Hair around the house - gross!

[WaterMusic]

So, my SO is usually the one to empty the vacuum filter, but I ended up doing it this time. It was so disgusting. I tried to dump it out, but it was held together by a ton of my hairs so I had to reach in and break it up. I have a new appreciation for him now.

What are some of the other negative household consequences of being a long hair, other than the well known and utterly disgusting hair clump in the drain? Do you think some of these would be prevented by wearing updos around the house too? I usually do, but I wear my hair down in the house sometimes.

[jacqueline101]

I'm afraid to look in my vacuum the way my hair has been shedding.

[Amber_Maiden]

I wear my hair up most of the time, and it seems to have cut back on the shedding around the house... But I still clog up my skink and shoer drains... And sometimes it still gets into my cooking. I also have to be careful when I brush because sometimes the hair doesn't go onto the brush, but onto the floor/couch/bed, etc...

[Mairéad]

I have yet to find large quantities of my hair around. Granted, it's short, but I know it has a below average shed rate.

But, my roommate. Oh, Lord. Have mercy. I don't understand how she isn't bald yet. She has thick, coarse, black hair and sometimes it looks like the floor is moving (hairs moving around in the draft). This normally doesn't bother me because; well, everyone sheds! But it's the fact that she doesn't feel it's a need to clean it up and I get stuck with that job.

Ok, so that's quite an exaggeration but it's more hair than I've ever seen one person shed. To be honest I think she's a little malnourished.

[weddy]

Before my haircut, I didn't actually shed around the house even when I didn't put my hair up, probably because my curls locked the loose hairs in until I brushed. But now that I'm shoulder length, I have to remember to put my hair up when cooking, or else one will end up in our food! I'm thinking of learning to crochet so I can make a snood attached to a pretty headband to match an apron ^_^

[HairFaerie]

When my hair was BSL+, I had "mow the carpet" first before I vacuumed. I would put on my tennis shoes and scrape the carpet to retrieve handfuls of shed hair before I would actually vacuum in order to keep it from tangling up the beater brush on the vacuum cleaner! Of course I could never get ALL of the hair, so I would have to give the vacuum cleaner a haircut periodically! AGH!

The other negative thing I can think of is hair getting in food while cooking/serving it. I mean, that can happen at any length but there's something just a little more gross about pulling a three foot long hair out of your soup! Ewwwww!

Which reminds of a story that happened recently. Me & my SO went to a buffet. There were several women in there that looked like they had just got back from church (they were dressed like it). They had tailbone length hair. Well, my SO was eating his salad and he got a funny look on his face. He said "I think I just swallowed a massive hair!" The rest of the evening, every time he thought of it, he would dry heave! I couldn't help but giggle because of his over dramatization!

[lajsa]

The drain. Oh God, the drain. I was doing a deep treatment the other day, and since I accidentally put too much water in it, I couldn't leave the bathroom despite my fashionable plastic wrap, so I spent some time reading old newspapers and frowning at the drain because it took so long to let the water out of the tub. At last, I decided that I'd better do something useful with my time, so I peered down the Drain of Doom.

And pulled out a HUGE RED HAIRBALL CONSISTING OF ALMOST ONLY MY HAIR. Despite the fact that we're five people using the same bathtub. It was disgusting. All... slimy and yucky and I think I flushed a spider down that drain a week earlier and oh god what if it's dead body was in that hairball and I panicked and flung it into the trash can. :p
Also, I got the explanation to why the bathroom smelled oddly like nail-polish remover for over a day after I removed my polish. The hairball smelled kind of like it. shudder:

[Grillz]

In high school I had a friend with knee-length hair. I remember going to a pool party with her and a bunch of friends and I swam into a clump of loooong hair. It got all wrapped around my arms haha

[Madora]

Wearing your hair up definitely helps keep it from falling!

Brushing or combing it well daily also helps a lot.

Yes, count me as one of the folks who loathe taking their brush attachment off the roller and digging out all the hairs. The beater brush itself isn't hard to clean...it's the parts that are on the side of the brush that are tiresome. My hair seems to gravitate to both ends, for some reason, and I have to use a box cutter tip to cut thru the "necklace" of hair wound around both spots.

[kaiakai]

I had to declog my vacuum of my hair the other day. I notice my hair the most in the shower, and I think I had, up until the vacuum incident, denied the inevitable fact of my hair being everywhere.
I do wear my hair up a lot, so maybe it's not as bad as it could be.

[uptosomeone]

The drain. Oh God, the drain. I was doing a deep treatment the other day, and since I accidentally put too much water in it, I couldn't leave the bathroom despite my fashionable plastic wrap, so I spent some time reading old newspapers and frowning at the drain because it took so long to let the water out of the tub. At last, I decided that I'd better do something useful with my time, so I peered down the Drain of Doom.

And pulled out a HUGE RED HAIRBALL CONSISTING OF ALMOST ONLY MY HAIR. Despite the fact that we're five people using the same bathtub. It was disgusting. All... slimy and yucky and I think I flushed a spider down that drain a week earlier and oh god what if it's dead body was in that hairball and I panicked and flung it into the trash can. :p
Also, I got the explanation to why the bathroom smelled oddly like nail-polish remover for over a day after I removed my polish. The hairball smelled kind of like it. shudder:

You write how I think! It's hilarious! Complete with spider disgust. :D

[WaterMusic]

I was re-checking to see if my hairs were F or M. I was going to grab one of the hairs on my head to check, when I realized that I should just look around and I would probably find one that wasn't attached to me. I found several. :P

[Malibu Barbie]

It gets everywhere including, weaved through the fabric of clothes after they're washed.

[katsrevenge]

I usually lightly broom over the carpets before vacuuming. It picks up a lot of hair on the bristles which means I have to take the vacuum apart less! (Mine is a PITB. Like Madora, my hair goes to the sides and if I don't take the thing apart I don't get all the hair. If I miss hair I get the god awful stench of burning hair and rubber. Gak.)

[kaiakai]

The drain. Oh God, the drain. I was doing a deep treatment the other day, and since I accidentally put too much water in it, I couldn't leave the bathroom despite my fashionable plastic wrap, so I spent some time reading old newspapers and frowning at the drain because it took so long to let the water out of the tub. At last, I decided that I'd better do something useful with my time, so I peered down the Drain of Doom.

And pulled out a HUGE RED HAIRBALL CONSISTING OF ALMOST ONLY MY HAIR. Despite the fact that we're five people using the same bathtub. It was disgusting. All... slimy and yucky and I think I flushed a spider down that drain a week earlier and oh god what if it's dead body was in that hairball and I panicked and flung it into the trash can. :p
Also, I got the explanation to why the bathroom smelled oddly like nail-polish remover for over a day after I removed my polish. The hairball smelled kind of like it. shudder:

Hahahahah! I'm always afraid of grabbing a house centipede when I pull my hair out of the drain. I'm not too squeamish when it comes to insects, but... ughh.. to grab one when I'm not expecting it... {shudder}... yeah....

[lajsa]

@ arachnophobia:

I was almost more disgusted by the idea of finding a spider than the idea of pulling out this huge chunk of slimy dead hair. :p I still remember when I flushed down that spider... I saw it climbing along the shower curtain, had this oh crap moment, grabbed some paper to try and murder it, but I accidentally got it on my hand and started screaming and sort of flapping around until it fell into the bathtub and I flushed it down with a hundred litres of hot water, hyperventilating and not daring to stop pouring water until I was absolutely sure it was dead. Then I spent my whole shower staring at the drain to make sure it didn't return to get its revenge.

I don't like spiders, can you tell? :p I don't like any insects really but I'm usually not bothered unless they're inside the house because who knows if they might jump at me and try to throttle me or something? I got a bee in through my window this summer; I spent an hour yelling in panic, running away and not daring to return until my dad had gone into my room to get it out. I was rather... jumpy the rest of the day, because he said it was already gone when he went in there but maybe it was just hiding, waiting for me to return... shudder:

[Asequui]

@ arachnophobia:

I was almost more disgusted by the idea of finding a spider than the idea of pulling out this huge chunk of slimy dead hair. :p I still remember when I flushed down that spider... I saw it climbing along the shower curtain, had this oh crap moment, grabbed some paper to try and murder it, but I accidentally got it on my hand and started screaming and sort of flapping around until it fell into the bathtub and I flushed it down with a hundred litres of hot water, hyperventilating and not daring to stop pouring water until I was absolutely sure it was dead. Then I spent my whole shower staring at the drain to make sure it didn't return to get its revenge.

