Ep. 178 - Ready for a Carpet Made of Human Hair? This Entrepreneur Turns Salon Waste into Textiles
SHOW NOTES
What if one solution to fashion’s waste problem is literally growing on our own heads?
Every day, salons around the world toss out millions of pounds of freshly cut human hair — a clean, protein-rich, renewable resource that mostly ends up in landfills or incinerators. But what if that so-called waste could become the next sustainable textile?
My guest on this episode, Zsofia Kollar, is the founder and CEO of Human Material Loop, a Netherlands-based startup turning salon hair waste into a high-performance fibre that behaves like wool — but with 43 times lower CO₂ emissions, 20 times less water use, and none of the animal cruelty or plastics. Their branded fiber, called Adara, is already being spun into things like carpets, curtains, and acoustic panels — and it’s made from something we all grow ourselves.
In this conversation, Zsofia and I talk about how she got the idea to build an entire materials company out of human hair, how her technology works, why hair is such a strong and versatile material, the “ick” factor of human-derived fibres, and how she’s scaling her model so that salons and HML benefit alike.
If you think using human hair in textiles sounds strange, stick around — because by the end of this episode, you might just want a carpet made from your own cut-offs.
I’ll let Zsofia make the case.
DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE
Washington Post coverage of Human Material Loop’s work.
Zoroastrians sometimes practice sky burial on a Tower of Silence, in which vultures are allowed to consume a recently deceased human.
Our past episode on human composting with Recompose.
MORE ABOUT Zsofia Kollar
Zsofia Kollar is a forward-thinking entrepreneur passionate about sustainable innovation. Science and design are crucial in the company’s development. After her experience running an independent design studio, Zsofia was driven to reimagine waste management, focusing particularly on hair waste. Her goal is to foster collaboration and innovation for a more sustainable future. Human Material Loop demonstrates that sustainability and economic growth can coexist. Zsofia’s dedication extends beyond her CEO role—she’s also a published author and university lecturer, inspiring others in design and sustainability. Her vision entails holistic sustainability, where science, design, and collaboration reshape waste management and drive innovation.
TRANSCRIPT
Paul Shapiro (00:01)
Welcome, friend, to episode 178 of the Business for Good podcast. I'm glad that so many people were happy with the last episode with Isabel Bomecki on nuclear electricity. It was popular with a lot of folks who wrote in about it, many expressing surprise at just how few people have been killed by nuclear energy accidents, only a few hundred, compared to renewable hydropower accidents, which was hundreds of thousands from one single hydro accident. Other people also were surprised, as certainly was I, at how little land nuclear power takes up compared to solar panels. Anyway, if you liked that episode, we're going to be doing another one in the near future on nuclear electricity. So stay tuned for that. But for now, we're talking about perhaps what seems like the most renewable resource on the planet, or at least one of them, human beings. There are more than 8 billion of us on the planet today, with 10 billion projected to be here in the next 25 years. So while some of us, myself included, do seem to lose some of it as we age, all of us grow hair.
And what do we do with it when that hair is too long? Of course we cut it off and it goes into landfills. But what if one solution to our waste problem is literally growing right on our heads? Because every day salons around the world toss out millions of pounds of freshly cut human hair. That's a clean, protein-rich, renewable resource that mostly ends up in landfills or incinerators. But what if that so-called waste could become the next sustainable textile?
My guest on this episode, Joffia Collard, is the founder and CEO of Human Material Loop. Yes, you heard that right, Human Material Loop, a Netherlands-based startup turning hair salon waste into a high-performance fiber that behaves like wool, but with 43 times lower CO2 emissions, 20 times less water use, and none of the animal cruelty or the plastics.
Their branded fiber, which is called Adara, is already being spun into things like carpets, curtains, and acoustic panels, and it's made from something we all grow ourselves. In this conversation, Joffia and I talk about how she got the idea to build an entire materials company out of human hair, how her technology works, why hair is such a strong and versatile material, of course, the ick factor of using any human-derived fiber, and how she's scaling her model so that salons and human material loop benefit alike.
If you think that using human hair and textiles sounds strange, stick around, because by the end of the episode, you might just want a carpet made from your own cutoffs too. I'll let Joffia make the case.
Paul Shapiro (02:28)
Zofia, welcome to the Business for Good podcast.
Zsofia Kollar (02:32)
Paul, thank you for having me.
