Repeated washing, combing and handling adds significant wear and tear to the tresses, leading to issues such as hair fraying or glue decaying. Tresses approaching this damaged state are not ideal to use in the lab. The reduction in quantity and quality of hair strands could yield erroneous results, so to ensure experimental data remains consistent, the hair tresses are used only a limited number of times. As years have passed, the PC-PD hair care testing lab has filled up multiple drawers with these tresses—tucked away, awaiting a second use.
Rather than ending the hair tress life cycle here, adding to landfill space and discarding imperfect-but-still-usable hair, the Stepan PC-PD team researched opportunities for repurposing the hair. While the idea of creating wigs was considered, most of the tresses would have been too short for typical hair charities, and the various dyes, products and tress qualities might have created an additional barrier to donation. A lesser-known hair donation option was discovered and seemed to be the ideal fit: the Clean Wave Program.
