10-foot human-hair ball rolls through Manhattan streets

A 10-foot sphere of real human hair, called Tumblehair, rolled through Manhattan neighbourhoods this week as a marketing stunt for haircare brand K18. Times of India reports that the installation, created by Uncommon Creative Studio, visited Midtown, West Village, Chinatown and the Seaport before its final public appearance at Gansevoort Plaza, where passersby could get a free scalp analysis.

The studio said the giant hairball aimed to highlight the scale of hair shedding and premature hair ageing. Creative directors Lauren Cooper and Cara Johnson said they wanted to break the "quiet whisper" around hair loss, which affects roughly 80 million Americans. K18 said in a statement: "We wanted to make you stop and think about how much hair you leave behind every day."

Online reactions were mixed, with some calling it disgusting and others curious about whether a robot or a person was inside the ball. One Instagram user joked: "So that's where all my postpartum hair loss went." The campaign was designed to spark conversation around a topic the industry has long treated as quietly manageable.