Rather than wash her hair down the plughole, retired teacher Xiang Renxian collected all the strands of her "wonderful long hair" and knitted it into a coat and cap.
Her husband is the lucky recipient of these garments, and god help him if he loses them: it took Xiang 11 years to make.
Shanghai Daily reported that she used hooked needles used for knitting sweaters, and used 110,000 of her hairs, which she has been collecting since they started falling out when she was 34.
"The average length of hair she used for knitting is about 70 to 80 centimeters, and she used 15 hairs to make a strand of yarn."
Xiang, who is from China's Chongqing province, said: "Throughout my youth I was always famous for my wonderful long hair, and as I grew older I realised that, just like my looks, my hair was losing its lustre. I wanted to find a way to preserve that, and came up with the idea of using it to create something for my husband. Once I got into the technique that I developed, it was actually not difficult to do, you just need patience and I knew that I had the time.
"Whatever happens to my hair in the future, I now know that this will always be there as a reminder of my youth and the many good memories my husband and I shared in that time."
What it lacks in time-saving, it makes up for in cost - have you seen how expensive wool is these days?