Paul Shapiro (02:34)
I'm excited. know, my wife donates her hair so she grows it way out. She won't cut it for over a year. And then she donates it to kids who need hair. And I always think, that's interesting. What happens to all the hair that just gets cut at salons and hair cutteries and so on? And I have wondered in the past, why not do something with all this hair? That's the extent of it though. never had a proposal. I never thought here's what you could do. I just thought, that's a lot of hair. I wonder what you could do with it.
You, on the other hand, thought, what can we do with it? And actually came up with some idea. So tell me, how did that come to pass that you cut off human hair might be some actual viable business?
Zsofia Kollar (03:13)
Well, many things led to this concept and the foundation of the company. First of all, if you really want to design, I come from a design background, so if you really want to design something, we need to go back to the materials. So if we can't have responsible materials, we can never design anything responsible further along the way. The second is like, I was looking at my body and then I am donating my blood. I already signed up my organs if I pass away and I'm like, we are such a wonderful creatures, but
what else can we actually give without harming ourselves? And then, you know, I have a long hair. And it clicked also that, wow, this is the second fastest tissue on the human body. It just keeps growing. And we just cut it because, yeah, we like to have the, you know, some style in our hair. But what do we do with it? And then I realized, well, actually, we're just incinerating and lengthening it. Well, it's actually just such a clean.
prime protein that goes to the landfills in a huge volume, so quite a shame. And that was how I was thinking, okay, we need to do something with this material, but also looking at the climate crisis, the textile industry, and its exploitation, pollution for the environment. But also it was just so fascinating that once you have hair on your head, it's the most precious piece on your body. would do anything, spend money, time on it to make it look good.
But once it's caught, it's so neglected, you don't even want look at your own hair on the floor. And I think that's the biggest issue in today's world, that we just remove value from everything so quickly. But what if we can give value back to everything that we discard, then we wouldn't be in this mess.
Paul Shapiro (04:46)
Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that. was actually thinking when I was ⁓ contemplating our conversation in advance, I was thinking about how people care so much about hair, right? They do so much to make their hair look attractive. And then as soon as a hair is no longer on your head, even though it's, know, molecularly identical to a minute before, it becomes completely disgusting to us. Like if there was a hair on your food, you would be outraged. If there was a hair on your shirt that you were going to buy, you would think it was disgusting.
And I did wonder like we're gonna get to this this factor about like, you know, the gross out factor later I'm sure you get asked about this all the time about who wants products with human hair But let's first talk about what you're doing Geoffia So you saw all this hair getting you know, throwing down the drain right going into trash cans and landfills or being incinerated and you thought what a shame but it's not like you're just taking that hair as Is and you know weaving it into a t-shirt that somebody's gonna wear you're doing something
to this hair to make it usable as a textile, what is it that you're doing?
Zsofia Kollar (05:48)
Yeah, so we have developed our technology to transform these fibers into Adderham. That's our branded market fiber that we are planning to put into the, mostly for the interior and home textile market. So it's a process that is based on organic chemistry where we are removing the melanin, opening up the scales of the fibers and also applying some nanoparticles to enhance the friction to make it spinnable for a spun yarn or a nonwoven textile piece.
How we call it more or less in-house is we will find the fibers and then also preparing for a standardized textile fiber application.
Paul Shapiro (06:24)
The idea behind this when I was first learning about your cool work I was thinking huh, she wants to make this into t-shirts But it turns out actually what you're doing is turning it into things like interior furnishings. Am I correct about that?
Zsofia Kollar (06:39)
Yeah, so think about like curtains, carpets, upholstery, acoustic panels, acoustic textiles, so very much in the built environment. We were also in the beginning did a few fashion collaborations, we have a lot of fashion requests also at the moment, but we also see that we need to deliver volumes if we want to create real impact for the future and the interior industry is the one that actually
brings volume to the market, does not get discarded, does not driven by trends, it's really driven by performance. But also if you look at how much we spend indoors and all the materials we surround ourselves indoors and all those toxic coatings, all those unhealthy materials that we have our products made of in our homes, in offices, in hotels, actually have a very serious health impact. So how can we also turn this big volume into the most sustainable textiles out there that will actually not harm your health?
Paul Shapiro (07:32)
So right now, if I cut my hair and I throw it into the backyard, presumably it's going to biodegrade, right? However, you're going to make a carpet out of my hair. What keeps the carpet from biodegrading right under my feet? Like, why isn't it going to biodegrade?
