Funmi Olawuyi

Eso Extension, BA Product and Industrial Design, Runner Up, 2024

Eso Extensions are plant-based hair extensions made from pineapple fibre. They offer a safer alternative to petroleum-based hair extensions, which have been linked to cancer. The extensions utilise natural softeners, plant-based dyes and pineapple leaves – which are often discarded – promoting a healthier body and environment.

Eso Extensions offer a sustainable alternative to synthetic hair extensions. With the hair industry expecting to gross over 19 billion in 2028, there’s an urgent need to review how hair extensions can be designed to be more sustainable products for both the consumer and the environment.

Hair extensions are commonly used by women of colour and woven into protective styles such as cornrows and braids. These extensions are a core part of many Black women’s haircare routines and are worn for many weeks. Despite this, popular brands including Xpression produce petroleum-based extensions that contain cancerous ingredients like PVC and vinyl chloride. Furthermore, synthetic extensions pile up in landfills and pollute water systems due to their single-use nature and non-biodegradable material.

Eso aims to provide a bio-based hair extension solution using pineapple leaf fibres, natural softener solutions and plant-based dyes to create soft, natural-feeling hair extensions.

Pineapple leaves are commonly discarded in the harvesting process, so I’ve collaborated with pineapple farmers in Nigeria to reuse their waste streams. Once the pineapple fibre is extracted, the remaining scraps are donated back to farmers to use as fertiliser or to feed livestock. This ensures no material is wasted in the process.

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