What is worse, to me, is that they always suggest the same thing. "Donate it so that a kid with cancer can have a wig!" Really? You still think that a child with cancer will end up with my hair as part of their wig? Sadly, they are mistaken, but my words will fall on deaf ears as they still see me as someone who is just selfish.
So what is so wrong with donating hair to charity? Nothing, if you are looking to get out of paying the $15 for a hair cut. With most of the donating things that happen, that is the only good outcome that will come of it. Few places actually get wigs to children, and far fewer of them will be children with cancer, and even fewer of them will be given away instead of paid for.
Below are some examples from different sources about the subject.
... although charities have been highly effective at stirring the passions of donors, they have been less successful at finding a use for the mountains of hair sent to them as a result. As much as 80 percent of the hair donated to Locks of Love, the best known of the charities, is unusable for its wigs, the group says. Many people are unaware of the hair donation guidelines and send in hair that is gray, wet or moldy, too short, or too processed, some of which is immediately thrown away. Even hair that survives the winnowing may not go to the gravely ill, but may be sold to help pay for charities’ organizational costs.
At the headquarters of Locks of Love in Lake Worth, Fla., the hair deluge — up to 2,000 individual donations a week — can be daunting for the small staff of six employees and 10 to 15 volunteers.
“We created this monster because people get so much from it,” said Madonna Coffman, the president of Locks of Love. “They get the attention. They get a warm and fuzzy feeling. They feel they’re going to help a child.”
Locks of Love sends the best of the hair it receives to a wig manufacturer, Taylormade Hair Replacement in Millbrae, Calif., which weeds through the selection still further, rejecting up to half.
“We hate throwing it away but ultimately we have to clear the place out,” said Greg Taylor, the president and owner of Taylormade. “There is a disparity between the hundreds and hundreds of braids and ponytails and the number of hairpieces we’ve produced.”
Mr. Taylor sells the wigs wholesale to Locks of Love for less than $1,000. Since the charity began in December 1997, it has provided about 2,000 wigs to recipients for free or a reduced price. The group makes clear in its literature and on its Web site that most of the wig recipients are not children with cancer. Rather, they are children who suffer from alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that destroys follicles and results in hair loss. About 2 percent of the population, including half a million children, are estimated to have alopecia.
But many alopecia sufferers seem unaware that they are the group’s main priority; only about 10 apply for a wig each week, Ms. Coffman said. Many donors, too, seem ignorant or only partly aware of the group’s focus. Maggie Varney, a hairdresser and owner of a salon in St. Clair Shores, Mich., said she was shocked to learn that hair she collected from her clients and sent to Locks of Love was not used for wigs for children with cancer.
The idea that donated hair can benefit a gravely ill woman or child is so pervasive that some long-haired people even report being harassed for not chopping off their locks. Heidi Woeller, 47, an administrative assistant at a hardware company in DeKalb, Ill., whose hair reaches the back of her calves when worn loose, recalled that at an antiques fair last summer two women asked if she intended to donate. When she said no, they berated her, insisting she set an example. “They’re basically asking, ‘What are your charitable intentions this year?’ ” Ms. Woeller said.Elizabeth Hayt, The New York Times, 2007
They seem to have edited their website, so that they removed a lot of the numbers that we put together to figure out what is going on.
From this page [http://www.locksoflove.org/press.html], they say that they were founded in 1989, and that they have served "over 2000" children. For the math, I'll say 2500, since that's the next number they're likely to round off to. The total is probably under 3000, or else they've said "over 3000." Since they were founded in 1989, they've been in existance for 17 years, in which to do this work. Some of the children probably have gotten more than one wig, so lets say, 3000 wigs.
In a previous version of their website, they said they received 2000 hair donations a week. However, they probably didn't get so many over their whole existence (starting from zero), so I'll say an average of 1000 per week, over their existence.
At some point they posted that they needed 6-10 donations per wig. I'll go with 10.
So these are the numbers I'll use to figure out how much hair goes into the wigs.
1000 donations a week
10 donations per wig
15 years
3000 wigs
1000 donations a week x 52 weeks in a year x 15 years is 780,000 donations.Anonymous, The Long Hair Community*, 2008
780,000 donations, with 10 donations per wig, would be hair for 78,000 wigs.
They've probably made about 3000 wigs, from donations sufficient to make 78,000. That is about 3.8% of the hair received going to wigs.
That's a scam, at least from the hair donors point of view.
People are donating their hair to go into wigs, not to be sold, thrown out, or left sitting in a warehouse. People are being pressured to cut their hair for donation, by people who think the hair will go into wigs for sick kids.
Locks of Love is saying "give us your hair, we'll make it into a wig for a sick kid." And overall, that's a lie.
And it is a lie that leads to many of us being pressured to cut our hair when we don't want to.
And that's why many people here don't like Locks of Love.
*Not all persons at the Long Hair Community or similar support sites are against the donation of hair to the right cause.
However, Locks of Love is often referred to as "LoL" on that and
similar support sites for a reason, and not just to abbreviate their
name into initials.
I have two problems with the whole donation issue:
A) Companies flat out LIE to get people to donate. They lie about the state of the hair they need, how much they need for a single wig, they lie about who the donations will go to and they GUILT TRIP people into donating. It’s not just LoL [Locks of Love].
B) But hey, say that didn’t lie: You know what people with a sickness want? What little children with cancer want? A cure. And if they can’t have THAT, you know what they want then? Blood donors. Bone marrow donors. Volunteers donating their time to make life tolerable for sick people and bring a ray of sunshine in their lives. Money for doctors, nurses and caretakers. Money towards education and awareness programs. Money towards studies and science.
I have a huge freaking problem with people who think they have “saved a little girl with cancer, yay!” because they haven’t [when it comes to donating hair]. All they have done is do a big fat public stunt to make themselves look good. It’s completely selfish. “Look how deep and totally non-shallow I am! Sitting here in the spotlight and being totally deep and totally non-shallow and saving a little girl with cancer!” How about donating money? Time? Blood? Bone marrow? Maybe a kidney? No, no, what was I thinking. That doesn’t come with 15 minutes basking in the spotlight, because that is ACTUALLY helping someone. Directly. Not just indirectly by giving you the chance of maybe, just maybe, your hair is in a state where it’s actually useful for a wig to cover up someone’s temporary baldness.Ida Frøslev Pedersen, Friend and Fellow Rapunzel, 2012
The next time you see a person with long hair, don't assume they will want to donate it to a scam and don't assume they don't do anything to help people. Instead, ask yourself "What have I done to help recently?"
