styles of hair ornaments are from the earliest times one of the most beautiful in the world. The Chinese culture has given increasing importance to the arrangement of hair along with its history and a strong symbolic meaning, the form of use or haircuts or hairstyles always marked social or civil status, religion, or profession. No haircare arrangement for them is a sign of disease or depression. As China is a conglomeration of peoples and ethnic groups, there are so many styles and regional customs. Manchu women are renowned as "women with golden heads and heavenly feet". The way they dress and gear their heads is considered one of the most beautiful and elegant in the entire world. The Manchu minority ruled from the 17th century to the 20th century in China. Girls use a single pigtail hanging behind, sometimes with gold or silver jewelry fastened on the tip. Manchu women use fresh flowers, usually pressed with a hairpin made of gold, silver, or emerald.

SIKHA

With the arrival of the Aryans, in the 15th century BC, the Indus Valley civilization comes to the end and starts the Vedic Period, when the first sacred texts written in Sanskrit appear. It's into this period when the caste system is installed. Costumes change, and also the ways of grooming the hair, even by the difference between castes. The Vedas prescribed that every Indian should use the hair cut in the form of sikha, which is equivalent to shaving the whole head, leaving a lock of hair at the back or at the side. The sacred texts say that "Sikha allows God to pull people to Heaven "... Over time, this kind of haircut will be worn only by the Brahmins, the priests' caste. The rest of the people will use long hair, and upper-caste women will use ornaments with jewels and gemstones on the forehead. 

ANCIENT EGYPT

Egyptians used their hair in different ways: they could have, -men and women- clean shaven heads, or to use the hair shoulder-length, or cut short up to the nape. Hairstyles for them did not determine the gender. However, it could be a sign of age or the social group. Children were generally shaved off until puberty, and after that age, they could decide whether to use short or long hair. Old people used wigs to hide their baldness or their white hair. Workmen wore their hair cut short, usually with a bang. Between the most powerful social classes, it was frequent to use wigs and elaborate extensions, with the assistance of personal hairdressers and wig makers.

CHUDAKARANA

It's the ceremony in which the babies' hair is almost totally removed, leaving a tuft in the crown of the head, when they are three years old. It's a sacred precept of Hinduism, a Samskāram, one of the 16 sacred rites of Vedas. Its signification is that the baby's hair is dragging undesirable traits from former lives and must be removed for it may grow clean and purified. It's also considered the freedom of the total dependence of his mother, and the beginning of a new age in which the baby starts to feed by himself. Father, mother and son take a sit around the fireplace and while the baby's head is shaved, the father prays mantras, offering the shorn hair to the Gods. This rite has more than 4,000 years of practice and is absolutely respected in India still today. The ways to make the rite and the ceremony have several variations according to different regions and costumes.

HAIR AND EVOLUTION

Aside from horses, humans are pretty much the only species that has a huge concentration of hair in one particular spot. Why the patterns of hair growth in Homo sapiens differ so dramatically from our close relatives, like chimpanzees. Losing body hair meant we could sweat more, a cooling mechanism that helped to make possible the dramatic enlargement of our most temperature-sensitive organ, the brain. Other hypotheses that the hair remaining on human heads helped hominins regulate body temperature when they became bipedal and started traveling long distances. Basically, scalp hair created a kind of built-in hat.

Both head hair and body fur grow in cycles. The hair follicle produces a strand of hair during its active growth phase, called anagen. Then the growth slows, and the follicle “rests” for a while, the telogen phase. Then comes exogen when the hair falls out, and the follicle begins growing a new strand of hair as the anagen phase begins again. Hair on the head keeps growing for two to six years. The possibility to identify the factors that make head hair grow differently than body hair, scientists may never know why humans evolved head hair that’s so different from our closest animal cousins. Scientists speculate the difference in our hair types has to do with sexual selection. How continuously growing hair plays into sexual selection is an unanswered evolutionary question for now.

QUEUE ORDER

Before the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), men used to comb their hair backward and shave their foreheads. It was the costume of the Han ethnic group, who was –and still they are- 98% of the Chinese population. The Qing Dynasty, in the 17th century, from Manchu origin, (Manchuria represents an ethnic minority) after they overthrew the Ming Dynasty, imposed as mandatory their own hairstyle, under penalty of execution as treason to those who did not obey the order. The hairstyle consisted of the hair on the front of the head being shaved off above the temples and the rest of the hair braided into a long ponytail or queue. This law was the reason for blooding rebellions and internal fights because it was strongly resisted by the whole population. The intention of the order was to publicly demonstrate submission to the Qing Emperor.  As the Manchu Dynasty lasted for 3 centuries, the hairstyle was imposed along with the entire kingdom. Finally, in 1922, the last emperor trimmed his queue as a symbol of changing habits.