I don't like spiders, can you tell? :p I don't like any insects really but I'm usually not bothered unless they're inside the house because who knows if they might jump at me and try to throttle me or something? I got a bee in through my window this summer; I spent an hour yelling in panic, running away and not daring to return until my dad had gone into my room to get it out. I was rather... jumpy the rest of the day, because he said it was already gone when he went in there but maybe it was just hiding, waiting for me to return... shudder:


LMAO!
I have the same sort of reactions to spiders and flying/stinging insects. I Cannot Stand Them!
Now, I'll kill a spider, depending on how large and Eat-Your-Face it looks. But wasps and bees? Nuh uh! Nope! Not gonna happen! You wanna see drop everything I'm doing and run screaming like a little girl? Get me near a wasp or bee.

Here's another creepy one: we have these HUGE water bugs in TX that can fly. Ugh! *shudder* And they will crawl up out of the drain or faucet. ICK! :shudder:

So, I go into my bathroom a few days ago, sit on the commode, and happen to glance into the tub. And there's one on it's back in the tub. Yikes! :shocked:

So I grabbed some toilet tissue (a huge gob of it because I am NOT touching that!) and minced back to it only to have it right itself as I was leaning over it.
I yelped, dropped the wad of paper on it, and grabbed the nearest bottle of conditioner and beat the crap out of the wad of paper with the bottom of it; all the while making sounds like "ugh!" "ick!" "blech!". I'm sure my downstairs neighbors were wondering just what in hell I was doing.

I flipped over the paper only to see the terrible thing still kicking one of it's many legs. Freaked out, flipped paper over, beat on it more and cussed more at it.

Then picked up the paper with two fingers, holding it way out from my body, and flushed it down the toilet. Twice.

Now I still eye the drain and faucet while in the shower and still check the toilet before I sit down. :lol:

[julliams]

I honestly don't have a problem with this. I think I do most of my shedding when I brush (it's in the brush and I clean it out each time I use it) and in the shower (there are some little hairballs around which I forget to clean each time - lol). Apart from that I only really find hair in the car.

[PaganPriestess]

Between me & my two cats, my house is one giant hairball. We often find hair in food, or floating in the tub, or everywhere lol Oh well. Such is life!

[tarn]

My mum always complained about my hair shedding on her white tiles - Now that I'm older with my own home and my own white tiles, it doesn't seem that bad and has me wondering why she complained so much?

[Athena's Owl]

I read an interview with diana ross where she pulled a stray hair off the chair and said, "you can always tell where Diana Ross has been." TOO TRUE. I shed hair all over the place. and I have to give my beater brushes a haricut every time. that's just the facts.

[slipperlady]

So much of my hair is all around the house that if I gathered it all up, I'm sure I could knit a dog with it!

[Alaia]

Lol yeah I have to trim the beater on the hoover very often.

And that's even with the "Hair Gathering Dance" that I do beforehand on the carpet.

[Violettwin]

I sometimes end up with loose hair in my crochet projects (i mean actually crocheted in!)- a bit annoying as its hard to get rid of!I now wear a headscarf when doing crochet (it completes the granny look well I feel!) x

[bna_rapunzel]

My DH ended up plunging my bathtub, and doing some other odd plumbing work in our old house because it got to the point that my tub just quit draining. Ew!! No amount of drain o could break the clog.

So now I have a furry shower. I take all shed hair and it ends up plastered to the wall so it doesn't go down the drain.

My hair just ends up everywhere... but I tend to wear braids a lot so that helps. :)

[Jemoiselle]

Hilarious thread! I just about lost it when the spider talk started :D When my hair was TB I used to absolutely freak out in the shower when a hair would half shed (hanging town half attached if you will) and slightly touch the back of my knees without me knowing it was a hair! I usually ended up getting startled thrashing and yelling thinking it was a spider, instinctively slapping my my legs to "get it off" haha! I totally sympathize with the "spider in bathtub" trauma! Why do they feel the need to do that? Gah!

[Rybe]

My husband and I join forces to create the Long Hairs: Destroyer of Vacuums.

Seriously, the eventual smell of burning rubber has become part of the routine whenever we vacuum. So we have to stop and cut the hair free which is both nasty and tedious and makes us want to vacuum even less...which probably makes the whole situation worse. At least the non-carpeted rooms are easy to de-hair! Brooms don't mind...And it's not like we have a totally cheap vacuum either.

We, however, don't do that terrible of things to our shower, oddly enough. We've only had to de-hair the drain once in our year and a half of living here. I thought we had to again just recently, but eventually discovered someone (me, him, one of the cats? Who knows) stepped on the shower plug so it was half way down. Drainage problem solved! We did however have a plugging incident with our bathroom sink, which is BIZZARE since neither of us washes our hair in the sink. I don't even know how it all got in there...

[feb26]

lol I love your title...destroyer of vacuums!!
So glad someone started this thread...my loose hairs go inside my clothes, in my bra, hubby has woken up with hair twined round his privates...and I sweep the floor once a week to rid it of loose hair (in bedroom) prior to vacuuming. We've broken enough vacuum belts that we now buy em in multiples;)

O & the other day, i had a loose bit (20 hairs came loose, i didn't brush that day but was fingerbrushing hair), I rolled it up, dropped it on the floor (was right in middle of BIG PROJECT), my cat came along & thought it was a mouse toy!! She had a delightful few minutes with it!

[WaterMusic]

My husband and I join forces to create the Long Hairs: Destroyer of Vacuums.

Seriously, the eventual smell of burning rubber has become part of the routine whenever we vacuum. So we have to stop and cut the hair free which is both nasty and tedious and makes us want to vacuum even less...which probably makes the whole situation worse. At least the non-carpeted rooms are easy to de-hair! Brooms don't mind...And it's not like we have a totally cheap vacuum either.

We, however, don't do that terrible of things to our shower, oddly enough. We've only had to de-hair the drain once in our year and a half of living here. I thought we had to again just recently, but eventually discovered someone (me, him, one of the cats? Who knows) stepped on the shower plug so it was half way down. Drainage problem solved! We did however have a plugging incident with our bathroom sink, which is BIZZARE since neither of us washes our hair in the sink. I don't even know how it all got in there...

Do you brush your hair over the sink? I do, and I end up collecting a bunch of the suckers afterwards.

[Melodere]

Ahhh, yes. I have white tile as well. Ugh!

I bake a LOT, so I wear my hair up pretty much every day. (I bake at home, not a bakery, but still.. ew!) In fact, I wore it down to a family thing and everyone was like "where the HECK did all that hair come from?" haha!! But I still have a lot of hair to tackle.

I sell Norwex, LOVE the stuff. I use the drain cleaner regularly... it's more of a maintenance product than a de-clog product. I also use the microfiber mop on all my wood/tile floors, it's amazing. Seriously. LOVE it!

I have a Rainbow vacuum, so no roller to pick at usually. There IS a piece with a roller, but most of our floors are hard and the little bit of carpet/rug isn't enough to be a pain. I also have a small Shark powered sweeper vac I use daily. THIS is the one that gets full of hair. The trick though? Seam Ripper!!! Go to a craft store, fabric store, or just walmart and pick up a seam ripper. They are cheap. It's a little tiny 2 pronged fork thing that is sharp inside the curve between the prongs, used to rip out threads/seams. You just use it to cut the hair around the roller. It's smaller than scissors, so it gets in there great.

[ArienEllariel]

I hear you. Nothing has been worse so far than having to remove a hair from both pets' rear ends. I don't know how the dog and cat manage to eat my hair but they do...

Also I've clogged the sink with my hair and my sister's. It grew black mold.. not pretty.

