Is using mohair fur okay?

Mm, I do eat meat and stuff so I'm not a vegetarian, and I do not have an issue with using the pelts, so long as the animals were not killed for just the fur, like a few people have said in this thread.

 

Whatever you read into my words that makes you feel better is fine. But don't go saying I'm wrong when you misinterpret what I actually mean.

"Baby seals" are those cute widdle whitecoats and every last one of you knows it. And they lose that cute widdle white coat by a month old. You all know what I meant. Good lord, doll owners are nitpickers extraordinaire. I think everyone who has nitpicked my statements just doesn't understand the actual "science" of the Canadian seal hunt and would rather kneejerk because waaaaaah seals.

EDIT: Oh, and as for the "It is TOO avoidable, you can buy vegan this-that-and-the-other-thing", I'm sure it's possible. But I don't have the time nor the burning motivation to seek out expensive "vegan" stuff made from plastics. Which, again, comes from ancient dead animals and plants liquefying over millennia. (My time is currently eaten up by the fact there's a lot of that liquefied plant and animal matter spewing out into my local sea and we have to watch it and deal with the effects...) Your plastic ain't vegan. Thank you come again. Just live with the hypocrisies and live your life, you know?

 

LOL "chickens are mean and I dont like them"

that made me laugh! i needed a good laugh....

 

I always used to be fascinated by that, how everything we hold is made from oil that's made from compressed, liquified dead things. My laptop is made from a dinosaur, I think, but not a very fierce one. Maybe I should start pressing my ear against every laptop I consider buying to see if I can hear the roar of a ferocious t-rex. xD But anyway, that's off topic. The horror happening in the Gulf proves that even the non-(recent)animal related plastic things aren't suffering free - look at the multitudes of dead and suffering animals from irresponsible oil drilling.

 

Nocturneofsilence - Glad to lend you a little joy for your day. ^-^; Yes. Chickens are mean and I don't like them. Turkeys are worse. >-> One chased me until I jumped into the horse corral.

 

I personally am never going to buy a mohair wig for my dolls, I just dont think I could handle the fact that my doll is wearing fur from a murdered animal, plus one of my dolls is a tried and true animal lover and would NEVER accept a wig like that.

 

I got a wig that is a combination of sythetic hair and mohair. It would seem that the mohair part is synthetic but Im not sure. In either case..
How do you feel about using a mohair wig on your doll?
Its no different than using other things I use in my daily life I probably wouldnt want to think about. Im able to put this kind of thing in the back of my head and not let it bother me.
Does it go against what you believe?
No. As said by someone here before about animals, as long as someone doesnt go hunting for the heck of it or fun im okay with using pieces from animals, otherwise (in some cases) it was killed in vain...
That is my basic thought on the matter, I dont want to go any further and I definately do not promote cruelty.

 

@OpheliaB: Rock on, neighbor.

I would like to share a couple of brief excerpts from Leslie Fish's song "The Fisher's Chant":

The gods made man like any other beast
For all that his pride denies
So he must take his turn at the kill
And all of the rest is lies.

IOW, we're apex predators, baby.

Also, this:

And you who feed on nothing but plants
Don't hold your pride so high
For plants are living, and just might feel
And they take so long to die.

Read all the lyrics here: http://www.textfiles.com/music/fisher.txt

Don't get me wrong; anyone who's a vegetarian for personal or religious reasons has nothing but my respect. I fully support their lifestyle choice. It's when they try to convert me to the way of the herbivore, or start shouting "Meat is MURDER!" at me, that I start baring my incisors and showing my canines. "There. Look. See? I have an OMNIVORE's dentition. Look it up."

Dragging my post back to the original subject, I've seen wigs made out of everything from human hair to bunny fur. I use the synthetic stuff because (a) it's easier to work with and (b) it's cheaper. Morality don't enter into it. If rabbit pelts were a buck apiece a whole lot of my dolls would be wearing Thumper toupees. (And don't worry, we actually eat the rabbits down here in Redneckville.)

 

I realize that you may not have meant it this way, but did you INTEND to be so insulting as to imply that anyone who loves animals can't possibly use animal products?