Zsofia Kollar (07:48)
⁓ Hair is extremely strong due to the keratin protein structure that it's mainly made of. It does not degrade an aerial environment. So if you put your hair into the ground in a soil environment, it will degrade within two years, just like wool and all other protein fibers and animal hair. In aerial environment, it does not degrade. So also if you look at it, the oldest found hair is a 9,000 year old hair found in a mummy in Chile. So basically that carpet will never go.
fall apart because it was just extremely strong. Of course, all these years since I started the company, I received so many hair from all over the world, from all kinds of people. And once somebody found almost 200 years old hair in their attic, and then they sent it to us. But we were just very curious to test how much it got weakened during this time, what happened to the hair. But structurally, you could not see any difference to my own hair.
So it's just an incredible material that has so much potential to bring a real difference to the world.
Paul Shapiro (08:47)
So what you're saying, Zofia, is that if I take your carpet and I put it in my living room, it won't degrade, but if I buried it underground, it might.
Interesting. Okay. So how do you get started? You just go around to hair salons and say, Hey, can I have the hair you're tossing? Like, what was the actual way that you started obtaining human hair?
Zsofia Kollar (09:08)
exactly how it was. I was still living in Amsterdam in the Netherlands and of course I had to talk to hairdressers. What do they produce in a month? How much hair they are cutting? What do they think about this material? I talked to many, many hairdressers, many industry players to what do you do with this hair? Would you have the ambition to do something with it? And it was incredible to see you because you can do so much research from your desk reading all these papers. When you actually talk to people who are working with this, they were so enthusiastic, so happy and
all their reactions were like, where have you been? You can't imagine like how many bags we have put out on the street all these years while it's incredible material like this is the most well maintained material that we have. We wash it, we treat it, we condition it. It's just the best material anybody can think of. And they were all the time thinking what can we do with this? But then I think it also comes into play like you need to combine different perspectives and expertise to actually make an innovation. So
how a hairdresser can inspire me as a designer and a scientist who comes in it and the engineer later. This is just such a beautiful way to show that diversity is actually what makes innovations go.
Paul Shapiro (10:21)
So do they give it to you for free? Like they're putting it out in trash bags on the street, but are they giving it to you for free or are you paying them for the hair?
Zsofia Kollar (10:29)
We have the subscription model, so that's what they are paying. And then in the long term, they can also get some benefits from the waste collectors that are currently operating for these waste streams. So the business model for them is also on win-win situation. So they can also make some profit in the long term. As a company, between us and the hair salons, we do not want to have an exact monetization, because that would also could enable some exploitative
practices within. So we just want to make sure that the salons can grow, get more clients, lower their taxes, lower their payments for the waste collection. And yeah, and reinvest that money also into remodeling their salons, changing their lighting for a more sustainable one, having coffee served from a more sustainable source, and so on. So it's a win-win situation that is really based on the partnership that how we can strengthen each other.
Paul Shapiro (11:24)
So just so I understand what you're saying, because I heard you say, Zofia, that there's a subscription model. Who is paying who? Are they paying you to take the hair or are you paying them for the hair? Who pays in the subscription? Okay, so why, if they just right now throw out the hair for free, why would they pay you to take it?
Zsofia Kollar (11:37)
they pay us.
to start to throw away unless they dump it in some illegal spot somewhere. It's not free, they have to pay the city.
Paul Shapiro (11:52)
I see. So they're reducing their own municipal waste cost by doing that. Interesting. Wow. Okay. That's pretty interesting. Yeah. mean, I, you know, I think, I don't know what businesses do like, actually I do. in at least in California where I am, you know, the business that I run, we have a dumpster and the city comes and they pick it up every month, but we don't get charged based on how much we put in the dumpster. We just can't fill up more than one dumpster. That's it. So
Zsofia Kollar (11:57)
exactly.
Paul Shapiro (12:20)
What you're saying is in the Netherlands that you're actually getting charged by the pound of waste that they're putting out there? Is that how it works?
Zsofia Kollar (12:26)
It depends on some municipalities. Some they are charging them based on the square meter of the salon. Some have a fixed rate of approximately calculated bags that they are putting out on the street. But it's also a certain amount of garbage tax that you have to pay every year as a business owner here in the Netherlands and also very similar in other European countries as well.