[bbvt]

My hair stops the drain in our bath tub sometimes but I'm too scared to stick my finger and reach in to pull it out... *shivers*

[Asequui]

Hey yall, for those of us who perpetually clog the bathroom drains (raises hand), this thing is A-Friggin-Mazing! (http://www.lowes.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&cId=SEARCH&productId=1038705&cm_mmc=SCE_gps-_-gps-_-gps-_-Cobra%20Zip-It%20Drain%20Cleaning%20Tool&CAWELAID=1024192209) Works wonderfully fast. Only thing to remember: wear gloves and steel your stomachs because the things that come out of the drain are so very NOT pretty.

[wandlimb]

lol I love your title...destroyer of vacuums!!
So glad someone started this thread...my loose hairs go inside my clothes, in my bra, hubby has woken up with hair twined round his privates...and I sweep the floor once a week to rid it of loose hair (in bedroom) prior to vacuuming. We've broken enough vacuum belts that we now buy em in multiples;)


My husband will be glad to know it's not just him! :D

[BlondieHepburn]

...So glad someone started this thread...my loose hairs go inside my clothes, in my bra, hubby has woken up with hair twined round his privates...

My husband will be glad to know it's not just him! :D

Hahaha, when I decided to embark on the journey of growing my hair long, I warned my husband that this would eventually happen to him, but he didn't really think anything of it. Now, however, he thinks of it quite a lot, proclaiming it to me every time, "I found one of your hairs today..." Hehe. Of course, I think it's the funniest thing ever! :happydance:

[pinupdancer]

My mom just had to buy a snake for my bathroom sink last because it was completely clogged, and I don't wash my hair in it. What the heck??

Luckily I've got hardwood floors so the clean up isn't so bad, but I'll be damned if my hair doesn't love to latch onto the clothing/bodies of anyone who comes near me. Oh and ew every time I use the toilet my hair sheds all over the back of the seat/lid. I don't mind swiping it off of my toilet because I clean it regularly but when it happens at my DBF's house I just leave it. lol Not touching that thing.

[GRU]

Hey yall, for those of us who perpetually clog the bathroom drains (raises hand), this thing is A-Friggin-Mazing! (http://www.lowes.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&cId=SEARCH&productId=1038705&cm_mmc=SCE_gps-_-gps-_-gps-_-Cobra%20Zip-It%20Drain%20Cleaning%20Tool&CAWELAID=1024192209) Works wonderfully fast. Only thing to remember: wear gloves and steel your stomachs because the things that come out of the drain are so very NOT pretty.


Before I got the Hair Stopper (http://www.amazon.com/Hair-Stopper-Drain-Protector-Strainer/dp/B003B02L2G) for my shower, I used the Zip-It (only do it about once a year now) and I agree, the thing is awesome! For those who haven't seen one, you can watch this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x_TtfTL4yo) and see how simple it is to use.

[Rybe]

Do you brush your hair over the sink? I do, and I end up collecting a bunch of the suckers afterwards.

No, but I do brush my hair in the bathroom, I guess they make an intrepid journey to the sink :D Our hair brushes live near the sink too, and we're not always the best about cleaning them right away...so...


I hear you. Nothing has been worse so far than having to remove a hair from both pets' rear ends. I don't know how the dog and cat manage to eat my hair but they do...

We have one cat who seems to compulsively eat things that aren't food (had a serious vet scare just this last weekend about it too! But fortunately she's fine and no surgery or anything) we've found all sorts of strange things in the litterbox thanks to her. But whenever she rockets out of the litterbox full speed we know she has a hair she's trying to pass :rolleyes: I don't know if it spooks her or if she thinks going at the speed of light will force it the rest of the way out. I've also never seen a cat do the ass-drag for like 15 feet across the floor before we got her...I've moped more times because of that cat...Sigh. It's a good thing she's so cute the rest of the time :p

[sibiryachka]

I usually lightly broom over the carpets before vacuuming. It picks up a lot of hair on the bristles which means I have to take the vacuum apart less! (Mine is a PITB. Like Madora, my hair goes to the sides and if I don't take the thing apart I don't get all the hair. If I miss hair I get the god awful stench of burning hair and rubber. Gak.)

This, this, this. Our home's title is "The Hair Farm": Two large adults with midback hair, four cats (only one a longhair, thank goodness)... Pre-sweeping makes a huge difference. Thankfully the apartment is small, so it only adds about 5 minutes to the job.

[weddy]

My bathtub no longer gets plugged because I cowash my hair in the bathroom sink, putting my rake over the drain to 1) catch my hairs from going down the drain, and 2) to make it easy to find while combing condish though. I put my condish bottle over the drain while raking. Once I've gelled and plopped with a microfiber towel, I scrape up my shed hairs from the sink.

I have wood, tile, and linoleum floors, so no plugged vacuums. Carpeting makes our sinus problems worse.

[Lightningfury]

I usually lightly broom over the carpets before vacuuming. It picks up a lot of hair on the bristles which means I have to take the vacuum apart less! (Mine is a PITB. Like Madora, my hair goes to the sides and if I don't take the thing apart I don't get all the hair. If I miss hair I get the god awful stench of burning hair and rubber. Gak.)

I have clean the vacumn a dozen times even going in with a little brush and taking the bottom apart but still when ever I vacumn the stench of burning hair fills the room. :confused:

Occiasionally I'll pull clothes out of the dryer that are all connected by hair.

I'm in a new apartment and my first purchase was a hair catcher because I left the last apartment with an enormous clog.

[Quetiepi]

Oh yes, giving the vacuum cleaner a hair cut is part of the housekeeping routine at my house. It's not the most pleasant chore, that's for sure!

[BlondieHepburn]

I just cleaned out my vacuum and I think there was enough hair in there for a whole other head. What a waste. :(

[Lostsoule77]

Lucky for me my tub has a metal screen over the drain. It catches a lot of the hair before it can go down the drain. I'm still tempted to try one of those Zip things though. As for the vacuum my DH does that and he's always complaining about cleaning my hair off the rollers. He does it everytime though so we don't usually get the burning smell. :)

I usually brush my hair in my bedroom or the bathroom so hair everywhere in those rooms makes sense. Somehow though my hair has, multiple times, made it into the livingroom where my DH pulls in out of the filters on our reef tank! I still don't get that one.

[ArienEllariel]

Lucky for me my tub has a metal screen over the drain. It catches a lot of the hair before it can go down the drain. I'm still tempted to try one of those Zip things though.

That's what I have over my drain. The tub's been draining slowly though so I'll probably go get one of the Zip things anyways... I shuddered watching the youtube video on how to use it. Seriously! I thought maybe a little hair ball would come out... not like 4 freakin feet of nasty hairy mess! D:

[Asequui]

Before I got the Hair Stopper (http://www.amazon.com/Hair-Stopper-Drain-Protector-Strainer/dp/B003B02L2G) for my shower, I used the Zip-It (only do it about once a year now) and I agree, the thing is awesome! For those who haven't seen one, you can watch this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x_TtfTL4yo) and see how simple it is to use.

I have that exact same hair catcher!


Lucky for me my tub has a metal screen over the drain. It catches a lot of the hair before it can go down the drain. I'm still tempted to try one of those Zip things though.

I would give it a shot. Even with the afor mentioned hair catcher I still use the zip it about once every few months.


That's what I have over my drain. The tub's been draining slowly though so I'll probably go get one of the Zip things anyways... I shuddered watching the youtube video on how to use it. Seriously! I thought maybe a little hair ball would come out... not like 4 freakin feet of nasty hairy mess! D:

LMAO! Like I said, steel your stomach before you use that thing. The first time I used that on my bathroom sink in my old apartment I pulled out my hair, the previous tenant's hair, and a pencil that the previous tenant somehow managed to get down the drain. :shocked::puke:

[lacefrost]

Yup, I used to find hair EVERYWHERE. Whenever my hair is straight, I just give up and comb it outside. If I try to do my hair inside, I get it everywhere.

When my hair is curly it's less of a problem because I put a grate over the drain and a lot of it sticks to the brush. But after doing shower activities, I have to check every part of me. Sometimes my hair gets caught in my armpits and. . .other places.

[GRU]

I probably should have put a disclaimer/warning on that video, huh? Warning, this will TOTALLY DISGUST YOU or something like that?

