How can I reuse or recycle hair gel?

Hair gelWe’ve had an email from Katherine, asking:

My niece left about half a tube of hair spiking gel behind at my house; I’m not about to change my style and use it myself but it’s not worth the postage to post it back… Any ideas on what to do with hair spiking glue other than spike hair?

The brand, if this makes a difference, is Schwarzkopf ‘Got2b’. If I were a chemist I might be able to work out from the ingredients list whether it can be basically used like ordinary glue!

We’ve got a few half-tubes of gel in our bathroom cupboard too – donated from by a friend who no longer needed them when John was going through his faux-fro phase last year – so I’d like some ideas for this too. I guess we could repeat the donation but I don’t know anyone who would use it – like with the other half-used toiletries, it could go to a shelter I guess but I don’t know whether they’d prefer just practical things.

I suspect hair wax/oil type products could be reused for lubrication purposes in the same way as most greases but gels tend to dry sticky or crispy so couldn’t be used for that.

Any suggestions though? Or ideas about the glue thing? I wonder if like toothpaste it can be used as a temporary fix for, eg, sticking light posters to walls… anyone know or care to test it?

(Photo by asterisco)

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8 Responses to “How can I reuse or recycle hair gel?”


  1. apathetic says:

    Really simple: save it for dressing up at Halloween.

  2. sara says:

    you can use the jar for storrage

  3. Leon says:

    * Sealing holes.
    * Try conservation of something inside it (not tested!).
    * Put small amounts of the gel into paper bags and put in a smelly room, to neutralize the smell.

  4. Delusion says:

    Donate it to a school, during Plays and Pantos things like this may be very useful

  5. Sara says:

    Put it on freecycle

  6. Cyn says:

    Just wanted to note that I used to volunteer at a shelter for homeless teens, and people often donated half-used toiletries. You should know that most of these places do not accept these and if they’re received with other things, they will be thrown away. If you are donating toiletries and personal items to shelters, they should be new and unopened.

  7. hollypop says:

    i’m not sure if this works for “got2b”, but cheap generic brands dry up nicely when smoothed over art projects to make them shiny and keep the edges of collaged papers from lifting up.

  8. Green says:

    For male use … gel can be used as a shaving gel were razors moves smoothly .. gives a good shave
    I tried it



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