Paul Shapiro (12:51)
Okay. All right. So you're not just getting your raw material for free. You are getting paid to pick up the raw material and then you have to do something to it, right? You're going to transform it. There is something that is, I presume, proprietary to your company. Otherwise, anybody else could just go get hair and weave it into a carpet also. And I've read in interviews that you mentioned basically two technological pathways. What you call
physical or chemical versus keratin extraction, right? excuse me, and like wet spinning. I don't really know what those are. So tell me what those are, keratin extraction, wet spinning. What does all this mean? You take care and then what do do to it?
Zsofia Kollar (13:29)
So we take the hair, we sort it, everything that is under three centimeter, we sort it out of our big bulk. Anything that is longer than three centimeter goes through a chemical processing, which uses very mild chemicals to do the treatment that we have developed. And that goes into a spondy. So shorter fibers spun together, very similar as wool or cotton. So all these shorter fibers spun together. But when we are removing everything that is under three centimeter, we have some base from the previous production.
So as a company, we also aim to be completely closed loop. We have no waste. So what is waste in one of our productions, that's the input for the other production. And that's where the wet spinning comes in, where we are extracting the keratin from the hair and then creating a solution that we can spun into a continuous filament. So very similar to the viscose production, for example, where you are making a pulp or a liquid and then you spin it into the continuous filament.
Paul Shapiro (14:26)
Okay, so how do you maintain consistency, right? Because you're gonna have some hairs that are, know, people have curly hair, they have straight hair, people might have different qualities of hair, if their hair is thinner or thicker, they might be dyeing their hair. How do you maintain a consistency? Usually a company wants an invariable supply of their raw material coming in.
But by very definition of getting this waste stream product, it's not consistent. It is very variable. So how do you ensure that what you get comes out all in one type of form?
Zsofia Kollar (15:00)
course there are some differences, so different color type of hair, but when you mix a lot of different things then it evens out itself. So the more you mix into each other, the more homogeneous the output will become. So we are of course working with quite some volume so that the more we ⁓ blend in, the more ⁓ equal the outcome will be. That's we can guarantee that the output will be always the same based on the blending method that we have.
But also if you look at all the natural fibers, they are never the same unless it's a synthetic material. You will never have the same sheep. You will never have the same goats. You will never have the same cotton growing in the exact same way. So if you talk about in the natural fibers, there are always some differences. This is not a mass produced fiber. This comes from living creatures. So there are differences, but we blend it and it evens out.
Paul Shapiro (15:49)
Hmm. Okay. So that is ⁓ really fascinating, Zofia. How are you going to scale it though? Like if you are in a position right now where in Amsterdam, you've got a subscription service for so on's, how do you scale this to go make the impact that you want to have so that you're getting huge volumes of hair and not just pilot?
Zsofia Kollar (16:10)
The supply is not an issue at all, so that's what we need to now be careful that we match the supply demand side as well, because we have so much here offered to us from all different organizations, businesses, that the volume can really come in really, really big quantities. There are also some waste remaining from the industry where they are making the wigs.
And that means we can also obtain. So that's quite a big bulk supply that we are now first targeting to get those bulk supplies from the waste of the weak factories.
Paul Shapiro (16:41)
Wow, okay. I ⁓ am really impressed to that about the product that you're making and based on how you're getting it. What are the physical characteristics of this fiber, right? Like some people you're talking about cotton and wool, which have different characteristics from each other, which is the primary reason why somebody might use one versus the other. Then there are synthetics. You're using human hair. Like what are the performance characteristics of this fiber? The strength, the durability, like compared to the things you're trying to place.
to displace.
Zsofia Kollar (17:11)
So hair is very similar to wool, except it has a higher diameter, which also means that it has much more of the strength, elongation, and also the breaking point. So we are starting with an extremely strong fiber that can provide a very high tensile strength for any product we would make from it. But next to that, it also has a natural fire retardancy. You don't have to apply any additional coatings to make the fabric's fire retardant. But also because of the protein structure, the colorability is extremely good.
colouring proteins like wool or silk, it's very efficient because the amino acids are bonding with the dyes. We can use less dyes on lower temperatures and then create a higher resistance to UV lightness that enables a very good lightfastness for the material. So I would say these three things are the most key performance indicators for the material, the strength, the colourability and the fire retardancy.
Paul Shapiro (18:07)
And what are you actually like when people ask you, what should I use your material in replacement of? it cotton? Is it wool? Like what is the replacement or is it just something totally different that it's not actually a one-to-one replacement for any current fiber?