Also, make sure you haven't used Drano or other chemicals recently -- the stuff kind of spatters on its way out sometimes, and you don't want that stuff flinging all over you. Same with the smelly black slimy gook. shudder:

[ashleyrox]

Try 3 people with shoulder length or longer hair and 3 corgi's we sweep and vacuum EVERY day and I'm sure Monk would still have a fit about all the hair in our house!

[HintOfMint]

My boyfriend spilled a bit of sauce on my kitchen floor, and I hadn't swept in a while, because when he wiped it up, a mass of long black shed hair came up with the paper towel. His exclamation was priceless:

"Look! A puppy!"

[beccababesx]

Yeah, I never really noticed it before, but I have uni exams at the moment, so I will sit in the same chair for 10 or so hours studying, and when I get up to go to the toilet or go to bed there are strands of hair EVERYWHERE and all around the seat! It's kind of gross but interesting at the same time...

[Longlegs]

My hair ends up everywhere, often wrapped around parts of my husbands body. ;)

[tuanyiji]

I usually comb my hair at home where I can have a safe space to deposit my hair like a bag or a bucket. I never take my hair down outside of my house. I am almost always bunned up in my waking hours. I pick up hair whenever I see one and put it in my phone case when I don’t have anything to hold them. This is the amount of hair I collected today after sweeping the whole floor carefully, I haven’t done spring cleaning in weeks, I even took down the ones tangled among the broom bristles. It’s all in a bucket. I estimate to be over 50 hairs.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002088043714457730/IMG_8559.jpg
This is half the amount of hair I collected from 5 hospitalizations treating my dad’s cancer.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002095489249984552/IMG_8564.jpg
This is the other half of my shed hair which I had sorted by length at 10cm intervals and hand-tied/weaved into hair wefts that would be turned into clip in hair extensions for accent braids and my other hairstyle projects. I know it might seem crazy but I do have a desk designate for my shed hair projects. The colorful gadgets are digital counters, I stuck labels with a measuring tape from 10 to 100cm diagonally because otherwise the longer hair ends will fall to the ground. I tied 10 hairs as a strand, so I don’t get distracted while I am enjoying my funny videos. I installed a ring light for me to distinguish the hair ends and roots.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002096735478362112/IMG_8565.jpg
I smooth out the hair with clean water and they are pretty much obedient, but I braid the wefts so they don’t get tangled up by my electrical fan that’s always blowing when I’m working here. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002098101466701914/IMG_8566.jpg
In case you’re wondering, there are roughly around 30,000 hairs in total. But I think the number will increase when I finish detangling the hair balls as I still shed every day. This will be an endless project since I don’t plan to trim my hair at all.

[lapushka]

Wow. That is an enormous amount of work! Gosh, I don't think I'd have the patience. :)

[tuanyiji]

Wow. That is an enormous amount of work! Gosh, I don't think I'd have the patience. :)

I find detangling hair balls oddly soothing, I usually watch Youtube videos as I do the sorting, I use tiny digital thumb counters so I don’t have to put the number in my mind as I get distracted by the videos.
And looking at the braided wefts, it’s so satisfying that my “babies” are in neat order. They came from my head and they will return to my head, and no one can say they are fake wigs, they are real hair, sourced directly from myself. They are in essence, ME! I’m weirdly proud of this work. lol

[lapis_lazuli]

tuanyiji, wow...I'm so impressed I don't know what to say! I've made one shed plait in my life and it's not even as thick as some in the last photo. I'm also amazed you can detangle strands from those hair balls. When that happened to my collected sheds, I deemed them unsalvageable. Thanks for explaining your process and showing your setup! You should be proud of it :)

[tuanyiji]

tuanyiji, wow...I'm so impressed I don't know what to say! I've made one shed plait in my life and it's not even as thick as some in the last photo. I'm also amazed you can detangle strands from those hair balls. When that happened to my collected sheds, I deemed them unsalvageable. Thanks for explaining your process and showing your setup! You should be proud of it :)
Background: my hairline to end length is 93cm at this point, but around 80cm if I measured from the top of my head instead of my hairline. I'm now shedding less and less thanks to my improved health, but I used to shed 100-300 daily when I was under a lot of pressure, malnutrition, and sleep deprivation while I was taking care of my dad who's fighting cancer. We had 5 hospitalizations in total, spent nearly a year in various hospitals, and finally got cleaned this May.

Being in the cancer ward for such a long time exposed me to a lot of bald patients who were undergoing chemo and this made me cherish my hair a lot more than normal people would do, but I think the long hair folks can relate to the preciousness of hair without any cancerous experience.

But no, I would never donate my hair. I have second-hand experience at the hospital: when you're vomiting your guts out and having serious diarrhea due to the side effects of chemo, a wig is the last thing on your mind, also, even if it's done for sick children, they are often not even cancer patients, just the ones with alopecia or something else, and they'd often have to expose their bald heads and personal information to the public when they apply for the wig, which I find rather weird, and those wigs aren't even free, they still have to pay for a fee, and the wigs can't be recycled. So it's really not worth it. I'd rather donate money directly to medical labs for cancer studies.

At first, I made the mistake of putting all the shed hairs into a small plastic zipper bag (I naively thought I'd use one small bag for each month to see my shed process, but nope, don't ever do that, it only made me choke up with tears) and carrying the bag around as I picked up hair whenever I found one (all my family members deem me a weirdo for this habit), and this constant tossing and squeezing had compacted the hair into a ball.

Later I used a much bigger bag so they were loose, but now I use a bucket (well, a new garbage bin), so when I comb directly above it, the shed hairs just fall loosely in layers, not in tangles, and I sort the daily shed hair as soon as I have time, never give them the chance to tangle up and waste a lot more time to detangle.

Speaking of detangling hairballs, there are indeed some very hard knots to detangle, especially if you're not careful about gently pulling hair out in the beginning. I mainly use two tools, a very thin metal needle to pick the small single knots, and a bigger toothpick-like metal needle with a round wooden handle (I believed it was used to sew shoes at one point).

Inspired by how people who felt (cute animal toys) with various needles to mat the hair fibers together, I reverse-engineer this process, by using this pick to gently spread the hair into a thin disc and pull out hair whenever one loosens up. I also put some oil onto the big knots as lubricants (not water, as the water will soak the hair, making them weaker and more prone to break).

I also sort the hair by different lengths (10cm-100cm at 10cm intervals, the 10cm+ group means hair between the length of 10cm and 19.9cm) and hand-tie them whenever I get 10 hairs of a similar length. This way I don't need to use plastic ties to hold the root heads and distort the hair again and again.


The reason I sort the hair by length is simple:

First, to see exactly what categories my shed hairs fall into, and which one is the largest, which one is the smallest. So far, the 20-40cm groups ( which are in the middle tier) have the most hairs, with each category containing more or less 5,000 hairs, they amount to over 15,000 hairs. There are only a dozen hairs over 70cm, a little over 500 60cm+ hairs, and nearly 3,000 50cm+ hairs, and over 4,000 10cm+hairs. I still have a lot of hair balls to sort so the total number will definitely pass 30,000 hairs when I'm done.

Second, as for my Chinese traditional hairstyles, I'd need different lengths of wefts for different buns and loops, the shortest 10cm wefts will be sewed onto the edges of hair bumps so as to prop up the areas near my ears for a more "prestigious" look without showing my thinning hairline, I also plan to use the 20cm wefts as fake bangs when the style requires it.

Third, for my modern hairstyle tutorials, I can use the extension to get a nice volume for demonstrating different braiding techniques, because, let's face it, black hair doesn't show very well on camera unless you do close-scalp plaiting (which I won't), and with bigger sections, things will be shown more clearly for the teaching.

This is a very slow process, that's why I need to watch so many videos.

I hope this will help anyone who's interested in collecting shed hair and detangling hairballs and making their own wigs/extensions/wefts.

I will update more on the subject whenever I learn more tips from this process.

[thatsideoflife]

Woww tuanyiji! It makes me feel better about the shed balls I collected during postpartum shed. How long did it take you to collect 30,000 hairs?

[foreveryours]

That's amazing *tuanyiji*.

