Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[sejpdw]

" In the later seventeenth century, men and women wore wigs. Wigs could be made from animal hair, someone else's hair, or even one's own hair!"

In my opinion, in this sentence, " be made of animal hair" seems to be right because we can recognize animal hair or someone else's hair even after it was made into a wig."

What's your opinion?

[Nef]

I'm familiar with both 'of' and 'from' being used this way.
(I'm in the western US.)

of - The wig consists of human hair.

from - The material the wig is made of was originally human hair.

[redset]

I think the difference here is that they're talking about the actual process of making a wig, saying that they used these different kinds of hair to make one. Made of implies that you're talking about a completed wig, and the materials that were used.

Also, I think that when a range of materials or ingredients are used, or when they end up quite different in the finished product, people tend to use 'made from'. 'Made of' tends to be used when the material has been fashioned into a useful form. You'd usually say 'the fence is made of wood', but you'd say 'glass is made from sand' not 'glass is made of sand'.

I'm British by the way, so it's possible the distinction isn't used as much in other places.