Ended up using:
$to1 = explode ("\nTo: ", $email);
$to2 = explode ("\n", $to1[1]);
$to = str_replace ('>', '', str_replace('<', '', $to2[0]));
list($toa, $tob) = explode('@', $to);
then changed the mail to:
mail('email@example.com','From my email pipe!','"' . $toa . '"');