My own collection since Sunday and since the first of the year after each "tuft" is weighed

https://forums.longhaircommunity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=47506&d=1659039398

Two questions:

1) What do you do with the "sheds" you find with no root (a broken piece)? Do you discard it or include it in your organized wefts?
2) When was the last time you cut your hair?

[Gibson_Girl]

This isn't necessarily "around the house" (although I've been known to attack the vacuum's carpet brush with a pair of scissors to get the hair off), but after my last trim I kept the bedraggled tassel I'd snipped off and stashed it in an old tin (God only knows why), and promptly forgot about it. Fast forward a few months, and I found the tin again while cleaning, opened it--and then screamed before realizing what it was...and then giggled once I remembered. Then, instead of throwing the tassel away, I popped it back in the tin and kept cleaning, so we know this is going to happen at least a couple more times :)

[RadioactiveLily]

Tuanyiji, I admire your patience and dedication to collect and save all your shed hair like that! Neat to see people preserving a nearly lost art. As for me, there's many times I've contemplated the shed ball I pulled out of my brush, only to throw it away. Maybe someday the time it takes to do something like this won't be overwhelming to me.

As for my hair "around the house"... I regularly have to cut it off the vacuum roller. It also gets rolled up around the wheels of my kids toys. My husband many times has found my hairs inside his clothes, even his underwear. I have little shed balls that roll up on the clothes in the dryer. These shed balls have been known to scare my kids, because I missed one after folding laundry, and they thought it was a spider from a distance LOL.

[spidermom]

I don't have the kind of brain to pick up and save shed hairs; it's so weird to me! It would be like collecting scabs or shed skin cells - ewwwwwwwwww! Now I'm strictly talking about what my brain says to me. It only applies to me. I'm not saying anybody else is yucky for saving their shed hairs.

It's just ... I don't care how many there are, I don't care how long they are, I don't care what they look like. Once shed = garbage.

[tuanyiji]

Woww tuanyiji! It makes me feel better about the shed balls I collected during postpartum shed. How long did it take you to collect 30,000 hairs?
Thank you, motherhood must be hard on hair.
5 hospitalizations were spent in a span of nearly 10 months. I collected shed hairs both in the hospital and at home. I kind of suspect my collection has passed 40,000 at this point but I will have to completely detangle the largest hairball to find out, it might take me over a month.


That's amazing *tuanyiji*.

My own collection since Sunday and since the first of the year after each "tuft" is weighed

https://forums.longhaircommunity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=47506&d=1659039398

Two questions:

1) What do you do with the "sheds" you find with no root (a broken piece)? Do you discard it or include it in your organized wefts?
2) When was the last time you cut your hair?
Thank you so much.
lol I see you have a bucket for hair as well, that huge bag of blonde hair looks like someone who’s ready to felt:)
To answer your question:
1) If I find a hair without a root, I use my fingers to rub it up and down, the shaft is naturally covered by tiny cuticles overlaying each:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002351974190162021/IMG_8577.jpg
So if the rubbing feels smooth, it’s the right way down, if it feels rough and even has a tiny squeaky sound, it’s the wrong way (upside down). Also, even if I did it wrong, when I gather 10 hairs and twist them together to tie on the sewing threads, the wronged hair would always gets pushed back for some mechanical reason (I don’t know, like a little reverse gear that doesn’t fit among the rest), and I always find it out and readjust it.

I only collect shed hairs that are over 10cm long, if it’s too short, it can’t be weaved or hand-tied, and it’s often baby hairs that are too thin, they are not good weaving materials to begin with, I still put them into a specific bag, I intend to turn them into a hair rat with a hairnet wrapping around it in the future.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002351311901167658/IMG_8576.jpg
Traditional Chinese hair rats have various shapes and curves, so sometimes metal wires are placed inside to make them flexible yet solid. I can customize them to fit my head shape, here’s a rough idea of what I’m going to make, the pics are from an online shop:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002365464338501663/IMG_8582.png
Here you can see two loops/twists can be turned into various shapes for different styles, quite versatile, isn’t it?

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002354202112172072/IMG_8579.png
These extensions are made of fake plastic hairs, they are not expensive as one single piece, but will still cost a small fortune to get that many, and they are unnaturally shiny and jet black, so they often don’t match with real people’s natural hair color, if I use my own hair, there won’t be any mismatch.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002368913738321980/IMG_8583.png
Since Hanfu and traditional Chinese hairstyles are getting more and more popular nowadays, there are also many pre-made hair bands that can help you "cheat" effortlessly with cute styles.

But of course, the real skill lies in what you can do with the hair that’s attached to your scalp, that’s why I’m keeping my hair as long as possible without trimming, I want to prove that traditional Chinese hairstyle can be done on your own hair without extensions and will make tutorials to enlighten the other.

2) I honestly can’t remember the last time my mom trimmed my ends, I started gardening seriously back in 2017, and I only recall I dumped those hair ends into the compost pile… so it was probably 2018, definitely before the pandemic.




Tuanyiji, I admire your patience and dedication to collect and save all your shed hair like that! Neat to see people preserving a nearly lost art. As for me, there's many times I've contemplated the shed ball I pulled out of my brush, only to throw it away. Maybe someday the time it takes to do something like this won't be overwhelming to me.

Thank you dear.
I only use very simple wooden combs with wide teeth, this way shed hairs naturally fall down instead of tangling among the teeth. And they greatly reduce mechanical friction. I don’t use brushes with bristles as those easily hoard hairs among the tines and it’s a pain to look at and to take down the sheds.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002360240781672488/IMG_8581.jpg
Notice the half moon-shaped ones? They are not just combs, they are also accessories for traditional hairstyles.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002374533908541520/IMG_8584.jpg
And as for the massage combs… well, we Chinese are obsessed with those. Good wooden crafts can be very pricey too.


I don't have the kind of brain to pick up and save shed hairs; it's so weird to me! It would be like collecting scabs or shed skin cells - ewwwwwwwwww! Now I'm strictly talking about what my brain says to me. It only applies to me. I'm not saying anybody else is yucky for saving their shed hairs.

It's just ... I don't care how many there are, I don't care how long they are, I don't care what they look like. Once shed = garbage.

I completely understand this, I used to think of shed hairs and trimmed nails the same way, but I guess being cooped in the hospital during the pandemic really changed my view on many things and made me look at shed hairs a different way. Since I became obsessed with plaiting and hairstyles in those difficult times, I watched quite a lot of traditional Chinese hairstyle tutorials and documentaries, I found out it was actually a very common practice for my ancestors to collect shed hairs and turn them into extension/wefts this way, I was like, well, I’m just doing what has been hidden in my DNA after all, so I’m now doing it with confidence. My family members are getting used to my weird habit now, they don’t even complain anymore, after all, with me constantly checking for hairs on the floor, I make sure the bathroom is always squeaky clean, and who doesn’t want that? lol.

As for collecting garbage, you hit it right on the bull's eye since I'm a very devoted gardener, I compost almost all organic matter in the house, such as kitchen scraps, garden waste, lawn trimmings, chicken and pigeon manure... I even have a few composting toilets, this post is getting pungent, I know, I used to compost hair trims as well. So hair is a relatively easy and scentless one to pick up.

[foreveryours]

LOL, that's only "one" bag. I've got last year's when I started my project in earnest and a huge ball from before that. Wouldn't all fit in one picture.

I'll have to check that strand test out, see what kind of tone I can make with mine

One of the things I've definitely noticed about "hair around the house" as my hair has gotten longer (I pick them up as I see them and put them in the can, takes essentially zero effort so I've no issue with vacuum cleaners anymore) is in particular "hair in the shower". I used to get wads accumulating in my shower drain strainer. But that was when I had much shorter hair. Now I pull very little from the strainer after washing, maybe a pea-size wad tightly rolled up, that's it! Sheds don't rinse out easily from the rest of my hair. I comb all those out after it dries, and the extent from a single wash is basically what's in my coffee can (Wednesday).

[tuanyiji]

LOL, that's only "one" bag. I've got last year's when I started my project in earnest and a huge ball from before that. Wouldn't all fit in one picture.

