Donating Hair: Locks of Love versus Beautiful Lengths

So not on purpose, but more through passive neglect, my hair got monstrously long. I didn’t originally start out growing it long to donate but one day recently I realized that it WAS actually long enough to give to someone in need, and I was sick of it anyway. So, I was ready to lop off that ponytail and send it off to Locks of Love, which of course we’ve all heard about.

Then I started doing a little bit of research and found out some surprising things about Locks of Love. First of all, they don’t actually use most of the hair they receive to make wigs for children in need. Whatever can’t go into a wig they sell (for other people to make vanity extensions). I understand their need to have a source of income, as a nonprofit organization, but it oogs me out a little that my hair might be sold for extensions on a Paris Hilton-wannabe.

Secondly, Locks of Love charges their recipients (mostly children who have alopecia--genetic baldness--rather than life-threatening illnesses) for their wigs. It’s a sliding scale of course, but none of the wigs are free. Which was also a little unsettling to me.

Further research shows that Locks of Love has only sold “given” about 3,000 wigs to children since their creation.

On the other hand, Pantene shampoo sponsors a program in conjunction with the American Cancer Society called Beautiful Lengths. All of their wigs are given for free to women who have suffered hair loss after cancer treatment. They have given out over 24,000 wigs to date.

Beautiful Lengths also never sells hair that is unusable—instead, they donate it to an environmental program that uses the hair to make giant “hair mats” that absorb oil spills in the ocean. Apparently human hair is the most efficient way to clean up oil spills (who knew!). I really like the idea that if my ponytail should be unusable in a wig for some reason, it would go to an environmental cause rather than someone’s vanity hair extensions.

And lastly, Beautiful Lengths only requires an 8-inch minimum ponytail, while Locks of Love’s minimum is 10 inches. My ponytail ended up measuring 11 inches total so this didn’t matter, but it might to someone who is growing for donation purposes!

As you can probably guess, my choice was Beautiful Lengths. And here’s the end result!