A pipe cleaner or chenille stem is a type of brush originally intended for removing moisture and residue from smoking pipes. Besides cleaning pipes, they can be used for any application that calls for cleaning out small bores or tight places. Special pipe cleaners are manufactured specifically for cleaning out medical apparatus and for engineering applications. They are popular for winding around bottle necks to catch drips, bundling things together, colour-coding, and applying paints, oils, solvents, greases, and similar substances. They can also be used like a twist tie.

Pipe cleaners are commonly used in arts and crafts projects. "Craft" pipe cleaners are usually made with polyester or nylon pile and are often longer and thicker than the "cleaning" type, and available in many different colors. Craft pipe cleaners are not very useful for cleaning purposes, because the polyester does not absorb liquids, and the thicker versions may not even fit down the stem of a normal pipe or into the usual hard-to-access area of applications that call for cleaning small bores or tight places. In Japan, crafting with pipe cleaners is known as Mogol art. Its name derived from the Portuguese word Mughal for a style of weaving.  Workshops in malls and schools in Japan have been led by Atushi Kitanaka on an effort to support the pipe cleaner industry. Ikuyo Fujita（藤田育代 Fujita Ikuyo）is a Japanese artist who works primarily in needle felt painting and mogol (pipe cleaner) art. Use of pipe cleaners as an art format where animals [2] are made by twisting pipe cleaners together. They can also be used to create whiskers for an animal mask or nose.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_cleaner)