We here at Lovelyish have featured a plethora of hair articles ranging from style evolutions to healthy protection. We also spotlight peculiar art forms and brilliantly modern visuals. Today, we are featuring the two topics at once, united to create a beautifully artistic dedication to a legendary token of love and lineage: hair.

Located in Independence, Missouri, Leila’s Hair Museum holds close to 500 framed Victorian hair wreaths and over 2000 pieces of jewelry, all made from human hair. Why hair, and how is it made into jewelry?

Leila Cohoon, proud owner of the museum, champions hair as the most significant body part. She says it captures the nature of a person, and can be kept in memory of late loved ones. Since hair is a strong series of protein chains, it is able to stay intact long after a person passes. Thought to be a long lost art form, many families paid respects to deceased members by gracing their locks into beautiful designs to symbolize their essence.

Along with hair wreaths that Leila has collected, she also teaches hair weaving classes and boasts jewelry pieces that are fashioned out of hair through different methods. On her website, she shares a technique that has been used on many pieces:

There are neckpieces called sepia, which is a scene, painted with pulverized hair. There is one sepia piece that is a weeping willow tree made from a young woman’s hair who passed away at the age of 25. The scene of her husband weeping at her grave is painted with hair. When hair is pulverized into powder it can be mixed with paint and used as a medium for painting scenes.

Leila’s museum, opened in 1989 in her cosmetology school, showcases her devotion to a timeless keepsake that spans centuries and cultures in symbolic importance. Considered a popular form of remembrance before the invention of the camera, hair has proven to be a malleable article of the body that can last in tribute forever.

There are more works of art featured in the gallery, including embroideries, brooches, 3D hair art, sepia and wreaths.

What do you think of this form of art? Do you consider this art cherishing or morbid?

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