October 8, 2002

11:42 PM

Long hair is cool. Shaving your head is cool too. You know what's cooler than either of those? Cutting off all your hair for Locks of Love. When you donate your hair to this non-profit, it will be made into wigs for children dealing with long term hair loss due to disease and burns that couldn't otherwise afford one. She's done it, they've done it, and so have all these people. It may be time to grow my hair out again.
posted by mathowie (16 comments total)

My wife and her little sister did this last year.

Cool indeed.
posted by justgary at 12:36 AM on October 9, 2002

that's excellent, that's a great cause. i would do it (i'm starting to get sick of my long hair) but i bet they wouldn't want mine after years of damage and dye.
posted by wickedfat at 2:07 AM on October 9, 2002

I did this when I got out of college and had to get what I thought was a "real job". People teased me about looking like Kip Winger. Turns out there are tons of alternative folks in the IT world. Who knew? I don't regret it, though. Great cause.
posted by internook at 2:19 AM on October 9, 2002

What a perfect organization for the web. If only I still qualified as a donor (sniff, sniff).
posted by planetkyoto at 2:20 AM on October 9, 2002

This was done by MetaFilter's own Kafkaesque earlier this year. (added bonus: the tale of Elvis and the Monkeyboy)
posted by ColdChef at 4:29 AM on October 9, 2002

For a personal look into changing your look for a good cause check out xochi ... more articles about her here as well.

There is also wigs for kids.
posted by jasonspaceman at 4:49 AM on October 9, 2002

So I guess they won't take my back hairs, eh?
posted by dr_dank at 9:21 AM on October 9, 2002

Locks of Love is one of the few that will accept hair if it has been dyed-- most want undyed hair. They do say it should be relatively undamaged. Mine was in pretty good condition, as I rarely heat-styled it. My hair was so prone to tangling that I could never wear it down-- if it wasn't up in a bun or braids it would become a huge mess of tangles that was quite painful to comb out. It's also very hard to get all the tangles out of wasit length hair-- it seems as if combing one section actually CAUSES tangles in the others. I saved my 10" ponytail after going from waist-length hair to shoulder length hair a few months ago. I was told I could donate it, but then had a hard time finding a place that would accept dyed hair. Now I have a place to send it to.
posted by CoFenchurch at 9:24 AM on October 9, 2002

If you watch daytime TV¹, a popular talk-show theme is make-overs, and almost every make-over show has a woman who's let her hair grow to her butt or ankles or wherever for the last 20 years, and has been persuaded to cut it off. They always give the hair to this charity.

¹ Sometimes I do. Accidentally.<sup>2

2</sup> When I can't find the remote.
posted by dhartung at 9:24 AM on October 9, 2002

I've been growing mine for two years, since my grandfather died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Last Saturday was suposed to be the day I got it cut off, but I was too sick to make my appointment so it'll be this coming weekend.

Frankly, I can't wait. I never realized how much work 14" of hair is.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:30 AM on October 9, 2002

Its been over a year and half, and haven't so much as trimmed my bangs. Locks of Love is a superb idea! Patience though, ten inch minimum is still a ways off...
posted by kodas at 9:52 AM on October 9, 2002

Unfortunately, the first time I head about Locks of Love was about 6 weeks after I had about 14 inches of my hair hacked off and simply threw it away.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:09 AM on October 9, 2002

What's interesting is that the long hair site has a few words about Locks of Love: seems he doesn't like the organization very much (look all the way at the bottom). Perhaps the LoL people had annoyed the people on the mailing list, but the guy doesn't go into too many details.

Still, he provides a link to the BBB page on Locks of Love, and there are 3 of the 23 standards that the organization does not meet, and you can see at the bottom of the page that only 50% of their income is spent on programs. There is nothing indicating whether there are some hair donations that go unused, as the guy who runs the long hair site alleges, and it seems to me that the salaries for the CEO and employees is considered program expenditures and not administrative expenditures. (The CEO of Locks of Loves gets $40,383 and there are 4 paid employees of the organization, one of which is the CEO, I suppose.) I would think that employee salaries would be an administrative expense.

In any case, one should check out the reports on charitable organizations at the BBB. It can be really interesting to see how much various organizations spend on fundraising, etc.
posted by meep at 12:08 PM on October 9, 2002

I'm a baldie, but my partner grows his hair out every couple of years just so he can donate it to Locks of Love. It warms the cockles of my cold bald head.
posted by archimago at 1:25 PM on October 9, 2002

meep,

yeah, but aren't budgets mean to confuse and mislead?

besides, despite a vague or incomplete budget report on BBB, ya gotta admit (especially for a cause/meme as worthy and broadly endorsed as LoL) $40,383's dirt cheap for a nonprofit CEO.
posted by priyanga at 4:31 PM on October 9, 2002

i sent in my 15 inches of hair a while ago. what i liked best about this specific program was the lack of self congratulations. they just send back a sincere postcard like "we got your hair, thanks." no big deal, which it really isn't. i guess i like that response because they acknowledge that people don't do it so they can feel better about themselves. people do this, at least i did, just because they can.
posted by dogwalker at 8:47 PM on October 9, 2002