MCR asks: I’ve been trying to grow my hair out long so I can cut it and donate to Locks of Love in honor of my Mom. I need enough to donate at least 10 inches and have some left for me. (Or I could follow Brittany Spears lead & just shave it all off, then they would have plenty to make a wig.) Is there anything I can do to speed up my hair growth? The Right Brain dutifully responds:
M, donating your hair in honor of your Mom is such a sweet idea! Unfortunately, there’s not much you can really do to impact the speed at which your hair grows. About the best you can do is take good care of the ends of your hair so you don’t need to trim them as you’re growing out to your ultimate length. So, you might find these Top 10 split end busters helpful.
We wish you the best luck and we’d like to help educate other members of the Beauty Brains community with this list of 5 places where they can donate their hair for medical purposes.
5 Ways To Donate Hair
1. Locks of Love
2. Wigs for Kids
3. Pantene’s Great Lengths Program
4. Childhood Leukemia Foundation
5. Zichron Menachem
Finally, a word of caution: not all charities are what they appear to be. In researching this article we came across numerous sources that cited unfair hair donation practices. If you’re concerned, check out the links below before you donate:
http://hannah.tedpearson.com
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com
http://badhairday.typepad.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locks_of_Love
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How awesome! I am almost ready to donate mine. I have been letting it grow for a year now and in October I’ll have enough to donate and enough for me to have some left over.
I know its vain, but I look and am really miserable with really short hair.
I think I’m doing it in October! Looking forward to it….but it looks really pretty now!
I think donating your hair is one of the best things you could ever do to help out people who have suffered with cancer. It really makes people happy when they get a wig from someone who cut their own hair for them.
I’ve pretty much had long hair my whole life (I’m in high school right now) and last year I decided that I needed a change. I went to a beauty salon, and told them what I wanted to do. I was extremely nervous when they were cutting it. I donated 14 inches! I was really proud of myself. The lady cutting my hair also told me that it takes about 10 donations to make one wig.
The next day at school, everone loved my hair soo much. I felt really good knowing that I donated 14 inches, but that I also got an awesomely cute hair cut.
There are other,better ways to make a difference than cutting off your hair.
It might seem like a great idea but a wig is not a long term answer.There are very good synthetic fibers now which make better longer lasting lower maintenence wigs than human hair.
Try fund raising events which can provide money to help research diseases
Human hair isn’t used only for wigs. Cosmetic chemists use it for testing new hair products.
And they need people to cut off several years worth of growth to do that?
They do if they want to test products on long hair. As you can imagine, products work differently on long hair versus short hair.
Hi Brains!
A recent article in the NY times said that more than 50% of the hair donated to charities has to be thrown away because it is unsuitable for making wigs. Being that donating hair is a growing trend, perhaps you could give pointers as to what are wig makers looking for in hair, so women don’t cut their tresses for nothing.
BTW, great fan of your site!
I don’t need to imagine I have long hair.That’s just utter piffle.Exactly what kind of tests do they do ?
Just wanted to tell Nastasska, my girlfriend has battled cancer for the past 27 months. She passed away on Friday. I just got back from the funeral and decided to do some research on donating hair. She had 2 beautiful wigs that were human hair along with others that weren’t. She was so in love with her human hair wigs and this meant so much to her. Yes, donating $ is a good way to make a difference but not a better way. I know that Courtney’s wigs made a huge difference in her life and she would be very proud of me for doing it.
Great post. In my research, I learned the same thing mentioned above about how much hair gets tossed because it’s unusable. Make sure you take good care of your hair as you grow it out and know the guidelines for your chosen charity. (And make sure your chosen charity actually does what you think – give the wigs away, give to cancer patients, give to kids, etc.)
PinkHeartFunds.com
accepted my son’s ponytail and the one my mother saved from my childhood.
Pink Heart Fund, PO Box 1047, Long Beach, MS39560
I would NEVER support Locks of Love or Pantene’s Great Lengths Program. I don’t know about the others, so I can’t criticize them.
Pantene is from P&G. They support animal testing. Right there is enough of a reason. Aa for Locks of Love:
http://www.bbb.org/charity-reviews/national/children-and-youth/locks-of-love-in-lake-worth-fl-1839
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