Embrace the Frizz: Use of Human Hair for Triboelectric Interactive Textiles

This demo showcases the use of human hair as a triboelectric material for interactive textile sensing. It presents an interdisciplinary exploration of how a familiar biological material can be integrated into soft electronic systems to support more sustainable resource use while presenting sensorially engaging interactions with textile interfaces. The work is based on the principle of triboelectricity. Human hair is highly tribopositive and, when in contact with a tribonegative material, acquires a positive charge, typically experienced as static electricity and commonly known as hair frizz. While this phenomenon has been studied in other domains, such as the haircare industry, its potential remains underexplored within electronic textiles, biodesign, and interaction design. Building on this, this demo explores the use of human hair as a material for interactive textiles. As a renewable, biodegradable resource typically discarded as waste, hair offers a promising alternative to metals and toxic materials commonly used in traditional electronic textiles. In addition, it emphasises hair’s sensorial properties and its potential for interaction, drawing on shared understandings of what hair is and how it is touched, handled, and engaged with. Specifically, the demo features an interactive textile-based object in the form of a pillow, along with textile samples. Participants are invited to touch, press, and stroke the pillow, generating electrical peaks that are displayed in real time. Through this interaction, the audience can explore how different gestures and pressure patterns influence electricity generation. The demo aims to introduce audiences to new material constructions and design possibilities for interactive textiles. This biodesign approach bridges technical experimentation with the intimate dimension of working with a human-grown biomaterial, proposing hair-based electronic textiles as a pathway towards potentially more meaningful and sustainable soft interfaces.