Zsofia Kollar (18:24)
We often compare our material to wool fibers because that's what we are very similar to, minus the animal cruelty and animal exploitation involved in the processing. No microplastics that we have in our materials. we don't per se that we can replace this material. We can provide an alternative for your current material usage, such as acrylic or wool, recycled polyester. It's up to the people who
what they would like to actually bring into that product, what performance they are looking for, what footprint they are looking for, what's important for them.
Paul Shapiro (18:59)
Okay, so what is the actual cost then? Like if it is, let's say wool that you're comparing it to. I read in an article, a year old article from the Washington Post, but they noted that it costs more than wool right now and that full scale production is not yet achieved. So what's the cost compared to wool and at full scale, will you be cost competitive with the dominant fibers today?
Zsofia Kollar (19:26)
We also just did our unit economics with validated numbers from different factories. We are already cost competitive with wool. And now we already achieved that we can provide our material on the same cost as wool. So people don't have to decide on what can they afford. It's about what they're willing to put into the environment from the product line. And the more we scale, the cheaper we will become. Our goal is to really provide an affordable material because
anybody should have the right to have sustainable and healthy materials on an affordable price.
Paul Shapiro (20:00)
Okay, if you are already cost competitive with wool, I don't believe that you're at full scale just yet. So what scale are you at? You're already selling. Where can people buy an HML carpet or something else that is made with human hair?
Zsofia Kollar (20:18)
We are a B2B company so we will not produce any final products, we are just providing the fiber, yarn or felt or woven fabric to other companies who want to put it into that product. it's up to the companies how quickly they will implement it to their new collection, their product lines, our materials. We are now starting our sales process so we are still in the beginning of that cycle to actually bring it out to the market.
If companies are interested, they can always reach out to us to inquire some materials and then we are happy to provide what we can do for them. At the moment, we are on a few hundred kilograms production capacity and it's increasing as we go every month further and further.
Paul Shapiro (21:01)
100 kilos per day, per week, per year? And a batch is a week, a day? How long to make 100 kilos of product?
Zsofia Kollar (21:04)
for better.
Well, we can do one better day at the moment.
Paul Shapiro (21:13)
Yeah, okay. Well, that's exciting. So you're saying it's up to these companies as to how quickly they're going to actually commercialize what they're doing with you. What type of companies are they? Are they carpet companies? they making curtains? Like what do you think is going to be the first application of your fiber in the actual marketplace?
Zsofia Kollar (21:30)
We are more than certain that we have a lot of acoustic solutions, so lot of acoustic panels, phone booths and those solutions that actually help to reduce noise in the offices. We are also talking to a of carpet manufacturers who would just buy the yarn from us and weave that carpet. So it's either going to be on your wall or on your floor.
Paul Shapiro (21:51)
Okay, well I'm in a room that has sound destroying panels on the side of the room right now, so it'll be pretty cool if they were made with human hair. There's also a carpet in the room, that would be awesome if it was made from human hair, but many people are not like me. I would be thrilled to have some human hair fabric in my household. A lot of people, of course, as I alluded to earlier, are going to find it disgusting. What do you say to them when people say
I don't want some stranger's hair, let alone dozens of stranger's hairs in my home. It sounds filthy to me. What do you say?
Zsofia Kollar (22:25)
⁓ It's also important to say that it has been here once so it's the material that goes through transformation So the fiber is called Adara the Sanskrit word that means respect and reverence That's also what we stand for as a company. So Adara is our first commercial fiber So the hair goes through transformation. It's just like you don't say you bought this beautiful crude oil yoga pants You say about this nylon or polyester pants the materials goes through transformation. So don't think that you will just find your neighbor's hair in the car, but then
you can give it back to her or him. This material goes through transformation, sanitization, very strict hygiene protocols, a chemical process. So this is no longer hair, this is a new textile fiber. But when people say like, well, I feel a bit ick or I'm not really comfortable knowing the fact that it has been on somebody's head before. Well, let me tell you that that t-shirt that you are most likely buying has been through at least 20 children's hands in the sewing factory.
To me, that's a lot more disgusting to think of that where this material has been before and then just think of somebody beautiful, happily walking out of a hair salon, feeling good, recycling the hair waste and then thinking like how amazing and beautiful it is that now we are not just part of the problem, but we are also part of the solution.
