Ok, I know you're not supposed to touch the hairs on your bow, and I don't. But I sometimes let my nieces and nephews and the mentally challenged folks I live with have supervised access to my fiddle.

I tell them not to touch the hair, but the kids put their grimy little kid hands on the hair anyway before I can stop them, and one mentally challenged woman has licked my bow hairs a few times before I could stop her.

I don't want to have to forbid them from touching my fiddle. How grave is the damage that can be done by touching or licking the hairs? Is there a way I can tell is the hairs are suffering? Is there anything I can do after the fact to mitigate the damage?

If the only consequence is that I'll have to rehair my bow every lunar eclipse instead of every solar eclipse, I can live with that. But if my resin is gunking out and I'm losing musical quality, maybe I'll have to become a little more protective.

Marion