 

I actually have some mohair that's still attached to the pelt, and then I have alpacha (sp?) fur, and a host of wools, leather, and some rabbit pelts... I'm not against using fur even if it's from a pelt.

I do make sure that where I buy my furs/wools from are places that use the whole animal, even the bones. I don't believe in wasting a life in order to simply take the fur. So long as the whole animal is used, I'll use the product. Personally I do prefer to get fur that's been sheered, and the animal allowed to live, but I can't control what suppliers do, I just try to get sheered fur before I settle for fur still attached to the skin.

 

*warning long post ahead*

How do you feel about using a mohair wig on your doll?
I don't have a problem with it, my little Abbey (Puki Puki Piki) has a very nice fluffy mohair wig.

Does it go against what you believe?
No. Now don't get me wrong, I love animals. A lot. If any harm every came to my pets (I have a cat, a frog, and a rat) I would be devastated. Now I know that many people eat frog legs, and in certain (mostly poorer) areas of the world, people would not hesitate to eat my cat or rat.

I eat meat, there is nothing wrong with eating meat in my opinion, what is potentially wrong is how the animal is treated before slaughter. Is it kept in a cage, genitically engenered to the point where it can't stand, and lay there in it's own feeces getting it's eyes pecked out? Or, it it free-ranged in a yard, given good food and the chance to roam and actually see sunlight? If the answer is the later. To me, it maters how the animal is treated.

When it comes to fur/leather/ect it also depends on if the animal was raised for fur or for fur and food. For example, leather comes from cows which are also eaten quite a bit in this county. Now if cows were raised soley for leather, I would find that to be rather distasteful. An example, chinchillas. In the US, chinchillas are either raised for pets, or coats. I never hear of anyone eating chinchillas, as they are raised solely for fur.

When it comes to mohair(first talking about pelted mohair), I can almost guarantee you that the goat was raised for food and fur. Goat is the most widely eaten meat worldwide. Now if someone is already eating that goat, why waist it, why not use the fur and sell it, that way less of the animal goes to waste. Now unsalted mohair (the kind just shaved off), I say go for it. It's no different then wool, It doesn't hurt the animal (maybe a small knick or two if they are a feisty goat).

Just a personal note
Now while I might not haven a problem with mohair, I know some people cannot even bare the thought of having something that came from an animal (even if it was shaved off). Now, as long as you are educated on the matter you are against then good for you, I applaud your morals and I applaud you even more if you stick to them. All I ask, is that you remember that not everyone shares those beliefs, and while it is OK if you seek to kindly educate and inform people, it really irks me when anyone against anything (fur, gay marriage, ect) has they audacity to to be rude, bully, or threaten the opposing party. In this case, using fur/leather/ect has been around since before any of us were even thought of. It is a craft that people take pride in, and many of these crafts people are animals lovers as well, I in fact no several people who work with fur and leather who take great care to make sure that the fur/leather/ect they use does not come from an 'animal factory'.

Also @ woundederos, i totally agree and you rock.

 

I have issues with 'waste' of animals. People who hunt animals for sport, so they can have a trophy to put up on their wall and never do anything with any other part of the animal? That's cruel. It's a waste of the animal's life in every way. Same with fur.

Mohair and leather (occasionally rabbit fur, too) are materials I've never had any problems with using. The skin of a cow has to be stripped off before it can be sent through a slaughterhouse to get at all the meat that countless Americans and others eat every single day. I know that the leather's source is being put to good use. Same with rabbits, although I personally prefer to know the person who's kept the rabbits, rather than buying it from a store or anything.

Mohair? Mohair doesn't necessarily have to be any different from wool. In the cases where a goat is killed to get at the pelt, I know that people still use other parts of the goats, and their deaths aren't being put to waste for one measly part of their bodies.

This moral dilemma isn't a dilemma for me. I love animals, and I will fight to make sure that their living conditions and treatment while alive are up to a certain standard. However, I do not think that killing a livestock animal is cruelty. It's something that people have been doing for thousands of years, because until recently, meat was an important part of our diets. In fact, the whole vegetarian movement started with the book Slaughterhouse 5, and people did that because they were disgusted with the things that were put in/done to their meat, rather than any cruelty to the animals themselves.