Paul Shapiro (23:45)
Yeah, I like your example about the crude oil yoga pants, right? Because we have so many synthetic products that we wear that originate from oil. But also, many people are quite happy to wear the hair of animals, as you pointed out, many of whom the animals were treated quite poorly.
And it's not like these animals were living the type of hygienic life that a modern human is probably living, right? These animals are living in filthy factory farms a lot of the times. And then we shave off their hair and put it into a sweater that we would wear. That does seem a little bit filthier than ⁓ human hair, I would suggest.
Zsofia Kollar (24:07)
.
Absolutely, much, more like have you ever seen a sheep having a bath like we humans, we wash our hair, body at least once a day. So this is the cleanest fiber anybody can imagine. then with no contamination, with no bacterial growth, with no nastiness. And yeah, that sheep that we are sharing or any other animal, it's extremely dirty. Not just talking about the feces, the dirt, the blood gathers all those time.
but also that that animal was not conscious to give that hair to us. We are still forcing them. Well, we have a very different approach as well that everybody is willing to happily donate this hair in a salon. Many, hairdressers also always asking their clients, would you mind that we are collaborating with this company collecting the hair? Nobody ever said, no, please don't recycle my hair with.
Paul Shapiro (25:11)
Yeah, right. I can imagine. I have to ask you, like, if you think about the, even the process by which you get your hair, right, you're getting paid to take the hair. The people who are raising sheep and making wool, right, they have to pay to breed the sheep, to feed the sheep, to water the sheep, for the land that the sheep are on, to eventually slaughter the sheep. Like, there's all types of costs associated.
with raising an animal for wool. And so the company buying wool to make a sweater or a rug or anything else is paying for all of that. In your case, you're not only not paying for the hair, you're getting the hair for free. So then you're running a process, excuse me, you're not just getting the hair for free, you're actually getting paid to take the hair. So your raw material is coming in at a, already is your first source of revenue.
shouldn't you be substantially cheaper? Like how expensive are these processes like wet spending or whatever you're doing? How expensive are they that you're only cost competitive with wool?
Zsofia Kollar (26:12)
Of course, we will become much cheaper in the future. So now as we are scaling, are reducing every day the cost in the production as well. I'm not sure. The goal would be to compete with polyester, but unfortunately it is so extremely cheap on the market that synthetic fibre production competing currently is almost impossible. But in the long run, absolutely we will be much cheaper than wool.
Paul Shapiro (26:37)
Okay. So then what about the life cycle analysis? I presume that you've done some work looking at either the land footprint or the carbon footprint. So of course there is no footprint for the raw material coming into you, but you're running these processes that I presume take energy and other resources to perform. So what is the life cycle analysis of your product, your final fiber versus wool or any other competitor?
Zsofia Kollar (27:04)
Yeah, so we did a comparison to the wool and for recycled polyesters. So if we look at the global warming potential measured in kilograms and in CO2, we have 43 times less than wool and 16 times less than recycled polyester. If we are looking at the water consumption, we have 20 times less than wool and 10 times less than recycled polyester on the terrestrial ecotoxicity.
They also have much lower numbers than wool and recycled polyester. We also did some other comparisons to cotton and whisko, but as we compare benchmarking our material to recycled polyester and wool, we like to stick to these comparisons as well. It was quite shocking to realize how much more impact we can create by implementing this material into the production system.
And I do have to say that the LCA that we have done it with gate to gate. So means that the cradle to gate for the material sourcing and the cultivation period was not calculated in. So just by looking at the factory production gate to gate, we already have so much better impact than the materials out there. And once we do the cradle to cradle analysis for our livestock analysis, we will be extremely
way above the dream that we can provide the material in this low footprint.
Paul Shapiro (28:31)
⁓ That's impressive. That's impressive. You mentioned earlier, Zofia, that you're already are an organ donor, right? So you're going to die at some point and they're going to harvest, you know, your kidneys, your liver, your heart, whatever they can to help somebody else. Can you get hair donations from cadavers as well? Like before people get cremated, can you have the morgue shave their head and give their hair to human material loop?
Zsofia Kollar (28:57)
⁓ Definitely not. Unless somebody specifically requested to cut the hair and give it to us, we have a very strict ethical practice and every supplier that we are working with have to very comply where this hair is coming from. The one thing we really want to avoid is that nobody will force anybody or obtain this hair in an unethical ⁓ practice.
