Shedded hair collectors - how do you sort them?

[BittSweetCherry]

Hi guys,

I've been seeing a few references to collecting loose hairs for rat's nests/braid accents/dye tests, and I've been collecting all my brush contents for almost a year. I know that many of them are short and will be discarded, but I think I have enough to start doing something with them.

The problem is: how on earth do I sort them? Please, please tell me there's an easier way than extracting one hair at a time and laying them all flat! Is there a good method for straightening out "balls" of clumped hair for sorting?

[SimplyViki]

Well, if you want you can check out this thread:
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...ad.php?t=23616
That's the one that got me started.
I tried detangling a small ball of hair, and gave up pretty quickly (it's incredible how hard hair will hang onto other hairs, isn't it?).
Lately what I've been doing is just keeping them all lined up to begin with... I stick them to my shower wall during a wash all lined up neatly, roots up, ends down. I have a little folded piece of tape, sticky-side out, stuck to the wall in my bathroom, and when I comb out my hair, I stick the roots of each of the long ones to the piece of tape.
I don't have a whole lot yet, so I haven't gotten to a huge storage problem, so what I've been doing is wetting the strand/lock to hold it all together (and defy any waves that pop up and threaten to tangle the whole thing up, coiling it very loosely, and placing it carefully in an envelope, with the roots end carefully separated from the coil, so that when I come back to it, I can grab all the roots at once without disturbing the rest of the coil.

[Heavenly Locks]

Before my husband accidentally 'cleaned up' my collection, it was stuck to a piece of double sided tape on the wall in the bathroom. I comb so I don't get 'wads' I just sweep the hairs off with my hand and sort of drop them in the sink. After I finish putting my hair up, I pick them up one at a time (discarding the shorties) and stick them by their root ends to the tape.

Seems like one at a time is pretty much the only way. :shrug:

[ilovelonghair]

It took me half a year to collect a tiny strand... say a lot about my shedding hehe. I still didn't do anything with it yet except for a dye experiment that didn't work. I want to turn it into a clip in braid with interwoven beads.
How I collected them: I used to pull apart the shed hairs a bit and then grap the bit in the middle, mostly about 5 hairs pull them out of the bunch and than would chose one end to look for roots so I could align them.

[Peter]

I just take my shed hairs one by one in my left hand, and keep adding to it with my right. I try to get the roots lined up fairly closely, then once I've got a decent amount, I twist the roots to get the tips to stick out (sort of like S&D to get your ends to stick out). This way I can get most of the hairs aligned within about a half inch of each other, which is good enough for me.

I "store" the hairs with a piece of tape on my desk. I have some shed hairs on the corner, and whenever I have some time I detangle a bunch and stick them to the tape.

Hope this helps!

[missmandy]

I didn't know people saved their shedded hairs.... Well, I guess you learn something new every day! :D