For Mona

Remember Edward's ring in Sense and Sensibility?  Made of the conniving Lucy's hair, it was similar in color to Elinor's, creating doomed optimism for the Dashwood ladies.  At least Lucy took it back when she jilted Edward and married his brother.  When Austen wrote at the end of the 1700s, hair was not just used for memento mori jewelry to remember the dead, but was also given by the living to those they loved.  Like Lucy gave Edward when she "appeared everything that was amiable and obliging." 

Georgian hair ring from www.georgianjewelry.com

But during the Victorian era, when Goth was fashionable and called "mourning," men and women wore hair jewelry- usually from dead people.  Some of it was sweet, and some of it was pretty. 

Victorian hair necklace or set of bracelets, www.1stdibs.com

At the turn of the century, hair jewelry ceased to be popular.  Oddly, for something that had been so popular, it completely disappeared from public view or even respectability.  It was terrible timing, really, with WWI right around the corner.  Perhaps that much death took the fun out of mourning. 

Hair jewelry became a collector's oddity.  A few Victorian historians and re-enactors kept the craft alive as well, usually adhering to historically accurate forms although this one is like none I have ever seen before. 

Modern hair bridal tiara- I agree with Mona in this one- yuuurrrgggggg.

Hair jewels do not have to be freaky.  Hairlooms, based in Australia, caters to horse people and uses horse hair, but will also make jewelry from human hair in line with modern sensibilities too.  Hairlooms also makes jewels with impressions of hair- for those who can't get over the bleeecchhh factor of wearing actual hair.

Hair and silver ring, available in gold, www.hairlooms.com.au

Gratuitous kitten shot- imagine the hair these two could contribute!