The Japanese Temple Built With the Help of Human Hair

What if the hair swept from a salon floor was not waste at all?

What if it was strong enough to help build something that would still be standing more than a century later?

In Kyoto, Japan, there is a remarkable reminder of just how useful human hair can be.

Inside Higashi Honganji, one of the largest wooden temple complexes in the world, visitors can see an enormous rope.

But look a little closer and you will discover that this is no ordinary rope.

It is made from human hair.

Hair donated by women from across Japan more than 100 years ago.

And it helped rebuild a temple.

A temple destroyed by fire

The story begins at Higashi Honganji in Kyoto.

The temple has stood at the heart of the Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist tradition for centuries, but its history has not always been peaceful.

Its buildings were destroyed by fire several times. The last major fire came in 1864, when conflict in Kyoto devastated the temple complex.

Rebuilding it would be an enormous undertaking.

The Founder’s Hall alone measures around 76 metres long, 58 metres wide and 38 metres high. Its floor is covered by 927 tatami mats and today it is considered one of the largest wooden structures in the world.

Constructing something on that scale in the nineteenth century meant moving extraordinary quantities of timber.

Huge wooden beams and columns had to be transported and pulled into position.

And there was a problem.

The ropes were not strong enough.

An unusual solution

The hemp ropes available to the builders could snap while pulling the enormous timbers needed for the temple.

These failures were not simply inconvenient. They could cause serious accidents.

So the temple's followers found another material that could help make the ropes stronger.

Human hair.

Women from across Japan cut their hair and donated it to the rebuilding effort.

Their hair was combined with hemp and woven into enormous ropes known as kezuna, or hair ropes.

Thousands upon thousands of individual strands became part of something much bigger.

53 ropes made from donated hair

In total, donated hair was used to create 53 enormous ropes.

The largest was around 110 metres long, approximately 40 centimetres thick and weighed about one tonne.

Think about that for a moment.

Hair that could easily have been discarded became part of a rope weighing roughly as much as a small car.

These ropes were used to transport the huge pieces of timber needed for the reconstruction of Higashi Honganji.

The reconstruction of its two main halls was eventually completed in 1895.

More than a century later, the story of the hair has not disappeared.

One of the surviving ropes displayed at the temple measures 69 metres long, 30 centimetres thick and weighs 375 kilograms.

Visitors can still see it today.

One strand is tiny. Thousands become powerful.

There is something we love about this story at Green Salon Collective.

Not because we are suggesting your salon sweepings should be used to construct the next great wooden building.

But because the story challenges something we still do every single day.

We call hair waste.

A few strands fall to the floor.

They are swept together.

They go into a bin.

The bin is emptied.

And we stop thinking about them.

Yet Higashi Honganji is a reminder that hair is a material.

And materials can have another life.

What happens to salon hair today?

More than a century after those women in Japan donated their hair, the professional hair industry produces an enormous quantity of hair cuttings every day.

Every fringe trim, restyle, fade and haircut leaves something behind.

Across thousands of salons, barbers and freelance stylists, those small amounts quickly add up.

When hair is put into general waste, that material is lost from the salon.

But it does not have to be.

At Green Salon Collective, we collect hair from salons so that it can be put to use rather than simply being treated as rubbish.

And just like the hair ropes of Higashi Honganji, some of the uses are surprisingly inventive.

What can recycled salon hair become?

Hair collected through Green Salon Collective has supported more than 15 different projects and uses.

It can be used to create hair booms and mats designed to help absorb oil from waterways.

It can support composting and research projects.

Longer hair can be separated for specialist donation and reuse opportunities.

Hair has also been explored as a material for everything from construction and gardening to art, education and product development.

The exact destination depends on the hair collected and the projects available at the time.

The important part is that the story does not have to end on the salon floor.

Millions of haircuts given another purpose

Green Salon Collective has now recycled waste representing more than 10 million haircuts.

Imagine all of that hair in one place.

Millions of appointments.

Millions of conversations in the chair.

Millions of transformations.

And an extraordinary amount of material that could otherwise have simply disappeared into general waste.

Instead, that hair can become part of something else.

The women who donated their hair to Higashi Honganji probably could not have imagined that people would still be talking about those strands more than 100 years later.

But that is what happens when we stop looking at something as waste and start asking what else it could become.

Your salon floor is full of possibilities

Most salons will never have enough hair to create a 110 metre rope.

But that is exactly the point.

One haircut produces a small amount.

One salon produces more.

Thousands of salons produce an enormous resource.

Higashi Honganji was not rebuilt with a single strand of hair. Its extraordinary ropes were created because thousands of individual contributions were brought together.

Salon recycling works in much the same way.

The handful of hair you sweep from the floor today might feel insignificant.

Add it to hair from tomorrow's clients, then next week's, then hair from salons across the country, and suddenly we have a material worth doing something with.

More than a century ago, human hair helped move the enormous wooden beams needed to rebuild one of Kyoto's great temples.

Today, we are still discovering what this remarkable material can do.

So before you sweep your next haircut into the bin, ask yourself one question.

Where could this hair go next?