WOMEN’S HAIR HUSBAND’S PROPERTY

During the first period of the Medieval era, ranging from the fifth to the eleventh century, women usually had long hair, extended to knee length or sometimes, below, and also with two long braids at the sides of the head or tied in a chignon. Along almost all the Middle Ages period, women arranged their hair to reveal their complete foreheads; often they shaved the hair around the hairline to give an appearance of a higher line. The forehead was at that time considered a very important feature of the face. They used to cover it with artificial flowers, headbands, or precious jewelry, but never with hair. Women's hair was considered itself, at this period, an erotic feature. In consequence, married women had to cover it with veils. The married woman's hair was legally considered as the property of the husband. Near the end of the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church issued religious decrees that veils were obligatory for all women. One of the most popular hairstyles from the Middle period until the Late period was to secure the braids in chignons at either side of the head, above each ear, held by golden or silk threads. Another popular style in the 13th and 14th centuries was to make three or four braids and to tie them at the back of the head with fine nettings with ornaments. At the beginning of the period, women used their hair naturally, but since the Middle period and up to the end, the public exhibition of the hair was considered unseemly and disrespectful. They also wore high hats and bonnets to attend Church or in public places.

HAIR AND INSTRUMENTS

The Mangyans live on an island in the Philippines called Mindoro. Their folk music tradition birthed the git-git, a bowed instrument strung with human hair. It compares to the violin in both function and looks. The git-git was only used by young men when there went courting.

MOST ANCIENT BODY

Ginger, the most ancient naturally mummified body known until the present day in Egypt, was blond, with wavy hair and white-yellowish skin. He was found at the cemetery of Gebelein, in South Thebes, in 1900 and it was established that the body is 3,500 years before the Christian Age-old, meaning, a 5,500 years old mummy, from the Late Pre-Dynastic period age. His nickname is due to the color and curls of his hair, which is pretty well conserved. He probably was a member of the Naqada Culture's people, which lived before the first pharaohs, and which inhabitants, as all of the Pre-Dynastic period, were of Caucasoid appearance, with dark, reddish or clear brown hair, or blonds, and some of them red-heads; most of them of straight or wavy hair.

LITTLE PRINCESS TRUST

The Little Princess Trust provides free real hair wigs to children and young people, up to 24 years, who have lost their own hair through cancer treatment or other conditions. They use hair donations and fundraising monies sent to them by their amazing supporters, to manufacture and fit their beautiful real hair wigs. Established in 2006, they have supplied over 8000 wigs to children and young people and have invested circa £5 million into ground-breaking childhood cancer research. 

The minimum length of hair that they can accept is 7inches/17cm. However, they do currently have sufficient stock of hair measuring between 7 and 11 inches, and that is why they encourage all their supporters to donate hair that measures 12 inches and above. Frequent donations of the shorter lengths could bring storage costs to the charity and they, understandably, would prefer to use their resources to provide wigs to children and fund vital research into childhood cancers.

You can find more information at littleprincesses.org.uk

HAIR AND INFORMATION

The only "living" part of a hair is found in the follicle as it grows. The hair strand above the skin has no biochemical activity and so is considered "dead".

Hair contains information about everything that has been in somebody’s bloodstream, such as medicine, drugs, minerals, and vitamins. Alone, without follicle cells attached, it cannot be used to identify a specific individual. In the best case, an investigator can identify a group or class of people who share similar traits who might share a certain type of hair. Gender also cannot be identified from hair. Men’s hair and women’s hair are identical in structure.

DNA is contained in blood, semen, skin cells, tissue, organs, muscle, brain cells, bone, teeth, hair, saliva, mucus, perspiration, fingernails, urine, feces, etc. DNA can be collected from virtually anywhere. Shed hair has no nuclear DNA. Nuclear DNA comes from the cell nucleus and is inherited from both parents, half from the mother and half from the father. Each person’s nuclear DNA is unique — except for identical twins, who have the same DNA. The hair follicle at the base of human hair contains cellular material rich in DNA. In order to be used for DNA analysis, the hair must have been pulled from the body – hairs that have been broken off or cut off do not contain Nuclear DNA. Therefore hair that has been cut off by a barber or hairdresser does not contain any Nuclear DNA.

SECOND FASTEST GROWING TISSUE

Hair is the second-fastest-growing tissue in the human body. The only thing that grows faster is bone marrow. On average, hair tends to grow between 0.5 and 1.7 centimeters per month. Everyone’s hair is different, and lots of factors can influence how quickly it grows. A person’s genes will dictate how quickly their hair will grow. Male hair grows faster than female hair. Hair grows fastest between the ages of 15 and 30, before slowing down. Some follicles stop working altogether as people get older. This is why some people get thinner hair or go bald. Good nutrition is essential for the growth and maintenance of healthy hair.

QUECHUA MARITAL STATUS 

The Quechua are a group of indigenous people scattered throughout areas of South America. One of the most significant aspects of the Quechua woman’s look and culture is her hair. Throughout Peru, native women of all ages wear long braids.  Long, braided hair represents much more than just a hairstyle to the Quechua; the braids signify the marital status of Peruvian women. Two braids reveal that a woman in the tribe is married, while one or many braids mean that she is single.