I'll have to check that strand test out, see what kind of tone I can make with mine

One of the things I've definitely noticed about "hair around the house" as my hair has gotten longer (I pick them up as I see them and put them in the can, takes essentially zero effort so I've no issue with vacuum cleaners anymore) is in particular "hair in the shower". I used to get wads accumulating in my shower drain strainer. But that was when I had much shorter hair. Now I pull very little from the strainer after washing, maybe a pea-size wad tightly rolled up, that's it! Sheds don't rinse out easily from the rest of my hair. I comb all those out after it dries, and the extent from a single wash is basically what's in my coffee can (Wednesday).


I collect hair by putting my hair ends above a big bag/bucket as I comb gently, and when I do my weekly hair wash (Sunday), I do it while standing upright in a big water bucket (I don't have a bathtub) and use the shower head to rinse, so most of the sheds slip into the bucket and float to the surface and it's easy to scoop up. (Also, for the Chinese, it is considered very good for your health to soak your feet in warm water for at least 10 minutes a day, the whole circulation gets boosted. I try to do foot spa everyday when I shower as I put some rose/milk bath salts inside the bucket.)

I then gather all the fallen ones from my body, the tiles, and the floor, I even put a sock in the strain to stop the sneaky escapers lol. Before I sort the sheds, I first place them in the sink to take a picture as a washing day shedding record (weird habit, I know).

This is the amount I shed on my last hair washing day, with longer hairs, the shed bundles up bigger and seems more, but I actually shed a lot less than I used to, 50 sheds would probably be the maximum now.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002383516765540382/82953ABC-307E-4F47-9734-1E77567C2CB9.jpg

Last year I was shedding crazy when my dad was diagnosed with a terminal sickness, this is like a scene from a horror movie:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002387016832520213/CE8C7255-907D-43EA-A6F6-28A9ECEE34F4.jpg

I always wear my hair in a bun or braid nowadays so there’s no chance they will fall freely, even if they do, the coarse dark ones are always easily noticeable on the floor which I sweep regularly - I don’t even use the vacuum robot as I hate it when longer hairs string around the motor core down there and I’d have no way but to cut them apart.

The longer the hair, the more precious it is, because it might be one of your oldest partners that's accompanied you for years. None of my relationships lasts longer than my hair lol.

[Shorty89]

Tuanyiji, that is super cool. I love the lookmof those traditional styles.

[tuanyiji]

Tuanyiji, that is super cool. I love the lookmof those traditional styles.

Thank you, I'm obsessed with these hairstyles and learning more and more every day.
Also, we welcome people of all ethnicities to try these styles because Chinese people always see foreigners wearing our traditional clothes and hairstyles as a sign of cultural appreciation as long as it's done out of respect.

[knobbly]

I don't have the kind of brain to pick up and save shed hairs; it's so weird to me! It would be like collecting scabs or shed skin cells - ewwwwwwwwww! Now I'm strictly talking about what my brain says to me. It only applies to me. I'm not saying anybody else is yucky for saving their shed hairs.

It's just ... I don't care how many there are, I don't care how long they are, I don't care what they look like. Once shed = garbage.

I'm with you on this one spidermom. I try to always brush over the bathtub for ease of cleanup, or to have a place to put sheds if I'm not in the bathroom (fun fact: I actually have a dedicated cardboard box for the sheds I accumulate when I'm playing with my hair whilst watching TV-- but I always dump them in the trash when I'm done!) because shed hair is no longer part of my body, so it's just a thing that needs to be binned.

I don't often find hairs just hanging around the house anymore, thank goodness, because it's pretty much always up or otherwise contained. I do have to unscrew the little brush thingys on our robot vac (named Josef; pronouns they/them) because hairs do get wrapped around them. They are more and more my daughter's hairs though, and less mine.

[knobbly]

I love those massage combs tuanyiji! I've never seen anything like them. Do you use all of those or was that picture from an artisan's shop?

I especially like the monster (??) and the kitty in the middle and the triangular one on the top row one in from the right! So cool.

[tuanyiji]

I love those massage combs tuanyiji! I've never seen anything like them. Do you use all of those or was that picture from an artisan's shop?

I especially like the monster (??) and the kitty in the middle and the triangular one on the top row one in from the right! So cool.
Thank you, I love sharing this information.

The pictures with the knots and twisting extensions came from online shops. Apart from our endless popular ancient drama series that lead young Chinese girls to imitate the makeup and hairstyles, we have a huge Hanfu fan base here in China and so the traditional costumes and hair extensions have long become a mature market, which means things are getting mass production and the cost is getting lowered. But for experienced hairstylist, the best extensions always came from real hair which can be used for years, if not decades. Real hair is also much lighter in weight than the fake ones that might burden your neck in the long run. Fake ones easily get tangled and can’t be cleaned off hairsprays as plastic is wont to do and thus have a short shelf life if used frequently, but they are very convenient and quick if you’re running a photography studio for people who want to have a Hanfu experience but not necessarily skilled with all the details (aka historical correctness, which could cause huge arguments on social media if an influencer did not do it perfectly as each of our dynasty has its gatekeepers).

The hair bands are usually for the younger generation, they look good in the front, but if you don’t have a good hair base in the back, it will look ridiculous close up. In reality, the band might be too tight on your scalp and eventually cause headaches if it’s worn for too long, experienced stylist would choose the soft ones sans the band or just take down the bands but keep the hair pieces and pin them individually for a more natural look. They would also add more buns and knots in the back for a more balanced and organic set. On top of that come the endless hair accessories which would be an entirely different topic.

I’m aspired to become a Chinese traditional and historical hairstylist in the future so I’m slowly working my way there.

At this rate I’d better start a whole new post focusing on many different parts with an index. I will eventually do that when I’m done with the hair balls.

[lapushka]

I collect hair by putting my hair ends above a big bag/bucket as I comb gently, and when I do my weekly hair wash (Sunday), I do it while standing upright in a big water bucket (I don't have a bathtub) and use the shower head to rinse, so most of the sheds slip into the bucket and float to the surface and it's easy to scoop up. (Also, for the Chinese, it is considered very good for your health to soak your feet in warm water for at least 10 minutes a day, the whole circulation gets boosted. I try to do foot spa everyday when I shower as I put some rose/milk bath salts inside the bucket.)

I then gather all the fallen ones from my body, the tiles, and the floor, I even put a sock in the strain to stop the sneaky escapers lol. Before I sort the sheds, I first place them in the sink to take a picture as a washing day shedding record (weird habit, I know).

This is the amount I shed on my last hair washing day, with longer hairs, the shed bundles up bigger and seems more, but I actually shed a lot less than I used to, 50 sheds would probably be the maximum now.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002383516765540382/82953ABC-307E-4F47-9734-1E77567C2CB9.jpg

Last year I was shedding crazy when my dad was diagnosed with a terminal sickness, this is like a scene from a horror movie:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002387016832520213/CE8C7255-907D-43EA-A6F6-28A9ECEE34F4.jpg

I always wear my hair in a bun or braid nowadays so there’s no chance they will fall freely, even if they do, the coarse dark ones are always easily noticeable on the floor which I sweep regularly - I don’t even use the vacuum robot as I hate it when longer hairs string around the motor core down there and I’d have no way but to cut them apart.

The longer the hair, the more precious it is, because it might be one of your oldest partners that's accompanied you for years. None of my relationships lasts longer than my hair lol.

For those of us still in doubt what coarse hair looks like, this is such a great example!

I lose about half of that sink times 3 when I have my typical wash day. But I have F hair, and somehow it looks more "compact" in the sink.

[tuanyiji]

For those of us still in doubt what coarse hair looks like, this is such a great example!

I lose about half of that sink times 3 when I have my typical wash day. But I have F hair, and somehow it looks more "compact" in the sink.
Thank you.
Perhaps that's because black virgin hairs show much more prominently against a white ceramic sink, and here I thought those were just my "medium" and baby hairs.

My mom who has permed and dyed her hair many times now has some very thin, sparse, and honestly pathetic hair strands that are very prone to breakage. My normal virgin hair might be twice as thick as hers and ten times stronger in terms of tensile strength. (Don't tell anyone but I could probably strangle a man to death with my long hair now lol)

Long-time chemical and hot damage are really serious. I've just got some henna and convinced her to do the henna treatment tomorrow to see how well it protects the length and ends. And if she likes it, I might add some indigo to help her get black hair again.

