This Woman Decided To Use All The Hair She Loses Daily To Make A Wig

    Glad I'm not the only one who loses a ton of hair in the shower.

    Daniella Emanuel
    by Daniella Emanuel

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Everyone has their favorite quarantivity.

    ABC

    Some people bake bread.

    PBS

    Some people binge a juicy docuseries.

    Netflix

    And some people (I don't understand these people) do puzzles.

    Fox

    But Liz Lele — a 34-year-old background actor who lives in Brooklyn — may have adopted the most peculiar quarantivity I've seen to date.

    HBO

    Back in January, Liz decided to investigate something she'd been pondering for years — how much hair was she actually losing on a day-to-day basis? "I started keeping track, collecting hair that came out randomly, or from brushing or washing my hair," Liz told BuzzFeed.

    She called it the #showerhairchallenge.

    According to Healthline, it's normal to lose between 50 and 100 strands of hair a day. Liz's hair loss was in this ballpark, but she still wanted to see how much she could collect over time.

    A ton of stray hairs on a counter.
    @lizlele / TikTok / Via tiktok.com

    "After a few months, it became the size of a hair extension," she said. "I tried to make it into a hair extension via sewing machine, but it fell apart, so I rebuilt it. And then I decided to learn wig ventilation and make it into a wig to donate. I didn't have enough hair, so people from TikTok donated via my P.O. Box. I have about 4,000 hairs right now."

    Liz's goal is to connect with a hospital and donate the wig to someone in need. But even with the hair contributions from her followers, she thinks it'll probably take up to a year to finish. "It's very hard to do. Sometimes my eyes will hurt, my back, my hands. It's a lot harder than I imagined, but I love the results. It's beautiful."

    As someone who gets easily grossed out by stray hairs, I was curious about how Liz felt handling so many of them — especially the ones that weren't her own. "Hair does not gross me out, and I wash the hair I receive," she said.

    "I also think there's something interesting about adding transparency to the wig industry. For patients to know where their hair is from and for donators to know where their hair is going," she said.

    Liz's hand clenching a clump of hair on the left, and Liz ventilating a wig on the right.
    @lizlele / TikTok / Via tiktok.com

    I asked Liz how long she plans to do the #showerhairchallenge. "Probably the rest of my life," she said.