By Jessica Newman
Summer is here, and the heat is moving in. For many, this means a time to shed the winter coat and start fresh with a new, shorter, less hairy look. But before you head down to your usual barber, stop and think about what your hair could be doing down in the Gulf to help the oil spill.
That’s right. The rumors are true. Hair is a great adsorber of oil, and two local Gainesville salons are collecting their clippings to send to the Gulf.
“Hair does not absorb oil,” according to an article written in in the Alaska Science Forum. “Oil clings to hair in a process known as adsorption, in which the tiny scales on hair snag and hold oil.”
Cloud 9 Spa and Salon and Salon La Di Da are sending their hairy waste to Matter of Trust, a San Francisco-based organization that’s mobilizing around the country for the oil spill clean-up cause. It sends the excess hair to the Gulf region where it will be used to construct booms to stop the potential spread of oil to the shores.
So think before you cut and help participate in cleaning up one of the worst spills our country has seen yet.
