How to Collect Your Pet's Hair for a Memorial — Before It's Too Late

Fur is the one part of a pet that can be kept without any intervention, cost, or difficult decision. Yet most owners only think about it after cremation, when it is no longer possible. Whether or not you ever choose a keepsake, an urn, or a memorial diamond, collecting a small bag of fur while your pet is with you keeps every option open. It costs nothing and takes five minutes.

When to Collect: The Four Windows

1. The senior years — the easiest and gentlest time

If your dog or cat is elderly but well, the kindest way to collect fur is simply to keep what comes out of the brush. Regular grooming sessions produce plenty of loose fur, and your pet experiences nothing but attention. Over a few weeks you can quietly set aside more than enough. This is also the least emotionally loaded moment to do it — a practical act of love rather than a task in the middle of grief.

2. Before a planned euthanasia appointment

When the appointment is booked, collect fur at home the day before, or ask the clinic to clip some for you. Veterinary teams in New Zealand handle this request often and treat it with great care — many clinics offer a fur clipping or paw print as a standard part of end-of-life care. Two things help:

• Ask when you book, not on the day, so the team is prepared and you don't have to think about it in the room.
• Ask for more than a token lock. A small envelope of fur suits a keepsake; a memorial diamond needs approximately 20 grams. It is far better to have too much than too little.

3. At home, after your pet has passed

If your pet passed at home, fur can still be collected gently with clean scissors — the underside, chest, or the back of the neck are the usual places. This is emotionally hard, and it is completely fine to ask a family member, friend, or your vet to do it for you. Fur collected within a day or two is perfectly suitable.

4. After cremation — the recovery window

Cremation ashes themselves cannot become a diamond — the HPHT process needs the carbon in hair, and ashes contain almost none (we explain why here). But fur very often survives in the places your pet lived:

• Brushes and combs — often holding a surprising amount of clean fur
• Bedding, blankets, and favourite chairs — check seams and corners
• Car boot liners and travel crates
• Your groomer — some keep clippings for a short period, and it costs nothing to ring and ask
• Your vet clinic — fur shaved for IV lines or procedures is sometimes retained briefly

The one requirement: the fur must be clearly from your pet, not mixed with another animal's. Dust and everyday debris are usually fine — carbon purification removes them — but if you're unsure about a sample, email us a description before you order and we'll tell you honestly whether it will work.

How to Collect and Store Fur — The Five-Minute Version

• Use clean, dry scissors or a clean brush. No sterilisation needed.
• Collect from the chest, underside, or back of the neck — anywhere discreet. Location doesn't affect quality.
• Aim for approximately 20 grams for a memorial diamond — a generous handful. Any amount is worth keeping for a keepsake.
• Place the fur directly into a clean, dry zip-lock bag or paper envelope. No cotton wool, no tissue.
• Label it with your pet's name and the date.
• Store in a cool, dry drawer away from sunlight. Do not refrigerate or freeze.
• Keep fur from different pets in separate, labelled bags — never mixed.

Stored this way, fur keeps for years without losing any suitability for a memorial diamond. There is no deadline and no rush: many families hold the bag in a drawer for a year or more before deciding what, if anything, to do with it. The point of collecting early is simply that the decision stays yours to make.

What Can Fur Become?

A saved bag of fur keeps several options open, from simple to significant:

• A simple keepsake — a lock in a small frame, locket, or memory box alongside a collar tag and photo.
• Craft keepsakes — some NZ artisans felt fur into hearts or incorporate it into glass beads.
• A memorial diamond — the carbon in the fur is extracted, purified, and grown into a genuine lab-grown diamond over roughly 60 days, then set in jewellery. This is what we do at Silmaril: the full process is documented here, with pricing from NZ$2,650 all-inclusive.

Whichever path you choose — or if you simply keep the bag in a drawer — collecting the fur is the step that cannot be done later. Everything else can.