Hairdresser Tsai Shiou-ying has won many prizes for her cutting and decorative hair extensions in a four-decade career.
Now she has gone one step further, turning the hair left on the salon floor after haircuts into decorations including shoes, brooches, fruit and animals.
Tsai, who started working with hair in her teens and learned the skills of styling from her mother, recently showed off some of her creations in her small salon in Greater Taichung.
Her pride and joy is a pair of high heels made entirely from human hair that for her are a substitute for the real thing.
“I personally love high heels very much, but I am flat-footed. I can only look at them and try them on, but if I buy them they will only be stored away until mould grows,” the 54-year-old said.
“I can’t wear them, so I want to make a pair of heels that I really like. This way, even if I can’t wear them, at least I created a work of art,” she said.
Only real hair can endure the shaping process, Tsai said. A single heel needs hair from at least three people, and she asks her neighbors and relatives to contribute to her stock. It takes a month to make a single pair of hairy heels.
“With real hair, I can perm and dye it into all sorts of different colors,” she said.
“Also, in the process of making, if I need to shape the hair I would apply instant glue or super glue — they damage plastic hair, but won’t damage real hair,” she said.
To develop her hobby further, Tsai is now planning a range of hairy corsets and dresses. But her works, which also include elaborate flower-shaped brooches in purples and greens, a life-size pineapple and a black rat with bright blue eyes, are not for sale.
Asked if she was worried that some people might think her hobby is in rather bad taste, Tsai said there was nothing to fear from hair.
“All the hair was cut off on-site, and even if it was given by my friends, it would be just cut off from someone, so this won’t have anything to do with taboos about dead people’s hair. Some people watch too many horror movies, so they imagine paranormal events and become afraid,” she said.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS