Hair Today, Home Tomorrow

I believe in recycling and reusing. Hey - I was even a founding member of my high school's Ecology Club LONG before it was the cool thing to do. Using recycled materials in manufacturing and construction is a wonderful thing. But sometimes, you can take it a little too far.

Paula Sunshine (and yes, that is her REAL name) built a new addition to her home with HUMAN HAIR.

Little Ms. Sunshine, of Suffolk, England, is not your typical tree-hugger environmentalist nut-job. She is an expert in teaching ancient construction techniques to builders. Originally, ancient people used cattle hair mixed with a lime plaster mixture on the exterior of their buildings. Ms. Sunshine decided to get creative and use human hair instead, however. "It is just the fiber that you need the hair for and human hair does the same thing as cattle hair for plaster."

So she went to hair salons and gathered barrels of hair for her home. And in addition, she's used hair that's even more accessible - her own hair, and hair from her cat and dogs.

I guess she won't have to worry about termites, so much. And you would think the smell would be nasty. Ms. Sunshine says, "I have to say, my bin full of hair smells divine with all the products used." So her house will smell like Prell.

But what if her new living room comes down with a bad case of dandruff?

Maybe for her next project, she should build a sunroom using finger and toe nails.