SUMO WRESTLER

Japanese culture is full of incredibly codified rituals involving hair, where the observance of traditional rites is as important as the styles themselves. The chonmage is a form of Japanese traditional topknot haircut worn by men. It is most commonly associated with the Edo period and samurai, and in recent times with sumo wrestlers. It was originally a method of using hair to hold a samurai helmet steady atop the head in battle and became a status symbol among Japanese society. When an honored sumo wrestler reaches retirement, his top knot or ‘chonmage’ is chopped off piece by piece by former trainers and opponents. The chonmage is of such symbolic importance in sumo that snipping it off is the centerpiece of a wrestler's retirement ceremony. Dignitaries and other important people in a wrestler's life are invited to take one snip, with the final one taken by his trainer. For most wrestlers who never reached a sekitori rank, his retirement ceremony will be the only time he wears the more elaborate ōichōmage.

ZULU BRIDE

Zulu people are an Nguni ethnic group in Southern Africa. The Zulu people are the largest ethnic group and nation in South Africa with an estimated 10–12 million people living mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. A Zulu bride wears a flaring red headdress reminiscent of the hairstyle of her ancestors. This traditional headdress was originally made from her mother's hair and received as a gift on the day of her marriage.

POLYNESIAN POWER CUT

For young Polynesian boys, they have to wait until they are a teenager to receive their first cut, by which time they have grown rather attached to their beautiful long locks. Nevertheless, this is an important Polynesian custom that represents the boys coming of age process, where he is to embrace his new masculine identity and become a man. Traditionally, this ritual has spiritual symbolism for Polynesians, despite the dispute over its origins.  Some believe that the customary teenage haircut derived from missionary influence, whereby the local people would be encouraged to cut their children’s hair short. However, there is a lot of dispute over this claim, saying that these traditions and rituals predate any missionary on the Islands.

POLYNESIAN POWER CUT

For young Polynesian boys, they have to wait until they are a teenager to receive their first cut, by which time they have grown rather attached to their beautiful long locks. Nevertheless, this is an important Polynesian custom that represents the boys coming of age process, where he is to embrace his new masculine identity and become a man. Traditionally, this ritual has spiritual symbolism for Polynesians, despite the dispute over its origins.  Some believe that the customary teenage haircut derived from missionary influence, whereby the local people would be encouraged to cut their children’s hair short. However, there is a lot of dispute over this claim, saying that these traditions and rituals predate any missionary on the Islands.

ACHILLES UNSHORN HAIR

Achilles kept unshorn his yellow hair, because his father had vowed to offer it to the River Sperchius if ever his son came home from the wars beyond the sea. In Greek mythology, Achilles was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and is the central character of Homer's Iliad. He was the son of Nereid Thetis and Peleus, king of Phthia.

TRAVELLERS HAIR

In many cultures, men travelling abroad have been in the habit of leaving their hair unshorn until their return. The reason for this custom is probably the danger to which, as we have seen, a traveller is believed to be exposed to the magic arts of the strangers amongst whom he sojourns; if they got possession of his shorn hair, they might work his destruction through it. The Egyptians on a journey kept their hair uncut till they returned home. At Tâif when a man returned from a journey his first duty was to visit the Rabba and poll his hair.

PHYSICAL SUBSTITUTE - CHEMISE

The practice and intent of giving a love token in twelfth-century French courtly literature: this sort of gift is, in fact, a figurative giving of oneself. The love token is not only an emblem of love, it becomes a physical substitute for the body of the sender. It is, more over, through the love tokens that their affection for each other may be expressed openly. In Chrétien de Troyes’ Cligés Alixandre cannot express his love for Soredamor, nor can she for him. The queen finds a way to encourage such expression: she gives Alixandre a chemise into which Soredamor has sewn one of her own hairs. The chemise, then, is the token of love yet unexpressed, but it is important that first, it entails an item of clothing that the knight will himself wear, thus allowing a metaphorical physical closeness to develop which serves to intensify his desire, and that, second, it has been fashioned by the hand of his beloved, who intentionally in-corporated herself into the chemise through her own talent and effort.

SUPPORT OF 5400 KG

Each strand of hair can support up to 100 grams in weight. Multiply that by the average 100,000 to 150,000 strands on each head, and your entire head of hair could support the weight equivalent to two elephants or about 5,400 kilos.

ELVIS PRESLEY'S AUCTIONED HAIR

A clump of hair believed to have been trimmed from Elvis Presley’s head when he joined the Army in 1958 has sold for $15,000 at a Chicago auction house. The buyer of the hair paid $15,000 plus an additional $3,300 in auction house fees.  All the items had belonged to the late Gary Pepper, who ran a fan club and was a friend. Pepper died in 1980 and left his collection to his nurse.

LUCHA LIBRE HAIR MATCH

Unlike most sports, pro wrestling is unconcerned with numbers. Nobody seems to have a win-loss record. In lucha libre, the truly important matches, the bouts that make up one’s official record, are not even world championships. They are, rather, Mask vs. Mask matches, or Hair vs. Hair, or Hair vs. Mask. Luchadores wager their masks or their hair on the outcome of a fight. The mask is the more serious wager. When a wrestler is defeated and unmasked, his face is seen by the public for the first time. His name and his birthplace are published in the papers. His mask, which symbolized his honor, is retired and cannot be used again. The loser in a Hair match is publicly shaved and humiliated but lives to fight again. Hair grows back. 