Mohair, being a natural fiber itself, has a softer and more natural feel than any synthetic fiber I've worked with. I would love to see a miniature leather jacket with mohair-fur trim for a tiny I'm planning on buying. And I will have absolutely no qualms in using either material.

 

Emby Quinn, I agree with you - don't proselytize me one way or the other! Not for religion, not to eat meat or fish or not eat meat or fish. There's an awful lot of caveman diet-type stuff out there lately making out agriculture and even vegetarianism as bad, but there is the ex-anthropology major in me who remembers the gatherer-hunter vs hunter-gatherer discussion. I.e., the hunter-gatherer image is sexier, but the gatherer-hunter was probably more accurate. We're omnivores. If we have to, we'll go in the garbage dump with the bears. Without fire, though, meat's more trouble than it's worth energy-wise. With fire, it helped with the big brain business we've got going on.

To me, weanling still equals infant, not mature or adult. Seal pups are not considered mature until well after they've changed coats more than once. The law is no whitecoats, but scientifically they are not hunting adults, which would be the opposite of a "baby" seal. Emotionally I don't like the seal hunt, on a practical level I think it's acceptable, especially when done by the Inuit and monitored by the appropriate agencies. However, in any case like this it's hard to feel comfortable with it because the science, government policies, and ethics of different time periods have allowed species to be hunted to or near to extinction all around the world.

To get vaguely back OT: Of all the kind of wigs, I think human-hair wigs would creep me out the most. That's not a humane-or-not issue, that's a creepy-or-not issue .

 

Ouuu, you just brought up another thing. >-> I would totally use a human hair wig, simply for sheer style-ability. With human hair wigs you can bleach, dye, style and treat them exactly like your own hair without worrying about melting synthetic fibres and/or ruining a perfectly good fur wig (if that's your thing). Human hair wigs are fabulous things, they make them for cancer patients also, I've handled them, styled them and find them much more pleasing than synthetic.

Unfortunately I can't ever find any human hair wigs. Otherwise all of my dolls might be in them.

 

How do you feel about using a mohair wig on your doll?
I would have to be very thoroughly reassured the animal it came from had been able to have a good standard of living and been slaughtered without cruelty. I'm not sure I could ever be satisfied of that in most cases, so no. Also, I don't want to popularise fur/pelt wigs because even I can make sure mine is humanely produced I know someone might be inspired by mine to get one and not be so scrupulous.
Does it go against what you believe?
No, in that I don't have a problem with using animal products in theory but in practice it is so hard to verify that products are cruelty free. I do a lot of research to make sure the meat and other animal products I consume are produced to high levels of animal welfare but I do eat meat, milk, and eggs. Ideally I would raise and slaughter my own animals and then I would never have to worry about inadvertantly giving my money to battery farms which I find repugnant. Like others have said, it's not the killing I have a problem with it's the cruelty all through the animals life. If we cause animals to suffer unnecessarily we are not only failing the animals we're failing ourselves as humans, the dominant species on the planet.
My boyfriend is a veggie for religious reasons but I have to nag him not to buy cheap intensively farmed milk or products containing battery farmed eggs. I still havent stopped him wearing tons of leather. He didnt care about the suffering he just objected to killing and - ok I'm going off topic and into rant mode....

It makes me really sad, however, that so many people are more bothered about the wastage of hunting over the cruelty of intensive farming. I don't have a problem with hunting because the animal has probably had a much better life in it's natural habitat.

Now human hair products I'm fine with. At least humans can give their consent and it's not like they're using human pelts!

 

It's not a very well-informed opinion about ethical vegetarian choices, if I can say that without being too rude. I don't buy leather, I don't eat products with gelatine, I don't drink wine, and I'm careful when selecting my toothpaste to choose one without glycerin. It doesn't take a genius to read toothpaste packets or buy vegan shoes. I don't know why someone choosing to live without consuming dead animals is such an unbelievable concept - lots of us do it. Please don't assume that just because you can't see taking the time and care to make these choices, that applies to all of us. My family take vegetarianism quite seriously, and the vegans I know take it even more seriously. Just because these are not your choices doesn't mean other people don't make them.

As to the people saying they don't believe in animal cruelty but they eat meat, that's an interesting definition of cruelty-free, but wahtever. I'm really hoping the poster who says she eats meat but believes animals are on the same level as humans and treats them the same doesn't snack on a toddler steak after a hard day's work. In any case, someone pointed out much earlier in this thread that it is a MYTH that mohair-producing animals are also eaten and not wasted. So many posters are ignoring this and substituting "oh, I'm sure they do", because it's inconvenient.

I bought a mohair wig before turning vegetarian, and even then, finding it came on the hide made me feel a little sick. I won't do it again. Apart from anything else - dead animal skin on my doll. Major squick. Ew. I haven't sold it, but it makes me feel uncomfortable. As someone else said - skin.

Not hanging around here to "debate", because there's only so much self-justification I can take, but I wanted to be another person expressing that some of us won't buy mohair pelts because we think it's, quite simply, wrong. The fact that other people feel differently doesn't change my mind.

 

i am a member of peta BUT i do think they overdo things sometimes, and they can be a bit anal although their hearts are in the right place....i have no problem with mohair on a doll if it is shorn...on a pelt is a big no no for me...that means the animal has died and to me that's not acceptable..i make miniature polymer fairies and tibetan lamb fur seems to be so popular for wigging dolls BUT it always comes on a pelt, and i will not buy it...yes my dolls would have better natural looking hair, but at what price to the animal?....i will not tell you what they do with these poor unfortunate antelopes (tibetan) because that's what they are, suffice to say you can use your imagination....yes i can get into arguements about by products etc, but i would NOT want an animals skin next to my dolls head...simple as

i am a vegeterian but do not shove my views down peoples throats as i believe everyone has a choice and it's totally up to them to make it....but in this instance i stand by my ethical and moral principles

 

so they kill humans now to for there hair whats the world come to lol kidding. i may not eat meat not for religion or anything just that i feel better when i do not eat meat. also when i eat meat i do not know when im full so i over eat too much with meat. i have to add if i had to eat meat i would and not care less. but would i use mohair don't know maybe just depends if its well made.

oh and for others if it comes from goat or sheep or whatever theres eating and non eating kinda like cows theres milking cows and then theres eating cows. they are not of the same cow. kinda like theres eating sheep goat or whatever then theres shearing sheep goat or whatever. but some do use all of it after they sell off the meat but most is just separated.

yes over all everything we use is or was of a animal plastic or other wise unless it is cotton or something like wood or whatever. but doing too much of that affects the animals as well. also plants are alive just like animals are alive just in different ways. everything we do on this earth affects something of the living either it be us animals or plants it affects all of us everything. but does mohair or using other hair leather or whatever bother me no it does not.

i have to add that even if you do not use mohair or leather or other animal products. that animal is still dead whether you use it or not. but do as your own. i hope i did not offend anyone im just saying how i feel on the subject.

 

I don't have a problem with it. One doll in wefted mohair, two dolls in skin wigs, two more I would gladly switch if I could find the right fur texture, and one who will be switched when I stop being too lazy/busy to make her a new wig. ^^

I hate synthetics but it seems unavoidable for wigs with long straight hair since human hair looks out of scale for this scale doll. It seems a waste to use up non-renewable petroleum on doll wigs, you know, but we don't have that much plastic stuff around the house anyway.

 

I currently have some Tinybear Tibetan lamb wool wigs, with more on the way. Her website, and her post here, both explain where she sources them from, and as it would appear that the whole animal is used, then I'm fine with it; especially as I understand the region they come from isn't known for intensive farming...

This does fit in with my personal beliefs. I have been a vegetarian for about 15 odd years, but am now very slowly starting to introduce meat into my diet. It is important to me that the animal has been raised decently, and has not been shipped half way across Europe (or the world) before being killed. Part of the reason for doing this is that being vegetarian for the reasons I was felt a more than a bit hypocritical - so the choices that faced me were either going vegan or start eating meat.