Donating long hair

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

I have very long hair (hip length).  I've been growing it for 7 years, and am sick of it.  I would like to get my hair cut short, and would like to donate my hair.  My question is, are there any hair-cutting places in the area that might

a) do a good job and
b) might give me a discount for donating my hair? 

Money's a bit tight right now (as it is for many, I'm sure) and it would be nice to not spend much on this. 

I looked in the old posts under the "hair" tag and didn't find anything that quite answered my question. 

Thanks in advance for your help!

Comments

[ron_newman]

I added the "donation" tag. Here's an old post with both tags:

http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/1156178.html

but I don't know if it's really helpful. I also do not know why so many comments have been deleted from it.

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember there being a big argument about Locks of Love when I was reading it real-time (presumably before the posts were deleted).

[daft.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember the same. Of course now I can't remember what the kerfuffle was.

[cos]

Mostly the issue is that they present themselves as a place to donate hair that will be donated to people who need it due to a disease, but in practice, only a very small percentage of the hair they get is actually donated in that way (the disease is not common enough to need as much hair as they get), and they actually sell the majority of hair donated to them. So you may think you're donating to a charitable cause, but percentagewise you're mostly not doing so, and you might as well just sell your hair.

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

Sure, I'm aware of that. In essence, I am selling my hair in that I'm getting a discount off an otherwise pricey haircut.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Also, (and they may disclose this now, I'm not sure), but the actual hair that is donated isn't used in the actual wigs that go to the children. Those wigs are synthetic (as they should be -- human hair wigs are very difficult to care for and keep clean; synthetic is not). If a donor's hair is long enough and undamaged enough, it gets sold to non-charity wig makers, and the money buys synthetic wigs. Hair that's dyed, processed, too short or distressed in any way gets tossed and nobody wins. So it's really only worth it to donate hair if your hair is in near-perfect, natural condition and long enough. My hair is a cocktail of processing chemicals, so donating money is the way to help instead.

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

So you may think you're donating to a charitable cause, but percentagewise you're mostly not doing so, and you might as well just sell your hair.

Except that it's not like they pocket the money so made and then run off laughing. It's used directly to support the charitable mission.

[cos]

That does not match what I remember, but I admit to not having a completely clear memory of the issue. My impression was that way too much hair got donated for the charitable mission which they claim, and the excess is just used for profit.

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

I did a considerable amount of digging into it last time this came up. There were some issues with disclosure a long time ago, but they mostly seemed to stem from growing to a point where they needed to have their books in really good order before they expected to. Since 1997, they've been a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity — so no, the excess can't be used for profit.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=9285

In fact, I'd trust them a lot more than the Pantene hair program. The organization Pantene uses to run their campaign spends more on fundraising every year than the entire budget of Locks of Love.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3670


My take-away is that Locks of Love is a small operation hurt by some naive moves, poor marketing choices, and the persistent rumors. I'm sure the Pantene program does good for a lot of people — but I can't help but think that it exists at least partly because someone hoped to turn those rumors into advertising that's also a tax writeoff.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Locks of Love is a small operation hurt by some naive moves, poor marketing choices, and the persistent rumors

I think that their main problem is that they do not do enough to counter the misperception that they donate wigs to kids with cancer.

There is nothing wrong with their actual mission--selling wigs on a sliding scale to kids with alopecia--but they seem, in my opinion, to be less vigorous about combating the misperception that they are a cancer charity than they are about combating any other misperceptions about their mission.

Perhaps your hair will go to

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

replenish Berlusconi's toupee!

[aquaflame16.livejournal.com]

there's some more info about LoL specifically in the memories of longhair here (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=longhair&keyword=Locks+of+Love&filter=all), in case you or anyone is interested. A donation alternative is Pantene Beautiful Lengths (http://www.beautifullengths.com/en_US/index_home.jsp).

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I like that they make the length and condition requirements very clear, and explain why they have the requirements. I SO don't qualify. :-) Which is fine because I'd rather give money.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Many people think that they are a charity who donates wigs to kids with cancer.

They are actually a charity that sells wigs on a sliding fee scale to kids with alopecia.

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

Someone I know got his hair cut for free for donating it at DeKwa on newbury st in boston. It was a good cut, too.

http://www.dekwa.com/

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

Great! That looks awesome, thanks!

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

Just in case someone looks back at this and is wondering, I just talked to them and currently they have one stylist who will cut your hair for $25 and one who will do it for $40 but none for free.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

wash it good, dry it, braid it, hair elastics on both ends, and take a knife to it, Starbuck style. it'll look bad ass :) poor person's french bob :>

then you can google for the best hair donation place, and get a tax break? mmm!

that said, er, call children's hospital in boston and ask for some info? they might know. or perhaps dana farber? or mmm, do they still have Ronald House?

#

[zard.livejournal.com]

I did Pantene Beautiful Lengths last year with two friends, but you don't get a discount. I liked the program because it looked like some women would get wigs made out of the actual hair.

If money is particularly tight, you could always go on hair ebay! http://www.thehairtrader.com/

Perhaps people with tricophagia...

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

May be interested. Yum!

How much hait do you have to donate ?

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

For a free haircut? 6 inches at least?... Any idea?

Re: How much hait do you have to donate ?

[ser-pez.livejournal.com]

I can't speak for that specific place, but I do know that most places that will give you a discount for donating your hair require you to be cutting off at least 10 inches.

[pullmeunder.livejournal.com]

Last year when I chopped my hair off, I went to "Creative Quality Images", a salon on First Street in Cambridge (across the street from the Cambridgeside Galleria). Because I was donating my hair to LoL, they cut it and styled it for free. You might check them out.

Charity is lovely but

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

You could always sell it yourself and keep the cash.

Re: Charity is lovely but

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

It's very unlikely that anyone would buy the hair of someone who lives in the US: almost everyone in the US washes their hair too frequently for it to be particularly useful for wigs.