DREADED HAIR

Dreaded hair is one way that many Rastas recognizably separate themselves from non-Rastas, or “baldheads.” Keeping their bodies natural is part of the Rastafarian belief system, and dreads are what often happens to hair that’s freed from artificial processes. According to the Rastafarian interpretation of the Bible, dreadlocks also symbolically connect them to the strength of Samson, whose hair was the source of his power. The style has an even deeper history, going back as far as the Minoans of Crete, 3,600 years ago. Some mummified Egyptians had dreadlocks, as did Aztec warriors.

HAIR LOVE

Hair Love, is a 7 minute animated short film that centers around the relationship between an African-American father, Stephen, his daughter, Zuri and her hair. Despite having long locks, Stephen has been used to his wife doing his daughter's hair, so when she is unavailable right before a big event, Stephen will have to figure it out on his own. This sounds simple enough, but we soon come to find that Zuri's hair has a mind of its own. 

This story was born out of seeing a lack of representation in mainstream animated projects and also wanting to promote hair love amongst young men and women of color. It is our hope that this project will inspire.

You can watch the animation here

MASAAI WOMEN

Sometimes head-shaving is due to perceptions of beauty, other times purification, and sometimes for anonymity rituals. The Masaai women of Tanzania and Kenya shave their head hair and adorn themselves with jewelry instead. Their female beauty standards involve the sleekness of the head.

MOHICAN

The Mohawk hairstyle is also known as Mohican in popular culture. Today, it is a hairstyle that has come to represent rebellion and non-conformity. In actuality, the punk rock subculture overshadows the hairstyle’s true history. Presently, the Mohawk consists of a strip of either spiked or non- spiked hair along the middle of the head. The sides would be shaved off. But the original style of the Mohawk was a square patch of hair on the back of the head, and that too, the style wasn’t made by shaving- the hair was plucked off. It was the Native American Pawnee and the Iroquois people who primarily used the Mohawk hairstyle. The hairstyle is named after the Mohawk Nation, which is one of the Six Nations confederacies where the Iroquois language is spoken. The young warrior men of the community who were responsible for protecting the tribe wore the Mohawk. Although it was common for anyone in the Pawnee people to wear their hair in this style, it was disrespectful of anyone else of the Iroquois tribe other than the warrior men to wear it.

POLITICS OF AFRO

The voluminous hairstyle — a glorious, untamed display of blackness — has been misunderstood for centuries. When captured slaves were first brought to America during the 15th century, their hair was forcefully shaved off in an effort to strip them of their sense of cultural identity. Even after gaining emancipation black people steered away from letting their hair grow out as biology intended. When Madame C.J. Walker patented the hot comb during the Reconstruction Era, scores of black women took to turning their kink and curls into straight hair — often hoping the metamorphosis would help them assimilate into white society. It was not until the Civil Rights Movement that the afro became "cool." But even then, the hairstyle's popularity was less about being "attractive" and more about being "disruptive." Rocked by the Black Panthers and iconic activists like Angela Davis, Nina Simone, and Nikki Giovanni, a single hairstyle came to represent the never-ending fight against racism.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The Library of Congress has the locks of many famous and not-so-famous people within its collections including Thomas Jefferson, Walt Whitman, and James Madison. Jefferson's family took the cuttings from his deathbed. Whitman's housekeeper chopped off a few strands of his hair. Madison's clippings are tidily braided inside a velvet-lined gold case. Before people had access to photography cutting one's hair was one way for them to keep a memento of someone forever. It’s a symbol of love, sentimentality, and often loss and mourning. 

HAIR SWEATER

Throughout history, many people have dressed in garments made of hair, including socks, mittens and sweaters. This machine-knitted sweater is made of 60% human hair and 40% wool. It was manufactured by Tabergs Yllefabrik AB in Småland, around the 1940s.


During WWII, there was a great shortage of raw materials in Sweden. Tabergs Yllefabrik solved this problem by reviving an old tradition of mixing wool with human hair in the production of clothes, among other things. The wool factory teamed up with the Swedish Hairdresser’s Association in order to collect hair cuttings from the floors of hairdressing salons. 10,000 Swedish hairdressers joined the drive and 60,000 tons of hair was collected every year during the war. 

LOVING CARE PERFORMANCE

In Loving Care, Janine Antoni mopped the floor of the gallery with her hair soaked in Loving Care hair dye “Natural Black.” The artist’s actions conjured up the expressive marks of Abstract Expressionist painting, linking them to the chore of mopping. As she claimed the space, the audience was slowly backed out of the gallery.

Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London, 1993

FICTIONAL CHARACTER IN THE ADDAMS FAMILY

Cousin Itt is a fictional character in the Addams Family television and film series. He was developed specifically for the 1964 television series and is a regular supporting character in subsequent motion-picture, television, and stage adaptations. Cousin Itt is a diminutive, hirsute being, his visible form is composed entirely of floor-length blonde hair. He has an IQ of 320, is often attired in a bowler hat and round sunglasses, and speaks in a high-pitched gibberish that is understood only by his family.

A LOCKET OF HAIR BY ALEXANDER MCQUEEN

Sewn to the lining of garments from his earliest collections are methodically coiled lockets of hair encased in Perspex. The inspiration behind this avant-garde gesture came from the Victorian era when prostitutes would sell their kits of hair locks, which were purchased by individuals to gift and exchange with their lovers. In his earliest collections, the hair came from McQueen’s own head.

