Horsetail hair is most often used for brush components: Paint brushes, artist brushes and chip brushes are all good places to find horsetail hair. But horsetail hair is a textile used to make a wide variety of products, from coarse fabric to belts to jewelry.

If you ever decide to start a crafting project involving horsehair, you may need any of several artist supplies, but your most immediate need will be the hair itself. Here’s a brief primer on how to collect it.

Choose a Horse. This is an important step, because choosing a horse means not choosing a horse that you don’t own, or that you don’t have permission to pull hair from. Some owners may be willing to help you out if you ask nicely and don’t plan on taking too much. But if you can’t get permission, you’ll have to buy horsetail hair from an outside supplier. It’s also important to choose a horse with a full, bushy tail. The longer the hairs, the better off you’ll be – anything less than 18 inches is too short. If you’re clipping the hair in conjunction with grooming the horse, be careful not to do this too close to winter – you may be preventing your horse from keeping warm.

Wash and comb the tail. The horsetail hair you snip should be clean and free of mats and tangles. If you’re looking at a horse with dreadlocks in his tail, keep looking.

Grasp the longest hairs. Then pull away as many short hairs as possible. This will keep the shorter, unusable hairs out of your bundle, and it’ll keep you from wasting hair that can keep growing long and lustrous on the horse.

Cut underneath the tail, and not all in one spot. Cutting horsetail hair from the underside of the tail hides any “chunks” that may be visibly missing, and cutting from a variety of spots around the tail helps keep the tail looking intact. Separating very small amounts of hair, about a quarter of the width of a pencil, works best.

Cut the horsetail hair from as close to the tailbone, or tail shaft, as possible. This way you’ll be sure to get the longest pieces. You should end up with a bundle of horsetail hair about the size of your thumb.