Hair Donation

I've been wanting to do a hair donation for some time now. In the past I was either too impatient to let it grow or I was in an office setting where having hair that long just didn't look professional. The organization I wanted to donate to, Pantene Beautiful Lengths, requires a minimum of 8" and you need to leave a little on your head after the fact too so it does take a while to grow out, even for someone like me whose hair grows pretty fast.

I'd already let my hair get pretty long over the last year or so, and once I got laid off I didn't have to worry about the latter issue either. Then came the patience part. It was starting to get annoyingly long but I wanted to make sure I had enough to make a good donation. Willy measured my ponytail for me last week and he said I had about 8.5-9" available, leaving the resulting hair at just about or slightly above chin level. Time for the big chop!

I went to the salon this morning with a photographer friend in tow to do some before and after shots. This friend was also my wedding photographer so I was lucky to have a pro. Hopefully she'll have the pics ready to send me soon and I'll update this post with a few shots later. The lady at the salon was so nice and she told me that I had 10" to donate! Wow, I had no idea.

Now I'm sporting a cute (if I do say so myself ;)) little bob that's longer in front and shorter in back (it's about an inch below the very base of my head). My hair looks so much healthier coming out of the salon. I haven't had hair this short in a while, but surprisingly it doesn't feel that weird. And I haven't even needed to use a scarf yet like I thought I would--I've been insulating my neck with my hair on the cold days out here and thought I'd be freezing after the big chop :) The salon is so organized that they're going to send my donation in for me along with another lady's donation that's being cut later this week.

Final note: the reason I chose to donate to PBL rather than the better-known Locks of Love is that PBL focuses on wigs for cancer patients, whereas LoL primarily creates wigs for people suffering from alopecia, which researchers believe is an autoimmune disease where the body attacks its own hair follicles. Alopecia sufferers are often completely bald, including women. While this is also a sad and, I imagine, demoralizing condition I personally wanted to focus on cancer sufferers, hence my decision to go with PBL.