FASCINATING BEAUTY OF LONG HAIR

Stan Shuttleworth, An American wedding photographer with a passion for longhaired ladies. Since the 1950s he created some of the most beautiful photo collections on long hair. He became a legendary photographer who understood as nobody else to catch the fascinating beauty of long hair with the lenses of his camera. Stan Shuttleworth passed away in the 1980s, but he lives on in his unique works.

LA CAFE DE LA FEMME A BARBE

Clémentine Delait, a proud owner - along with her husband - of a coffee shop, in France at the beginning of the 20th century. The story goes Clémentine saw a bearded woman in a show, she said that she could grow a much more beautiful and dense beard. Her husband made her bet 500 francs that this was not possible. She won and, in fact, took advantage of the fame she had achieved to change the name of her business to call it "Le Café de La Femme à Barbe", that is, "The Cafeteria of the Woman with a Beard".

CAPILLARY XIPHOPAGUS AMONG US

Tunga was one of Brazil’s most cherished artists, known for his surreal and alchemistic sculptures, installations and performances that often involved unorthodox material combinations like teeth, bones, and hair. One of his most recognisable works Capillary Xiphopagus Among Us is a performance piece of two twins who are conjoined by their hair. The dreamlike and psychedelic narrative of the twins, this myth that the twins were born fused at the hair. It is not the belly bottom, it’s the hair. It is this umbilical idea of hair. The hair comes from a place that is connected to the universe and to the earth. It loses its human aspect and assumes a mythological status.

MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA SPRING/SUMMER 2009

An accumulation of glossy wigs and hair extensions are assembled like objets trouvés by Maison Martin Margiela for spring/summer 2009. The collection revisited former design concepts, such as jackets made of discarded costume wigs for the Artisanal line of fall/winter 2005–4. The Artisanal concept is central to the philosophy of the house: one-of-a kind, handmade objects made from repurposed or cheap textiles and found objects, show that luxury resides not so much in the preciosity or opulence of the materials, but that the artisanship, time and effort which went into the garment are what makes it haute couture. By paying tribute to the human hand and process rather than the value of the material, Margiela deconstructs the prescriptive concepts at the heart of the Parisian couture tradition, usually hiding traces of construction or use. He thereby inscribes his own avant-garde collections into a longstanding tradition. Hair and wigs are a recurring choice of material for Margiela, who previously integrated wigs from theatre costume cast-offs, flickering between glamour and the abject.

ANCESTRAL PUEBLOAN

The Ancestral Puebloans flourished in the 13th century in what is now the Southwestern United States. These ancestors of the Pueblo left behind fascinating architecture and remnants of their rich material culture, including footwear. Regarded as exceptional artisans, the Ancestral Puebloans often used human hair, one of the most accessible and renewable fibres, to craft things such as nets and socks. This sock, which dates to the 13th century, was made by knotting strands of hair and may have been worn alone or with a sandal.

BARRISTER WIG U.K. COURTROOM

The iconic white wig judges and attorneys — or barristers as they're known — wear during formal courtroom proceedings. Many of the judges and barristers who wear wigs say the headpiece — also known as a peruke — brings a sense of formality and solemnity to the courtroom. Barrister wigs are curled at the crown, with horizontal curls on the sides and back. Judges' wigs — also called bench wigs — look similar, but are typically more ornate. They're fuller at the top and transition into tight curls that fall just below the shoulders. Most are handmade from 100 percent horsehair, though there are synthetic versions available today, too.

JAMES RADCLYFFE'S BEDSHEET

'The sheet off my dear lord’s bed in the wretched Tower of London’ - The sheet was taken from the Tower of London, where it had been used on the bed of James Radclyffe, the third Earl of Derwentwater, who was awaiting execution for his involvement in the first Jacobite rebellion in 1715. In a gesture of remembrance, Radclyffe’s young widow, Anna Maria Radclyffe, embroidered the bottom of the linen sheet in cross-stitch with human hair. 

HAIR AS A LIFE SOURCE

The Greeks viewed hair as a life source. Not only did they allow their hair to grow long, they valued it so much they even used it for sacrifices. Women of Ancient Greece wore their hair longer than the Egyptians, and they often pulled it back into a stylish chignon or braids. Like the Egyptians, Greek women often decorated their hair, opting for gold and silver wreaths over flowers and ribbons. Some women customized their hair by curling, straightening or coloring it using ashes and henna. Beeswax was used to set and hold their styles in place.

YURUBA HAIR

Ancient African communities fashioned their hair for more than just-style. Throughout the continent, a person’s hairstyle could tell you a lot about who they were and where they came from. Braids and other intricate hairstyles were historically worn to signify marital status, age, religion, wealth and rank in society. From kings’ ornate beaded braids to special headdresses worn by new mothers, these styles had deep cultural and historical roots. Hair was also thought to be a source of personal and spiritual power. As the most elevated part of the body, some communities believed it connected them with the divine. In Yoruba culture, for example, people would braid their hair to send messages to the gods.

