While brands like Liquid Plumr tend to characterize human hair as a nuisance that can make your life miserable by clogging your pipes, hair’s hydrophobic properties can actually be a boon to the environment. Matter of Trust, for example, turns donated hair into loosely felted mats that provide a number of benefits to growing plants. The mats allow for rain to pass through to the soil while preventing loss to evaporation. The hair also allows for a slow nitrogen release into the earth, amplifying the production of chlorophyll, which, as you may recall from grade school science, helps feed plants through photosynthesis.
Matter of Trust also uses hair to help clean up oil spills, a process that has traditionally involved synthetic materials that can also lead to large amounts of non-biodegradable plastic waste. Recycled hair is durable, but it’s also biodegradable so it won’t accumulate like plastic in a landfill or the ocean.
Also watch: A pubic hair sings 'The Pube Song' for Gillette Venus
Matter of Trust has already been soliciting hair donations from consumers and on its own site requests contributions of hair longer than one inch. The “Pubes for the Planet” push, however, is inclusive of tresses of all lengths. All the donations from the campaign will be used to fertilize a new “Pube Park” at the organization’s eco-industrial hub in San Francisco that was conceived as part of the campaign.
"Not enough people know that they can repurpose their hair waste, and also, many feel awkward talking about shaving their pubes,” said Carley Caldas, VP, brand marketing & media at Eos, told Ad Age. “We want to help empower our fans to drop this taboo and as well as learn how to think of and repurpose all excess hair waste as the renewable resource it really is." The campaign may even inspire consumers to fertilize their own home gardens or plants with their own "vagitation."
You might wonder if shipping mounds of muff hair will end up doing more harm than good. Caldas noted that the company has “gone to great lengths to ensure the environmental impact of getting pubes to their new home does not outweigh the good green work they’re doing upon arrival.” All the packaging is 100% biodegradable, and the donations will be collected by a single vendor and shipped in a single batch to Matter of Trust. Eos has also purchased carbon offsets to ensure that the environmental impact from shipping is kept to a minimum.
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“Eos is making it so easy to put that thatch to good use that not taking part in ‘Pubes for the Planet’ is basically a big middle finger to Mother Nature,” said Bianca Guimaraes, Mischief executive creative director and partner, in a statement.
“Mother Nature doesn’t let anything go to waste—neither should we!” added Lisa Gautier, co-founder at Matter of Trust.
This isn’t the first time Eos has created conversation around pube-scaping. Previously, Eos and Mischief were behind the “Bless Your F#@%ing Cooch” product line and campaign centered around TikTok influencer Carly Joy, who had gone viral for her post showing viewers how she shaves down there with the help of the Eos shaving cream—even without water. That campaign helped to increase sales of the brand’s shave cream 59% during the period it ran.
The “Pubes for the Planet” campaign will run through the next month, or until supplies last.
