orangeclouds115 ([info]orangeclouds115) wrote in [info]daily_granola,
@ 2005-04-15 00:01:00
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Donate Your Hair
Probably a more feasible idea for girls than guys...

Donate Your Hair

If you have 10" or more of hair to spare, you can donate your hair to a child who is suffering from longterm medical hair loss.

Locks of Love
Donate Your Hair
Hair to Share
Hats Off 4 Cancer
Balding for Dollars
Wigs for Kids

Eva & Co. Wigs
519 West Pender Street
Vancouver, British Columbia, V6B 1V5
Hair donations will be accepted by mail only.
Minimum requirement: length – 8 inches (20 cm), do not braid

Havana Technical Hair Design
326 Gilmore Avenue
Burnaby, BC, V5C 4R1
Minimum requirement: length – 10 inches (25cm), do not braid

A- Bientôt
371 Wellington Road South, Unit 5
London, Ontario, N6C 4P9
Minimum requirement: length – 12 inches (30cm)

A Child's Voice Foundation
Angel Hair for Kids
3034 Palstan Road, Ste. 305
Mississauga, Ontario, L4Y 2Z6
Minimum requirement: length – 10 inches (25cm), no processing, preferably braided

Hair for Kids Program, c/o Continental Hair
92 1/2 Avenue Road
Toronto, Ontario, M5R 2H2
Minimum requirement: length –10 inches (25cm), minimal processing acceptable

Wigs for Kids Affiliate, c/o The Medical Image
603 Argus Road Suite 108
Oakville, Ontario, L6J 6G6
Minimum requirement: length – 12 inches (30cm), no gray hair

A group in my university organized an event in which many people participated in this. They found expensive hair stylists to donate haircuts for participants.

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[info]lavajin
2005-04-15 05:28 am UTC (link)
Hmm, I actually have one or two ponytails lying around from when I cut off my hair. I saved them as art supplies, but haven't ever used them for anything. I'll have to see if they're long enough.

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[info]we_are_pliable
2005-04-15 05:29 am UTC (link)
If you're gonna get famous, save it. Sylvia Plath's mother sold Sylvia's pigtails to IU's archival library for several thousand dollars along with her other papers and effects, and I got to see/ touch them a couple of weeks ago.

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[info]lavajin
2005-04-15 05:46 am UTC (link)
Hehe, well they're probably too short to donate, so they'll end up lying around anyway.

Too bad, I think I threw away my college dreads.

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[info]we_are_pliable
2005-04-15 05:28 am UTC (link)
If you live in a dormitory or other communal living, or even if you work in a very progressive office, it's a great idea to organize a shave-off for Locks of Love. The dorm I used to live in did one every spring; people would grow their hair all year long (two years for some), then shave all the way down to donate.

It's also important to note that you must have virgin hair (never dyed, bleached, or permed) in order to donate.

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[info]we_are_pliable
2005-04-15 05:32 am UTC (link)
If you live in a dormitory or other communal living, or even if you work in a very progressive office, it's a great idea to organize a shave-off for Locks of Love. The dorm I used to live in did one every spring; people would grow their hair all year long (two years for some), then shave all the way down to donate.

Edit: Sorry, I reread the rules it's ok to have permed or dyed hair, but not bleached or otherwise damaged.

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[info]snmashley
2005-04-15 05:33 am UTC (link)
Whoa, neat. I should totally do that. My hair has gotten way too long, it's past my bellybotton now.
I've been thinking about selling it but I may as well do this and get a free haircut.
Thanks for this.

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[info]orangeclouds115
2005-04-15 05:44 am UTC (link)
LOL - not far off from me. I procrastinated getting a badly needed haircut - for a YEAR. So now I'm like, hmm, I wonder how much longer it will take. Might as well do something good with my laziness.

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[info]sdragon
2005-04-15 05:50 am UTC (link)
I hate to be a party pooper, but I have heard that Locks of Love is not all they're cracked up to be -- something about lack of accountability and a lot of the hair actually being sold to wigmakers. I can try to find the links sometime for you.

I have some ex-hair lying around that I'm going to try to sell then donate to a good liberal group instead.

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[info]orangeclouds115
2005-04-15 05:52 am UTC (link)
Really? What's a better organization then? I'll change the post.

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[info]sdragon
2005-04-15 06:03 am UTC (link)
I'm not sure what other organizations there are (thus my hair still lying around). But maybe a way to sell your hair so you can donate the money to a group would be good (I'd love to find one, actually).

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[info]orangeclouds115
2005-04-15 06:23 am UTC (link)
Here's the text from the Locks of Love site about their manufacturing process. The "factory in Indonesia" bit doesn't sound so good if you ask me...

The process of providing a child a hair prosthesis (hairpiece) takes between four and six months. The process begins when a parent, nurse, friend or doctor nominates a child who is suffering from long-term or permanent medical hair loss. The application requires two letters of recommendation, a diagnosis, a photo and a copy of the parent's most recent tax returns. Applications are usually turned around in one to three days of receipt.