KNITTED FOR HER HUSBAND

Starting ever since she was 49, a 60-year-old Chinese woman by the name of Xiang Renxian, has knitted for her husband a hair sweater and hair hat. Constantly being complimented in her youth for her hair, Renxian began collecting strands of her own hair as it would fall out naturally when she was 34. It would only be 15 years later when she came up with the idea to begin knitting the hair sweater and hair hat as a gift for her husband. The hair sweater was made from 116,058 strands of her hair and weighed 382.3 grams, whereas the hair hat weighed in at 119.5 grams.

ANCIENT INCA STRING CODE

Khipus has served as recording devices in the Andes for over a millennium. The devices used combinations of knots to represent numbers and were used to inventory stores of corn, beans, and other provisions. Spanish accounts from colonial times claim that Inca khipus also encoded history, biographies, and letters century. Spanish chroniclers noted that Inca runners carried khipus as letters, and evidence suggests that the Inca composed khipu letters to ensure secrecy during rebellions against the Spanish.  Fashioned from strings made of cotton, animal fibers, maguey, or other plants and sometimes from human hair, khipus have varied in form and purpose throughout their 1000+ year history. 

SUTURING

From the Mayans and the ancient Romans to the present day, human hair has a long history in the field of suturing. It’s fallen out of favor in modern Western practice, but at the turn of the twentieth century, it was still in use by some American doctors. It allegedly worked quite well and didn’t cause infections. Despite its history, hair suturing probably doesn’t have a future in developed countries. It shows promise, though, as a solution for those with less access to healthcare. An Indian medical college has performed tests on human hair to see if it’s practical and effective as a suture material for developing countries, and so far the results are optimistic.

PEST CONTROL

Human hair has been used for centuries to repel animals and control pests. It’s used differently on different kinds of animals. It works on moles by annoying them enough to drive them away. To deer, just the scent of humans is alarming. Rhinoceros beetles in India can be trapped by a simple ball of human hair. Farmers place it at strategic points on the tree, the beetles try to walk over the hairball to get at the crop, their spiky legs get tangled up and they can’t move. A strategy to repel rabbits by encircling a garden with human hair. The rabbits, like deer, will only be scared off if they’re wild. In the suburbs, where the smell of humans is everywhere, rabbits and deer will adapt to its presence. 

ANYA PAINTSIL

Anya Paintsil is a Welsh-Ghanaian artist who lives and works in Chester, UK. From rug hooking to embroidery, her textile assemblages evoke traditional tapestry and also constitute semi-sculptural interventions. Brushed, hooked, boxed, twisted, and/or braided into these hanging “rugs” are remnants of the artist’s own natural and synthetic hair that extrude texturally in alternating staccato piles or ordered plaits. 

REAL HAIR POSTCARDS

'Real hair’ postcards were popular in the early 1900s, when both the human hair trade and postal services were expanding. Postcards were very often decorated with different materials. Cards with stickers, embroiderings, silk, pearldust, lace, mirrors, human hair, and textiles were popular. These were individually created by the sender. 

A LUA MOTUL

One year after the baptism, an important tradition practiced in most parts of Romania: cutting the baby’s hair for the first time, in Romanian, the expression is 'a lua motul' - roughly translated as cutting the forelock. On that day, the parents dress up the baby and prepare a party for close relatives and friends.

During this family event, the godmother or godfather cuts a piece of the baby's hair. After that, a big plate with several items on it is placed in front of the baby. Items vary from money to books, pens, scissors, car keys, mobile phones, and jewelry. The baby will choose three items from the plate, each with a different meaning. If, for example, the baby chooses money, this symbolizes richness; while the baby goes for the book or the pen, it means he will be smart. 

MERKIN

Merkin simply means “an artificial hair cover for the female pubic region.” The Oxford Companion to the Body traces the first merkins back to the 1450s. People in the past battled with parasitic insects, especially lice. Thus, the main use of merkins in the past was for hygienic purposes. Women shaved their pubic hair to inhibit the growth of lice. Thus, a neatly made merkin would be used to replace the original pubic hair. In some instances, it was reported that prostitutes widely used merkins to cover up the signs of sexually transmitted diseases. Merkins were highly useful as they could be easily removed and cleaned thoroughly without harming the vagina skin. And, men were also reported to have used merkins to cover their private parts when they played female roles when women were prohibited from acting. Merkins were widely used until the 18th century. At that point, major advancements had been made; some were decorated using ribbon, jewelry, flowers, etc.

SENTIMENTAL JEWELRY

“Jewelry is a beautiful tool to celebrate life and loss,” says British designer Shaun Leane, who has made countless sentimental commissions for clients and friends. One of his most significant pieces was a signet ring made for his close friend the designer Alexander McQueen, which he created in honor of their friend Isabella Blow who died in 2007. It featured an engraved quartz stone over glass which encased a lock of Blow’s hair. “Lee (McQueen) wore the ring every day,” says Leane, “and we buried him in that ring.” Over the past two years, Leane says requests have come pouring in from friends and clients who wanted sentimental jewelry to celebrate the people and pets they lost and loved ones who they couldn’t see due to COVID restrictions. These designs were inspired by Victorian-era concepts, such as locks of hair encased in glass roundels and Latin-inscribed scrolls with concealed messages, which he remade in contemporary styles. The designs are part of his expanded Memoirs collection that will be debuting next year.

