Laying on the glass table rests a black ring made of polyester and rubber. After an entire day of holding my hair in the preferred position, the hair tie is taut, frizzy, and covered with tiny white and black hair follicles. While the kinked strings of the polyester show how worn out and used the old hair tie is, it still keeps its form with no signs of tearing just yet.

Much like a snake, it stays dormant on the glass table, coiled up and preparing to be used again to keep my hair in place. The hair tie loops into itself, creating an overlap almost like two concentric circles. The loop overlapped on the top is the smaller one, while the loop below is the larger of the two.

The hair tie sits isolated on the glass table, surrounded by nothing and close to no other object apart from an old post it note and a remote control, so that it can be clearly seen and reused. The hair tie will not be used often, however, as I only tie my hair after a shower or whenever I decide to go outside. The light beaming from above shines right on the hair tie and creates a mirror image on the glass table. This creates an illusion that the hair tie has more depth than it actually does.

Naturally, the hair tie exists as a circle, thus its overlaps will come undone so that it can exist as a circle again. As time passes, the hair tie looks less like a miniature coiled snake, but rather a scaled-down clam, whose mouth is slowly opening wider and wider.

The hair tie completes the outfit. Whenever it is time to go outside, either to go to work or to be around a group of friends, the hair tie is always the last thing I put on before I go. That’s because it sets up my hair to flow with the outfit that I have. Even when I take off the hair tie, it has still done its job, since it has made my hair messy and attractive. At the end of the day, as I enter my home and drop all of my stuff where it is supposed to be, I take off the hair tie first, as it not only completes the outfit, but also signals me that it is time to rest and relax.