As I sort my shed hair, I would occasionally pick up really coarse hairs that are like sewing thread thick, and they are not smooth, but rather texturized. The coarse hairs mainly focus on the back of my head where I have a natural swirl, I guess the hair in that area kinda grows out in a slight wavy spiral, unlike the rest of the straight ones.

In China where naturally straight hair is the majority, we have a specific term for a type of coarse hair "沙发" as in "sandy hair", which means it feels rough and gritty, as in texturized, curly, not smooth, and often feels as dry as straw. This type of hair's cuticles don't close up normally, thus look thicker and are prone to have split ends, and are hard to style sleekly unless you're using some product. Some people born with this hair type would try the keratin correction for a temporary straightened effect.

According to Sarah Inge's Hair Science video series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEHm4VTQU3c&t=1s
Caucasians lose about 100 hairs/day, Asians lose about 70/d, and Africans lose about 60/d.

Asian hair has the most layers of cuticles protecting the shaft, and a very round cross-section, while Caucasian hair is not as round, African hair is elliptical, so Asian hair tends to be more resistant to damage and is the most difficult to bleach and color.

I take everything in that book with a grain of salt because there are always individual hairs that are different from the majority of a certain ethnicity, we are all over the spectrum in hair types and colors. I do have a vivid curiosity about the science behind hairs.

[tuanyiji]

About hand-tied/weaving wefts, unlike the common 3-strand method you get on youtube, I use a 2-strand method that makes the top of the weft more natural, thinner and easier to do so. And this way, the extension almost completely disappears inside your hair when it’s clipped on or braided in. This method is practiced by traditional Chinese period/ancient drama hairstylists. I will consider making a while video about it later.

[foreveryours]

Just remember this after finding one ...


Thank you, motherhood must be hard on hair.
5 hospitalizations were spent in a span of nearly 10 months. I collected shed hairs both in the hospital and at home. I kind of suspect my collection has passed 40,000 at this point but I will have to completely detangle the largest hairball to find out, it might take me over a month.


Thank you so much.
lol I see you have a bucket for hair as well, that huge bag of blonde hair looks like someone who’s ready to felt:)
To answer your question:
1) If I find a hair without a root, I use my fingers to rub it up and down, the shaft is naturally covered by tiny cuticles overlaying each:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002351974190162021/IMG_8577.jpg
So if the rubbing feels smooth, it’s the right way down, if it feels rough and even has a tiny squeaky sound, it’s the wrong way (upside down). Also, even if I did it wrong, when I gather 10 hairs and twist them together to tie on the sewing threads, the wronged hair would always gets pushed back for some mechanical reason (I don’t know, like a little reverse gear that doesn’t fit among the rest), and I always find it out and readjust it.

I only collect shed hairs that are over 10cm long, if it’s too short, it can’t be weaved or hand-tied, and it’s often baby hairs that are too thin, they are not good weaving materials to begin with, I still put them into a specific bag, I intend to turn them into a hair rat with a hairnet wrapping around it in the future.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002351311901167658/IMG_8576.jpg
Traditional Chinese hair rats have various shapes and curves, so sometimes metal wires are placed inside to make them flexible yet solid. I can customize them to fit my head shape, here’s a rough idea of what I’m going to make, the pics are from an online shop:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002365464338501663/IMG_8582.png
Here you can see two loops/twists can be turned into various shapes for different styles, quite versatile, isn’t it?

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002354202112172072/IMG_8579.png
These extensions are made of fake plastic hairs, they are not expensive as one single piece, but will still cost a small fortune to get that many, and they are unnaturally shiny and jet black, so they often don’t match with real people’s natural hair color, if I use my own hair, there won’t be any mismatch.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002368913738321980/IMG_8583.png
Since Hanfu and traditional Chinese hairstyles are getting more and more popular nowadays, there are also many pre-made hair bands that can help you "cheat" effortlessly with cute styles.

But of course, the real skill lies in what you can do with the hair that’s attached to your scalp, that’s why I’m keeping my hair as long as possible without trimming, I want to prove that traditional Chinese hairstyle can be done on your own hair without extensions and will make tutorials to enlighten the other.

2) I honestly can’t remember the last time my mom trimmed my ends, I started gardening seriously back in 2017, and I only recall I dumped those hair ends into the compost pile… so it was probably 2018, definitely before the pandemic.




Thank you dear.
I only use very simple wooden combs with wide teeth, this way shed hairs naturally fall down instead of tangling among the teeth. And they greatly reduce mechanical friction. I don’t use brushes with bristles as those easily hoard hairs among the tines and it’s a pain to look at and to take down the sheds.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002360240781672488/IMG_8581.jpg
Notice the half moon-shaped ones? They are not just combs, they are also accessories for traditional hairstyles.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1001725273378668557/1002374533908541520/IMG_8584.jpg
And as for the massage combs… well, we Chinese are obsessed with those. Good wooden crafts can be very pricey too.



I completely understand this, I used to think of shed hairs and trimmed nails the same way, but I guess being cooped in the hospital during the pandemic really changed my view on many things and made me look at shed hairs a different way. Since I became obsessed with plaiting and hairstyles in those difficult times, I watched quite a lot of traditional Chinese hairstyle tutorials and documentaries, I found out it was actually a very common practice for my ancestors to collect shed hairs and turn them into extension/wefts this way, I was like, well, I’m just doing what has been hidden in my DNA after all, so I’m now doing it with confidence. My family members are getting used to my weird habit now, they don’t even complain anymore, after all, with me constantly checking for hairs on the floor, I make sure the bathroom is always squeaky clean, and who doesn’t want that? lol.

As for collecting garbage, you hit it right on the bull's eye since I'm a very devoted gardener, I compost almost all organic matter in the house, such as kitchen scraps, garden waste, lawn trimmings, chicken and pigeon manure... I even have a few composting toilets, this post is getting pungent, I know, I used to compost hair trims as well. So hair is a relatively easy and scentless one to pick up.


LOL, that's only "one" bag. I've got last year's when I started my project in earnest and a huge ball from before that. Wouldn't all fit in one picture.

I'll have to check that strand test out, see what kind of tone I can make with mine

One of the things I've definitely noticed about "hair around the house" as my hair has gotten longer (I pick them up as I see them and put them in the can, takes essentially zero effort so I've no issue with vacuum cleaners anymore) is in particular "hair in the shower". I used to get wads accumulating in my shower drain strainer. But that was when I had much shorter hair. Now I pull very little from the strainer after washing, maybe a pea-size wad tightly rolled up, that's it! Sheds don't rinse out easily from the rest of my hair. I comb all those out after it dries, and the extent from a single wash is basically what's in my coffee can (Wednesday).

I did and it works! Slighly damp fingers really make a squeak going the wrong way!

[tuanyiji]

Just remember this after finding



I did and it works! Slighly damp fingers really make a squeak going the wrong way!
Great to be of help :)
There are still so many hair mysteries to be unveiled.

[jenniferrae]

My hair is, at times, omnipotent. I can't tell you the number of times I've put my hair up before making dinner, and my beau still managed to find a hair in his food. I need to start lint-rolling my clothes before I cook. XD Maybe it's just living in the air at this point, swimming around the room hahahaha!!

[tuanyiji]

My hair is, at times, omnipotent. I can't tell you the number of times I've put my hair up before making dinner, and my beau still managed to find a hair in his food. I need to start lint-rolling my clothes before I cook. XD Maybe it's just living in the air at this point, swimming around the room hahahaha!!

Hahahaha I imagine most people would find hair in the food gross. But not me, if I find hair in the food I or my mother prepared, I’d be picking it out immediately to check the length, if it’s over 10cm, I’d clean it with a tissue and place it inside my phone case so I can add it to my shed collection later. Hair is hair, the more the merrier. Hair is not dirty or disgusting to me in a sense that it belongs to me/my mother and in essence, it’s part of me and what makes me. So it’s within my birthright to reclaim the lost pieces.
Totally not creepy lol, at least to my family now.

[Iyashikei]

No matter what I do, the drain of my shower needs regular cleaning because of my hair. FYI wet hair with bits of soap, shampoo and conditioner = yuck!

