Do Up Your Hair With Wood
- Sustainable wood makes a striking accent for your hair.
Little things count.
The amount of plastic in a barrette from Wal-Mart seems insignificant – and it may be so, compared to the tons and tons of petroleum products churned out into the world each day.
But we have over six and a half billion people walking around now on the face of the earth, and counting. Even if you estimate that only one in a thousand buys a barrette each year that’s still 65 million little chunks of plastic floating around.
It adds up.
The sustainably-minded eco-chic avoids plastic anywhere she can, even in something as insignificant as a hair ornament.
So today let’s talk wood.
Wood makes an ideal material for barrettes because it’s durable, yet light enough to wear comfortably in the hair. It can be carved into endless interesting shapes. It comes in an astonishing array of beautiful hues and may be polished to a sheen that sets off that of human hair. It can also be painted or dyed for an even wider choice of color and design. And it can be extremely sustainable.
Look for wooden barrettes that are made from certified wood or from pruned or fallen branches. The nice thing about barrettes is that their small size allows them to be made from pieces of wood that otherwise might not be usable.
Two Expert Barrette Craftsmen
Wood artist Dale Randles is a master of wearable wood. He uses both exotic wood from sustainable southern hemisphere plantations and found wood, mostly from his own woodlot or from pruned branches of fruit trees near his home on Vashon Island on Puget Sound, Washington. You can shop his wide selection of gorgeous handcrafted hair accessories and wooden combs exclusively through his website. (If you hate flyaway hair, take note: wooden combs won’t spark up your head with static electricity.)
BarretteBaron.com is located on the other edge of the North American continent, in Newfoundland. Owner Daryl Pike handcrafts his unique barrettes and other hair accessories out of sustainable and certified forest products and pewter. A particularly interesting piece is the stone-inlaid barrette made of banskia pod, the seed pod of an Australian tree.
Barrettes and other hair accessories made from sustainable wood are a treat for the eye and a salute to Mother Earth!
