Are you one of the many women who, after their wedding day, decide it’s time for the chop?!
While long hair is beautiful, and looks great in wedding photographs, once the Big Day is over it can be a bit of a hassle to look after … with many brides choosing to lop off their locks.
Changing hair style after marriage is actually an age-old tradition, with wives in the “olden days” wearing their hair up, to signify their new status.
Today, we are more likely to get it cut off all together!
But all those years of valuable growth and TLC could go on to enjoy a whole new life …
You could join the many wonderful people around the world who choose to donate their hair to charities supporting women with hair loss, due to medical reasons such as cancer or alopecia.
In Australia, there are a number of organisations, like Kids Cancer Foundation and Variety, where you can donate your ponytail to help change a sick child’s life by making them feel more confident.
The Sustainable Salons website is a great option. Just type in your postcode, and you will be directed to a local salon that can cut your ponytail and deliver it directly to a wig maker. They’re a social enterprise that works with organisations like the Australian Alopecia Areata Foundation and Cancer Council to make wigs for people experiencing hair loss.
Prepare Your Hair for Donation
You can either prepare your hair yourself, or have a hairdresser do it for you. Importantly, your hair must be at least 20cm long and be washed and dried, without using any styling products.
The process involves:
- Dividing hair into small ponytails around the head, and securing each one with an elastic hair tie.
- Plaiting the full length of each ponytail and adding another elastic tie at the bottom.
- Measuring the ponytail between the two elastic ties and making sure it’s at least 20cm in length.
- Cutting the hair 2cm above the elastic, then keeping the plait flat and dry.
- Sealing the ponytails into a snap lock bag and posting to its destination (a salon may do this on your behalf).
What Happens Next?
Once they’re received, ponytails are sorted and graded by hand, according to the colour, hair type, and length.
The ponytails are brushed carefully to remove any knots, then the hair is separated into small strands.
A collection of strands is sewn onto a super-thin cloth strip known as a weft; these wefts are then sewn onto the sides and back of a wig cap.
It takes at least 10 to 12 ponytails, and up to 60 hours work, to make just one wig! So as you can imagine, real hair wigs can be quite pricey. The big advantage is that they do look and feel more natural than their synthetic counterparts – so you can see why people experiencing medical hair loss would be super grateful to receive a donated real hair wig.
With proper care and maintenance, real hair wigs can last for many years.
And it just goes to show that you don’t need to spend money or give the shirt off your back to support a worthwhile charity; the hairs on your head will do just fine!
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