Paul Shapiro (29:18)
If somebody is already an organ donor, presumably they wouldn't care or you think that's not right.
Zsofia Kollar (29:23)
That's right, unless they specifically donate my hair, you know, I don't think I had it in my organ donation form that I had to also, you know, I just think everything but there was no hair, I'm pretty sure. But if somebody's afraid, welcome, but as I said, we have a very strict ethical policy on where this hair can come. They are also tracing back where all this hair is coming from, so preferably don't.
Paul Shapiro (29:50)
Okay, all right, very good. I might have to change my will to note that I want my hair donated now to make it explicit. ⁓ Joffia, you're doing one of the most interesting things of anybody I've ever spoken to. I really hope that there are a lot of people who are like me who don't mind and would actually like to have a human hair carpet in their house. What resources were useful for you when you were deciding to start this company or since you started the company?
Zsofia Kollar (29:57)
Okay.
Paul Shapiro (30:16)
that have been helpful for you along your journey to making this company a reality.
Zsofia Kollar (30:21)
People, it will sound very cliche, but talking to people, you will gain so much knowledge and understanding of the industry, the market, of the economics, of what you need to get done to make this company to the next stage. And of course, I also read a lot of books and I am a big podcast listener as well. So I always seeking where can I learn something? Where can I learn a tip? Learn from others how they did it.
But what advice I can give to everybody, just keep talking to as many people as you can. Spam everybody on LinkedIn, hey, do you have 15 minutes? I would like to know about this. I would like to know about that. What do you think of this? Because people are genuinely very helpful creatures. So if somebody comes to you and really genuinely wants to have some better understanding, you will not deny that person. Maybe you don't have time right away or you recommend somebody else, but...
We people, we actually like to help each other. And that was also a beautiful part of recognizing that during this journey of the company that just keep talking to people because they will help you.
Paul Shapiro (31:26)
Yeah, I have also found that asking people for advice generally yields pretty good outcomes and that most people are very averse to saying no to offering advice. Finally, Joffia, let me ask you if there are companies that you wish that somebody else would start. Presumably, you are going to be busy with human material loop for some time. I imagine, though, that if you had the idea that is as crazy as starting as a company made out of human hair,
⁓ then you probably have other cool crazy ideas that maybe somebody else wants to take up. So for somebody listening, what should they think about doing?
Zsofia Kollar (32:01)
I really think that we need to explore more of what the body can provide. And I see a huge potential in urine utilization. It's a very valuable ammonia that we could use into so many different industries. We already collected it through the pipes. So I think that could be a very interesting ⁓ company to pursue and then also to use. We are the biggest impact makers on this planet, so how can we actually use our
existence to do something. I don't have any creepy ideas about butchering anybody but really like the bodily fluids that we are just releasing. How can we utilize that? How can our own race become something useful for the future? On a more consumerist side, I keep struggling of finding a very good natural uterine. So I also would like to encourage some people to please also to pursue
How can we actually develop something that is actually biocompatible with our skin and then with our sweat? Because yeah, I've been keeping struggling for many years. I found a very great solution, but then after some time, it always disappoints, gives some issues. yeah, I think we should be more body-centered, human focused, and actually what can our body give and what our bodies need.
Paul Shapiro (33:22)
Okay,
are you familiar with the Zoroastrian practice of sky burial? So for those who aren't familiar, basically the Zoroastrians, which is a religious minority in Persia, have a practice where they put their dead up on the top of a tower for vultures to consume them. It's a very sacred practice, which has unfortunately been harder to do.
of late because of the dramatic vulture population decline as basically there's a drug that cattle have been fed that is when vultures consume them has decimated the cattle population in India and Pakistan and so on. But it's a pretty cool practice. I would frankly love to have a sky burial for myself actually so I doubt that's going to be legal or possible in the US but it sounds pretty awesome.
All right. Well, I appreciate all of that, Joffia. And I really hope that you're able to scale quickly so that I can get a cool human hair carpet in my household. I promise you that I will be a customer of whoever your customer is, if that's what they're offering. So I'm really looking forward to that. Congratulations on the success that you've had so far. My understanding is that you are fundraising right now. If people want to get in touch, they can go to your website. We'll share that link at businessforgoodpodcast.com.
so that they can learn more about how they can get involved with human material. So good luck in everything that you're doing, Zofia, and I will continue to root for your success.
Zsofia Kollar (34:49)
Yes, thank you,