The first question I'd want answered would be whether you're intending this to be a background prop, or something that's intended to be rendered close up.

For a background prop, an appropriately shaped lump with few (spline modelled) bits sticking out, should be good enough.
In this case, it's likely to be down to how well you do the mapping and the various maps (colour, bump/displacement, etc.)

For something that could be used closeup (and it would have to be for very close to justify modelling the strands individually), then splines, as mentioned previously, are the obvious choice, but using them will boost the polycount, hence the need to justify using them in any quantity.