Hair Clips Trend – The Unsustainable Accessory?

I’m over the micro trend. 

Growing up in the eighties I had a small collection of hair clips or slides as we called them. The memory of them being scraped along the skull and snapped in situ – to ensure they stayed in place all day – is one that will stay with me forever.  However, in case anyone doesn’t know, the humble hair clip has moved on from the simple gold slides I used to wear. Moreover, they have gone beyond a girly right of way and into a women’s full fashion trend.

And environmentally that is where it becomes a problem. A huge wave of plastic tat being sold and bought to satisfy a fashion craving that will be over in a matter of months. It could be argued that hair clips have never been the epitome of the environmentally conscious. We have sustained shops selling tacky plastic hair clips for decades. It was almost impossible to frequent Claire Accessories in the early 2000s and leave empty-handed.

Nevertheless, it is only recently that there has been a surge in people buying hair clips. It is a fairly easy way to get a modern high fashion runway look on a budget and without much effort. People searching Google for hair clips and hair slides have increased two-fold in the past year in the UK. It’s official – hair clips have fallen into the micro trend hole.

Even those with a dedicated interest in the sustainability of fashion have gone forth and bought hair clips that they would have probably laughed at the year before. The same people who take reusable straws and cups each day to work, can’t resist a pearly hair clip. What chance have the rest of the population got as the cute, pretty hair clip trend closes in?

A quick search on fast fashion giant Asos website and there are 126 hair clip designs to choose from. Without a doubt, every one of those 126 designs will end up in the landfill. And the majority of them in the not so distant future. In effect hair clips sold in fast fashion shops are cheap, fragile and breakable. The diamonte hair clips with words spelt out like “drama’ and ‘girl boss’ possibly won’t make it to the end of this season never mind next.

The market for hair clips is excessive. For one thing, they are impossible to recycle. The market for donation is small so you can try and pass them onto your little sister, but where do they go after that?

After all, accessories don’t have to be bad for the planet. There are literally thousands of vintage options on Etsy. Many are budget-friendly. Or try the local charity shop, they often pick up on trends too. If you really want to buy new, opt for handmade or buy one that you truly appreciate. Buying less is an option too, many of the cheaper hair clips are in packs of three or more. This isn’t Costco, just buy what you are going to use.

Personally, I don’t have an issue with the trends themselves. It’s the way that people behave around them that bothers me. People go out of their way to wear something that is trendy just to discard it as soon as it no longer becomes fashionable. And here’s a secret, it always becomes unfashionable.

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Hair clip images are from Etsy, click the image to see more. Links are affiliate.