KOREAN SANDALS

Korean archaeologists exhumed the partially mummified remains of Eung-tae, a male member of an ancient clan.  The tomb was dated to the mid to late 1500s. Burial note was written on hemp paper wrapped around hemp/hair sandals. When the hemp paper has opened a pair of sandals was discovered. Taking a closer look at the sandals they discovered human hair had been weaved right in with hemp to form the sandals. On the paper wrapping, they could decipher sentences like “with my hair, I weave this” and “before you were even able to wear it. An ancient tradition was found. As a symbol of love or hope, a loved one would weave their own hair with hemp to make shoes for an ill person. The shoes are a stunning display of love lasting over 400 years. When the team started reading the letters left with the body they found themselves right in the middle of a centuries-old love story. There are references in Korean literature to the tradition of making the shoes with human hair as a symbol of love or hope for recovery from an illness.

MONA HATOUM - KEFFIEH

In her art piece, Palestinian-British artist Mona Hatoum weaves long female human hair into the traditional Arab headscarf keffieh. Several layers of meanings and implications are embedded in the art piece: the political statement indicated by the use of the Arabic symbol of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, the keffieh, and the female hair as a translation of Palestinian anger. According to the artist, she pictured women tearing their hair out from sheer rage.1 Another layer is that of feminism. Not only is the keffieh a symbol for struggle, it also symbolizes Arabic machismo, and she embroidered it with female hair to give Arab women a voice and presence.

SONYA CLARK - PEARL OF MOTHER

Using human hair and other unconventional materials, Sonya Clark explores family, cultural resilience, and the slave trade. According to the artist, hair is the first fiber art form. In her Hair collection, hair is formed into markers of chronology, wisdom, and adornment. “Pearl of Mother,” a tiny round perfect pale sphere of the artist’s mother’s hair, resting in a hand-shaped cradle built of the artist’s own, like a tiny animal sleeping safely in a nest. There is a poignancy to this work small in size but huge in consequence that is almost unbearable to witness. In replacing the standard materials used to form the tools of subjugation, Clark subverts the intentions of the abductors by rendering the tools, in their new construction, useless; this takes the power away from those who would use it poorly, and is restorative to behold. But the usage of the body’s own materials nourishes the soul. 

MAN'S CEREMONIAL TUNIC

Man's ceremonial tunic from the Oku people made of cotton and human hair from around the 1900s. The Oku people or the Aku Marabout or Aku Mohammedans are an ethnic group in Sierra Leone and the Gambia, primarily the descendants of educated, liberated Muslim Yorubas from Southwest Nigeria, who were released from slave ships and resettled in Sierra Leone as Liberated Africans or came as settlers in the mid-19th century.

CHIRIBAYA TEXTILE

One of the textiles in the Maiman Collection is a long band that has been attributed to the Chiribaya Culture (1000-1350 AD), a group of Tiwanaku descendants that settled in an oasis of the Moquegua Desert in southern Peru, and in the Azapa Valley near Arica in northern Chile. The textile technique used is a complementary warp, meaning that both sides are identical but the design is reversed. Black human hair forms the image on a white cotton net. There is no precedent for the use of human hair strands as a complementary warp in such a long textile piece. A repeating image occurs along the length of the band that has been interpreted as a segmented anthropomorphic female figure. The head bears a typical female headdress, the upper body is depicted with three parallel lines and includes breasts, and the lower body displays female sexual organs. 

HOPI SQUASH BLOSSOM HAIRSTYLE

Hopi people are descended from the Ancient “Pueblo Peoples”, known for constructing America’s first pre-historic high-rise apartment complexes. The impressive look is called the “squash blossom whorl”, a traditional hairstyle for unmarried girls. At the onset of puberty, historically young girls went through challenging initiation ceremonies, marked by a day of grinding corn at the paternal grandmother’s house. She would receive a new name and assume the squash blossom hairstyle, the sign of marriageability and fertility. The symbolic side arrangements aren’t actually buns, they’re more loops of hair. To make this hairdo, a young woman’s mother winds her hair around a curved piece of wood to give it a round shape, then remove the wood frame. Today, the distinctive Hopi squash blossom hairstyle is rarely seen outside of religious and cultural events. While the Hopi people now primarily live on a large reservation in northeast Arizona the tribe still maintains their traditional way of life in one of the oldest continuously inhabited villages within the territory of the United States. Old Oraibi is one of four original Hopi villages, and one of the last to resist the adoption of modern American culture. Having resisted persecution by the Spanish colonialists and later pressured to assimilate by the American government.

MEDIEVAL NUBIAN TEXTILES

Textiles recovered from Kulubnarti cemeteries largely consisted of fragments whose original form or function remains unrecognizable and it seems that rags or garments no longer deemed serviceable for the living were reused to wrap the deceased. Within the late Nubian textile assemblage of the Scandinavian Joint Expedition, “the fact that the shrouds were often made of several pieces of cloth which were sewn together to produce a sufficient length and width to envelop the body seems to indicate that the cloths were not specially woven for funerary purposes. Among the collection of Kulubnarti cemetery, textiles are three that are worthy of special comment due to their unusual nature; they were woven out of human hair. They are roughly of the same size, made of various shades of dark brown hair, woven in plain weave with S-spun threads, and have raised, fibrous faces. There are minor differences in the finishing and construction of the selvedges and edges with one being finished with a cord while the other two with fringing.