[lapushka]

No matter what I do, the drain of my shower needs regular cleaning because of my hair. FYI wet hair with bits of soap, shampoo and conditioner = yuck!

Do you have one of those drain catcher thingies? I mean, might be common sense, but just asking because there are people who still don't think of it from the get-go. You can get those most hardware stores, household stores, local grocers, for about €1. It helps!

[foreveryours]

No matter what I do, the drain of my shower needs regular cleaning because of my hair. FYI wet hair with bits of soap, shampoo and conditioner = yuck!

It's on your head dude :p

[tuanyiji]

No matter what I do, the drain of my shower needs regular cleaning because of my hair. FYI wet hair with bits of soap, shampoo and conditioner = yuck!

LOL my reaction would be: wow, the hair got thoroughly cleaned with soap and shampoo, it even got a deep conditioning on its own, what a precious baby! Let me pick you up and give you a nice rinse, I’ll take good care of you from now on.

[Iyashikei]

It's on your head dude :p
Sure thing. I also forgot about the dirt of four people and two dogs, not to mention it looks disgusting once it's not stuck on your head anymore because it's all tangled up. Whenever I take it out of the drain it looks like a drowned animal. I just think it looks gross as soon as it falls off your head.


LOL my reaction would be: wow, the hair got thoroughly cleaned with soap and shampoo, it even got a deep conditioning on its own, what a precious baby! Let me pick you up and give you a nice rinse, I’ll take good care of you from now on.
You do you.

[SparkleTess]

When my hair was BSL+, I had "mow the carpet" first before I vacuumed. I would put on my tennis shoes and scrape the carpet to retrieve handfuls of shed hair before I would actually vacuum in order to keep it from tangling up the beater brush on the vacuum cleaner!

I have a silicone brush with nubs attached to a broom handle I bought from Amazon that I use on carpets before I vacuum. I stopped doing it for a while and could have made a whole wig with how much hair I pulled up.

[Sunrise_runner]

Every time my boyfriend clean the inside of his truck he mentions how much of my hair he gets out of it. Like how did it get in the console and glove compartment and everything? lol

[shelomit]

For a second I thought I pulled a strand of hair out of the pot of stew I just made D : Under closer inspection, though, it proved to be a long fiber out of a piece of ginger!

[Brandt]

Yep--ginger can have little threads that look a little bit like a short silver hair. I've seen that a lot in dishes at Indian and Thai restaurants. Of course, once in a while I will see a hair in my food at a restaurant, but then I recognize it as being one of my hairs and not the cook's hair, though if it were hair that looked different from mine (for instance, a strand of curly black hair), then I would be a bit more apprehensive (even though I really don't think one or two hairs in your food would put you in any danger).

[SeppV]

Our drains are so clogged. I know it's my hair that has done this, and I am just dreading the ordeal. Luckly, my husband will take care of it, but I feel that I should do it since I am 99.9% the cause of the blockage. But... I just can't get over the disgusted feeling I get from wet hair. Doesn't matter if it's clean, if it's off my hair, it will gross me out. And.. I know for sure that this will be a slimy mess, so that doesn't make it any easier. I am very careful to always, always clean the top of the drain (the visible part) after every shower because I don't want anyone to get into the shower to see hairs all over. But of course, some gets down into the drain. The other issue with hair all over is the vacuum cleaner. I have to pull hairs out of it.

[LongLocke]

Our drains are so clogged. I know it's my hair that has done this, and I am just dreading the ordeal. Luckly, my husband will take care of it, but I feel that I should do it since I am 99.9% the cause of the blockage. But... I just can't get over the disgusted feeling I get from wet hair. Doesn't matter if it's clean, if it's off my hair, it will gross me out. And.. I know for sure that this will be a slimy mess, so that doesn't make it any easier. I am very careful to always, always clean the top of the drain (the visible part) after every shower because I don't want anyone to get into the shower to see hairs all over. But of course, some gets down into the drain. The other issue with hair all over is the vacuum cleaner. I have to pull hairs out of it.

Solution: convince him to grow his hair and then you can feel better knowing it’s 50% his mess as well ^_^

[MusicalSpoons]

For a second I thought I pulled a strand of hair out of the pot of stew I just made D : Under closer inspection, though, it proved to be a long fiber out of a piece of ginger!

Leeks do that as well - the strings look just like silver/white hairs!

About hair around the house, mine is mostly confined to the bedroom and the shower plug catcher. I'm shedding a lot more, recently, but it's bunned all day and night except for air-drying or rebunning, so it doesn't shed anywhere else. And shedding long hairs in the shower, they are too long to escape down the holes because of tangling on themselves and they catch any shorter hairs too.

I go over the floor with my slippers to get up most of the hair before hoovering. Unfortunately even just a few hairs will clog the brush bar, but I don't mind cutting the hair off as the vacuum 'foot' is easy to disassemble and reassemble.

The hairs we find everywhere are my Mum's, she's been growing her hair since the start of the pandemic and is now past APL (from pixie). She wears her hair down or in a ponytail probably about half the time, maybe more. Whenever I find one of hers I joke that it's payback for all those years pre-LHC when I was younger and wore it mostly in a ponytail. I remember the balls under the armpits of freshly washed clothes, and the school jumpers made of awful material that attracted hairs like nobody's business. Glad that's over with! To my family's credit though, I don't recall them ever actually *moaning* about it.

[Trip]

Hahahaha yep me and my man (my man and i?) both have waist+ long hair mine is tbl he's at maybe lbl but he's 6'4 so that's longer than mine still technically, his is also super thick. It's constant stray hairs everywhere but I think we're used to it by now.
The same cooking situation happens to us but with celery lol

[GoatLady]

Between my 2 dogs and I, there is hair everywhere and in everything. I just accept it. I did get a tub shroom for the bathtub drain and it is great for keeping the tub drain clog free. The bathroom sink drain, though, is frequently clogged.... even though I do my best to mot let stray hairs go down there. I'm guessing it's mostly my husband's fault. His head is mostly bald BUT he has a longish beard.

[ArienEllariel]

I'm really thankful that our house now has a shower with a door. I bought one of those silicone hair stoppers to prevent our last shower from getting clogged and our dog went in there and ATE it. Proceeded to puke and pass pieces of it for 10 days after multiple vet visits. Most expensive "fix" for the hair situation to date. Why are dogs?? A cat would never. I love our boy but sometimes I think he's got to have a screw loose up there or something.

[KwaveT]

I have the habit of running my hands through my hair to remove sheds and fling them in the floor. I check my floor every few weeks and get gobs of sheds especially right at front, bottom of my dresser cabinets. Hair seems to move there. I have had hair fall on the egg I am cooking and have to dig it out to keep it from cooking into the egg.

[rosenester]

I wear my hair up around the house other than brushing and air drying, I collect my sheds in my lap and carry them to the trash, I have silicone hair catchers in the tub and sinks. STILL I leave hair everywhere.
:justy:

Anyone try one of those robot vacuums? Can they handle ‘long hair” mine is only planning to grow to 32” HL max. Current vacuums seem to struggle with my strands, but the vacuuming doesn’t happen that often so their may be a lot to collect by the time it happens. :whistle: Hence thinking more frequent robot vacuuming may help?

If this is discussed earlier in the thread please direct me to it, or I’ll read through and redirect myself later :flowers:

[Mlarmour]

I leave hair everywhere. You can see where I spend most of my time as that's where the hair is - like the driver's side of my car. The hoover is regularly blocked as is the drain and my partner clear it. The shedding everywhere doesn't bother me most of the time, but I'm super careful about loose hairs around my son. I've found them starting to wrap around his fingers, toes, neck, etc.

[Glitch]

It's also everywhere for me! I really hate it, and feel like I'm constantly cleaning it up. It being black doesn't help lol, reeeally stands out against my light colored floors. It grosses me out and I feel very conscious about it if I know I'm going to be having people over. I often end up taking strips of tape and using that as a fallen hair strand magnet! Sigh...

[Arcticfoxes]

Not a big issue for my fine bleached hair currently... but I'm growing out my natural brunette colour, so I suspect it'll be a lot more visible all of a sudden on our cream flooring and couch.