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OT: hair donation

I finally had *enough* and asked DD#2 to cut my hair on Friday. She took off about 12 inches, and now it's just brushing my shoulders - barely long enough to pull back into an elastic (but long enough, or I'd never survive a Baltimore summer! That's the criterion for length - has to be long enough to pull back.)

Anyway, I was going to donate the ponytail to Locks of Love, but then DD#1 clued me into the controversy surrounding its worthiness as a charity. I did a little poking around online and decided instead to send my hair to Pantene, who uses donations for wigs for cancer patients. They seem to have a really good track record.

The only thing is - hair can't be more than 5% gray, and I'd like to think I'm close to the border on this. Can't figure out what 5% would look like, and I'm not going to count them and figure it out the math!

Sue

Reply to
Susan Hartman
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Congratulations on the haircut. It's great that you took the time to donate to a really worthy cause.

You have me wondering! Don't gray haired ladies ever need wigs? What do they do for them?

Lucille

Reply to
Lucille

I've been told that they remove the gray hairs as "it doesn't take color well" for all donations.

I'll well past the 5%

C
Reply to
Cheryl Isaak

And some of us are silver and stopped dyeing our hair years ago.

Lucille

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Reply to
Lucille

I happen to like my silver threads. Some how I'm the one that ended up with really white "grey hair" instead of the yellow grey that my sister has.

Cheryl

Reply to
Cheryl Isaak

. What's the controversy? I hadn't heard about it.

Linda

Reply to
lewmew

No controversy. Just the fact that Locks for Life and Pantene, both of whom collect hair for wigs for cancer patients, don't take gray hair. I questioned what they do for gray haired cancer patients who need wigs.

Lucille

Reply to
Lucille

Actually...yes controversy. Locks of Love has been accused of selling a fair percentage of donated hair rather than using it for wigs to be given away. They've been rather keen to avoid discussing the whole thing. There are many former donors who have found alternate charities because of how misleading Lock of Love was being.

Becky A.

Reply to
Becky A

I didn't know that. Are they selling it because it's not usable or just for profit?

Lucille

Reply to
Lucille

Locks of Love is technically a non-profit, but from what I've heard their overhead costs are well-padded. The numbers being passed around are that in 2002, they sold off donated hair to the tune of $150,000...and only produced 113 wigs for charity. Now, given that human hair doesn't fetch too much per bundle...that's a hell of a lot of donated hair they sold. I seriously doubt it was unusable hair, since how else could they sell it on to someone else?

If your heart moves you to donate your ponytail, please use caution when selecting who it goes to.

Becky A.

Reply to
Becky A

Yes, lots of controversy. I googled "Locks of Love" and "reputable" and found many threads in many different places questioning the charity. Way too much overhead, and at a glance, the numbers just didn't seem to add up right to me. (One example: a website showed a filing of the officers' names/hours, and the treasurer works five hours a week....now, how you can run a multi-million dollar charity and get by on only 5 hours a week of treasurer work doesn't make sense to me!)

I didn't trace it in great detail, but it was enough to make me switch to the Pantene charity, which had no questions attached.

Sue

Reply to
Susan Hartman

Wow! They got my last donation, but they won't get my next! I'll have to try to remember about Pantene. My hair grows quick enough that every other year I cut off ~15 inches and donate it. Wigs for Kids wouldn't take it the last time since I'd had highlights (which struck me as really a stupid restriction), so it went to Locks of Love. Not anymore!

Heather > Becky A wrote:

Reply to
Heather in NY

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