MONGOLIAN YURTS

Yurts have an extremely long history dating back over 8,000 years. Mongolian tribes were nomadic, meaning they regularly upped and moved their homes throughout the year. This need to be constantly on the move inspired the traditional Mongolian yurts. Essentially, they needed a home that they could dismantle and place on the back of animals to chosen destinations throughout Eurasia. Materials were an essential factor to consider. Although they may seem temporary, these homes were the Mongolians’ permanent dwellings; therefore, they needed to be sturdy, weatherproof, and durable. Ancient dwellers traditionally lived in a wooden yurt, where the interior walls were woven together using animal hair or leather and also human hair. This woven wood would make up the lattice effect walls of the wooden yurt, which they then covered with fabric. The fabrics the nomads would cover them with were usually animal hide or wool or human hair felt - a fabric because it acted as a fantastic insulator against the freezing temperatures during winter.

UNIBROWS, EPITOME OF BEAUTY

In Ancient Greece, unibrows were the epitome of beauty and signified intelligence, so women scrambled to fill in their arches. For those that wanted a more authentic feel, they would create little brow wigs made out of goat hair and paste them on with tree resin.

PLUCKED HAIRLINE

The Middle Ages' beauty trend involved shaving off the eyebrows completely and plucking the hairline way up, so the forehead was massive. Which made the women look more like a baby's head, which resulted in a pure and innocent look. 

DENNIS RODMAN

Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, Dennis Rodman's hair arguably became more of a talking point than his work on court as part of the Chicago Bulls basketball team. Week after week Rodman would emerge from the changing room onto the court rocking a different shade, pattern or look. In the years before social media, Rodman both showed his alliance and created awareness for the HIV/aids epidemic that struck the gay community in the 1990s by dyeing the aids ribbon into his hair. Rodman famously said, “I felt like calling attention to aids. I had the aids ribbon coloured into my hair during the playoffs in 1995.” We stan.

HAIRY MARY

Mary Magdalene was this figure from the Gospels which caused a headache to the generations of popes. From the beginning she was associated with a nameless penitent woman, who previously having been a prostitute, converted and followed Christ. As the Gospel does not mention her name, she was a perfect character for preachers, an example of penitence, but also an explanation why women are not to be given full rights in the Church: because they are sinful. The legend has it that having witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion and his resurrection, Mary Magdalene went to live an ascetic solitary life on a desert, praying and fasting. She did not care about any mundane objects, including her clothes, so she wore the same veils until they wore off and fell apart. To protect her modesty, her bodily hair miraculously grew in abundance. 

IRANIANS PROTEST

Amid protests across Iran, many women in the country have adopted the political symbolism of cutting their hair — at once a statement against oppression and the rules of compulsory hijab for women, and an act of defiance in honor of Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s modesty laws. The protests that erupted across Iran on Sept. 16. 2022 have been led by women encompassing broad cross-sections of Iranian society — and quickly tapped into wider discontent over women’s rights and government corruption. The Norway-based nonprofit Iran Human Rights estimates that at least 154 people have been killed during the protests. Hundreds more have been arrested in violent crackdowns.

SLAVE TRADERS

Slave traders shaved the heads of all African people they captured—the first step in a process of systemic culture and identity erasure. During the transatlantic slave trade, an estimated 12 million African men, women and children were kidnapped and sold into slavery. One of the first things the slave traders did to the people they captured was shave off their hair. Considering the strong spiritual and cultural importance of hair in Africa, it was a particularly dehumanizing act, intended to strip away their connection to their cultures. When their hair grew back, they no longer had access to the herbal treatments, oils and combs from their homeland. Hair that was once was once a source of pride and expression of identity was often tucked away beneath cloth to cover rough, tangled tresses and shield them from hours spent toiling under the sun. With limited tools and time to care for their hair, people got creative with what they had at their disposal—relying on bacon grease, butter and kerosene as conditioners, cornmeal as dry shampoo and sheep fleece carding tools as combs.

MAKING CURLS

According to the Denver Public Library, the number of beauty parlors in the United States jumped 800 percent from the 1920s to the 1930s. What was all the fuss about? Waves, of course! To achieve the perfect curls, people tried all sorts of things: comb and finger waving - these were some nice air-dry methods, marcelling - which included the use of high-heat curling “tongs” and chemicals. 

104 HAIR STYLE

According to a study, women change their hairstyles as many as 104 times, on average, throughout their lives. Conversely the majority of men only change their hairstyle three times in their adult life. 

GOLD IN HAIR

HAIR WARM WEATHER

The sun and heat do enhance hair growth. Human hair grows faster during the summer by about 10% compared to hair growth during the colder weather. When the weather is warm, the body doesn’t need to work as hard to keep the internal organs warm. As opposed to the winter season, people experience cold hands and feet because blood pools around the torso to keep the essential organs warm and function optimally. Blood flow is relatively more efficient during the summer season, making blood circulate easily into other areas of the body. Increased blood flow equals more blood getting to the scalp, and increased nutrients to the scalp mean slightly faster hair growth.