When a child is accepted into the program, they are sent a molding kit and instructional video, which shows their parents how to make a plaster cast mold of their head. During the casting process, they draw in a hairline and point where their crown would begin. (The starting point of the crown determines where the part will fall in the hairpiece.)

This plaster cast mold is used to make a foam mold that serves as the head block for the hairpiece. From the head block, a trial "fit cap" is made. This is sent to the child to try on in order to make sure it fits and the plaster mold was done correctly. Once the fit cap is approved, the child chooses the color and length of hair they would like as well as their skin tone color.

When donated hair comes into our office, we sort the ponytails by length. We then ship out boxes and boxes of hair to our manufacturer, who puts the chosen ponytails and braids through a hackle by hand. This process removes the short, unusable hair, leaving only the desired full-length hair. Each hairpiece requires 6 to 10 ponytails because the shorter lengths cannot be used.

Once the long hair is prepared, our manufacturer blends the colors for the child's hairpiece and sends it along with the foam head block to their factory in Indonesia. At the factory, a surgical silicone skullcap, colored to match the child's skin tone, is made from the head block.

Next, each piece of hair is hand injected using a special needle, at a 45-degree angle into the skullcap. This is done 150,000 times for one hairpiece. The hair is then sealed into the base by another layer of silicone. (Two inches of the length of the hair is lost during this process.) This step takes eight to ten weeks.

Once completed and quality controlled, the hairpiece is sent to Locks of Love. When it arrives at the child's home, the hair prosthesis is all one length. After breaking it in for a day or two, the child can go to a specially selected beauty salon and have it styled to compliment their facial features.

The hairpiece retails between $3,500 to $6,000. Even though Locks of Love provides donated hair for the prosthesis, Locks of Love must pay for the manufacturing costs of each prosthesis. Between the ages of 6 and 18, a child can reapply every 18 months for a total of up to five hairpieces.

With children under six, we provide synthetic hairpieces because they will out grow their custom vacuum fitted hairpiece very quickly. We have an arrangement with a wig manufacturer that makes high quality children synthetic pieces.

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[info]tilly_cat
2005-04-15 12:46 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I've heard a lot about that. Part of it being that kids with illnesses usually aren't the recipients.

Check out the memories section of [info]longhair, and I think it's under LOL or something. There have been a lot of discussions about this topic, understandably.

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[info]orangeclouds115
2005-04-15 01:11 pm UTC (link)
Added it, thanks.

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[info]jess_k
2005-04-15 08:29 am UTC (link)
Did it, loved it ^_^ I'm alot happier with short hair...
..plus, I take shorter showers because of it, thus saving water ;D

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[info]harleen
2005-04-15 12:29 pm UTC (link)
I plan on doing this when I finally decide to cut my hair (I love my long hair way too much to cut it right now)....

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[info]meldawen
2005-04-15 12:58 pm UTC (link)
Actually, I've been told by a salon that they'll take as little as 7 or 8" now. I just did this about a month ago. I was looking for a new, shorter 'do, and I hate cutting my hair. So I donated it to feel better about everything! :) Turns out I love my new haircut anyway.

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[info]anny86
2005-04-15 03:29 pm UTC (link)
I lil earlier this year I heard some shady stuff about "locks of love" and how they arn't donating all the hair they are donated, and people believe they are selling some of the hair to hair dyeing companies, does anyone know anything about this?

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[info]sdragon
2005-04-15 05:24 pm UTC (link)
Some discussion on why LOL is not such a great idea:

http://www.livejournal.com/community/longhair/469746.html?thread=4171762#t4171762
http://www.livejournal.com/community/longhair/288536.html?thread=2044184#t2044184
http://www.livejournal.com/community/longhair/357342.html


Some alternatives to LOL

(courtesy of [info]longhair)

Basically, it looks like their hair input is a lot more than their wig output, and they refuse to open their books (like good charities do) to show what happens to the hair or the money from selling the hair.

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[info]anny86
2005-04-16 01:41 pm UTC (link)
thank you for the inforamtion, I hope more people do a little research before donating there hair.
Locks of love and wigs for kids seem like not such great places to donate.

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[info]sdragon
2005-04-16 05:59 pm UTC (link)
Glad to help.

I have my own reasons for not being inclined to do this; I prefer to focus on activism that does more than just make people feel better. I'd rather sell my hair and use the money to buy schoolbooks for children or donate it to an environmental group, but that's just me.

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[info]cookypuss
2005-04-15 06:38 pm UTC (link)
I've donated my hair twice. I'll do it again as long as my hair is long enough.

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[info]tyciol
2008-05-07 08:22 pm UTC (link)
Sounds pretty cool, I'd definately give it to one of the kids' charities. Preferably if it would only go to girls. Basically, boys and adults can cope a lot better, for young girls they probably have it the toughest if they go bald since long hair is impressioned as so necessary to femininity.

Characters like 'Dora' serve to fix that, but are more rolemodels for toddlers who don't tend to have gender image problems anyway, with tweens and rolemodels like Bratz/Barbie they've still got long hair and will still create social issues.

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