Human Hair Brush

Throughout our lives we groom, shed and cut our hair, turning it from an intimate body part to a body product. Once cut from our heads this hair either becomes waste - UK hairdressers produce around 6,700 tonnes of human hair each year, most of which goes to landfill - or it is collected and commercialised as part of a massive global trade in human hair. 

Human hair is still seen as the preferred option for wigs, hair extensions and eyelashes because of its texture, movement, durability and ability to be styled and coloured, all of which are difficult to replicate in synthetic hair. Because of its flexibility, light weight, tensile strength, porosity and oil absorbency, hair also has a number of other unexpected uses, including as an industrial oil filter, a medical suture, an embroidery material and a fertiliser. It is even used to create a food additive (L-Cysteine) that helps break down the gluten in bread dough, making our loaves softer, fluffier and more digestible. 

Hair is made from keratin, a very stable and strong structural fibrous protein that makes up most animal hair, wool, feathers, nails and horns. Keratin is resistant to breakdown by proteolytic enzymes, so hair degrades very slowly. It can survive over long periods of time, remaining intact after death, and is frequently recovered from ancient archaeological sites where it can be tested with trace element analysis to reveal the diets, diseases and lifestyles of ancient people.

Designers, scientists and engineers all over the world continue to experiment with this original renewable material, exploring how it can be turned from waste into a useful resource. However, unlike other sources of keratin, human hair often retains its relationship with the person from whom it came. 

Artists such as Alix Bizet, Jane Hoodless and Mona Hatoum have all used human hair to explore the emotional, social, cultural and political significance of this most intimate of fibres. This human hair brush was made in 2007 as part of a BA Design project by Dairbhaile Heaney that explored how our attitudes to human hair change when it is cut from our heads and encountered in different contexts of use. This human hair paintbrush manages to be at once humourous, delightful, strange and disgusting. 

This work was collected as part of the Materials Library Presents Hair event (2008) at the Wellcome Collection.