Photo: Phil Smith & Ronald Thompson
Former hairdresser Ronald Thompson created this chair, called the "Stiletto Chair", out of 4.5 lbs of human hair cuttings!
Thompson, who has styled the locks of many Miss World contestants, was inspired to recycle hair after working on the set of the film "Batman Begins." He stretched a piece of fiberglass, which snapped. He did the same thing to a strand of hair, which withstood far more stretching.
He learned that one strand of hair can support 8,750 times its own weight, a head of hair can support over 13 tons and that hair can double its own length before breaking.
Lab work led to a product called Pilius X, the structural basis for the chair and his other proposed inventions. It's a hair-based bio-polymer mixed with a recyclable bio-resin.