Do you collect your shed hair????

[UltraImpossibly]

This was six months.(My rate is stable and didn't change treating hypothyroidism, only the usual season variation.)
Now I've been collecting for 16 months and this are the results so far:



The goal is to have enough hair to double my ponytail, which is 7cm (2,75in) circumference, 4cm² area, to do hairstyles like Leia from Star Wars. I discard hairs shorter than 35cm (it's a lot, I've so much taper), and sort the ones between 35-45, 45-70, 70 and longer (coming soon another category). Fingercombing before wash I stick the roots on a double-faced tape on the mirror. When there is 15-20 hairs I take them together, align with tweezers and stick on another tape to storage, so the strands are easier to manipulate to weave. IT TAKES TIME. Took me about 3h per week to collect and a week per piece to weave (so to not have back pain).

So far I've made 3 pieces (finished last week, I would post soon), 1 short and 2 medium. The 3 together have 4cm circumference, 1,27cm² area, that is 32% what I aim; whithout the short one: 3,3cm, 0,87cm², 21%. There isn't enough 70+ yet to make a piece.

I made a "loom" with screws to ajust the tension, I use simple embroidery thread. After foldind the piece twice, 80cm stretched, 17cm finished, I crochet them together (meticuclous part of the job) to be a practical width. I'm yet to add the clips.
More photos in my albuns, and videos showing extensions and weaving.

Some interesting links:
Other older shed hair threads:
Saving shed hair
Who wants to make a ponytail?
Instagram Allan Nakashiro, 17 months collecting:
https://www.instagram.com/allankanashiro/?hl=pt-br
How to weave hair:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogq2iuavLzM

[Sarahlabyrinth]

Wow, Sarahlabyrinth - that looks like a majestic plume of hair! How long did the process take you? Apologies if you wrote about it earlier in this thread, I've not read the whole of it yet.

I was actually investigating hair switches the other day, and came across this rather charming 1940s news footage about making hair pieces with your own hair:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvE5EA0HpN8


I found it in this article about vintage hair styling. It looks like quite the process - aligning all the hairs, brushing them through those special brushes.

I've started the process of collecting a little box of shed hairs with a project like this in mind several times, then got grossed out and thrown it away!

I think that took around nine months to put together, it's not all the hairs which were shed during that time, just the longer ones.

[Priska]

I merged the new thread with an older and longer one. I think that you'll find a lot to read here

Thank you! 🤗

[Priska]

This woman really makes extensions of her own hair that she loses: https://www.buzzfeed.com/daniellaema...ig-shower-hair

I think that's genius and makes shedding way less bitter! Probably I won't get this done myself, but at least collecting shedding hair should be easy. Sure you don't get them all but if I collect all my hair that I find from different places, that's enough because that's much. I just must brush my hair before shower, to stop my hair falling into drain, from there it's not nice to pick them. (Or then I could put a fabric on top of the drain... )

[Priska]

I think this is especially rewarding for people, who have a huge shedding tendency, and who WOULD HAVE a thick hair without shedding, but who now have a thin hair because of shedding.

Who knows, maybe I can earn something if I sell my shed hair...

[ArienEllariel]

I don't currently. Once my hair is longer, I may. Right now, when I clean my brush, my hair is mixed with long dog hairs and lint so I don't see the point of trying to pick them out to save in any way.

[foreveryours]

Yes, I do and have for over 3 years when I decided once and for all to determine how much I was losing to my surroundings, why, and what I could do about it.

All together compressed it forms a wad about the size of a large grapefruit and weighs nearly a half pound. Surprisingly, to me anyway, no skin is showing up top. Yet

[Handel'sWig]

Yes, I’ve collected some. But I still haven’t figured out what to do with them yet 🙈. A hairpiece/ rat of some sort?

[KokoroDragon]

I was collecting the longer hairs in a bundle about a year ago, but I ended up just throwing it out. I may try again in a couple years when I'm at my goal length, but for now because I'm still growing my hair, what used to be "long enough" for me to keep is now way too short for my liking. That, and I lost patience.

[LadyLongLocks]

I save mine at times too! You could braid it and add it to an updo! But it tangles a lot since the cuticles are going 2 directions. Flat ironing it helps. I have a couple braids I made.