Cavalcade and Cricket&Blue Collaboration Part 1: How to Gather Hair for Horsehair Jewelry

Rachel, the founder of , and I have been emailing back and forth all week planning this collaboration. Today’s post is part one of a short series of posts featuring Cricket&Blue’s gorgeous custom horsehair jewelry.

Cricket&Blue

The first step when ordering jewelry from Cricket&Blue is gathering your horse’s tail hairs (my next post will review the bracelet Rachel creates from the hair I send her). Also refer to this helpful guide on Cricket&Blue’s site: ““.

I followed the guide when I went to the barn Wednesday night to cut sections from Kidd’s tail to send to Rachel. Cricket&Blue requires a section that is at least 15″ long and is made up of around 250 hairs (close to the width of your index finger). It is better to have too much than too little.

Gathering Hair for horsehair jewelry

1. I found the end of Kidd’s tailbone, and lifted his tail until the hairs fanned out on either side in order to find the section of his tail with the longest hair.
Gathering Hair for horsehair jewelry

2. Once I found the longest hair, I separated out a small section, and cut it close to the tailbone.

3. I cut three small sections of the same size from different areas on his tail so that there wouldn’t be any ‘bald’ areas. When I was finished, I couldn’t even tell that I had cut any hair. His tail still looks full and even.

Gathering Hair for horsehair jewelry
Side Note: Kidd or his friends must have dragged his poor halter into the pasture and had some fun destroying it! The horses don’t wear halters when they are turned out, so I thought it was safe to buy him a nice leather one. I guessed wrong: a group of mostly young geldings will figure out how to steal halters from the hooks outside the fence.

Each time I cut a section, I immediately wrapped it tightly with a rubber band to keep the hair neat before cutting another section. When I was done, I secured all three sections together to further insure that the hair stayed together. Kidd was pretty interested in the process, or, maybe he was just confused by seeing me bundle up sections of his tail with rubber bands!

Cricketandblue5

Here is a closeup of the hair I gathered for Rachel.

Washing horsehair to prepare it for creating horsehair jewelry

4. This morning I washed the hair with some of Ponytail’s Bubbles & Bucks shampoo and warm water to remove dirt and grime. Any mild shampoo will do. I chose Ponytail’s shampoo because it has natural ingredients that are less likely to leave residue in the hair. Rachel will re-wash the hair when she receives it, but she requests that it be washed before it is shipped to avoid the build-up of bacteria.

Right now, I have the hair laid out on a towel to dry completely before I package it up in a plastic bag and padded mailer to send to Rachel.

I am SO excited to see the bracelet Rachel creates with the hair I collected! It really will be special, as not only will it be made of Kidd’s hair, but it will be custom made to fit my wrist perfectly! I encourage those of you who want a special keepsake to represent your favorite horse or to remind you of a beloved horse who has passed, to stay tuned throughout the rest of this collaboration!

Follow Cricket&Blue on Facebook .

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply