Hairware is a research project by Katia Vega (post-doctoral fellow at MIT), Marcio Cunha(Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro), and Hugo Fuks (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro). As a beauty technologist, Vega has designed other projects that incorporate beauty accessories with wearable technology, such as conductive false eyelashes that can sense blink rates and RFID fingernails that use control magnetic switches. With Hairware, the research team created conductive hair extensions that respond to capacitive touch. Depending on how the user interacts with their hair (such as by twirling) they can send different messages via mobile phone to another person. This work is interesting in how devices can be incorporated into social interactions in a “seamless” way by embedding them into pre-existing beauty products.  

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2732176