Let down your hair...

We have a lot of hair around here...  and I'm going to be a little vulnerable and let you know that I'm slightly attached to our hair. I'm scared if we cut it, we'll be like Rapunzel and lose our super powers. 

I know. I'm weird. 

I grow my hair super long (like obnoxiously) until the point that I can't take it and want to go all Britney circa 2007. And then I chop it all off. 

I repeat this pattern every  18 months/couple of years. I'm ridiculous. But like the old saying goes, I stick to what I'm good at... and I'm apparently amazing at having a ton of hair and birthing children with a ton of hair. 

I honestly grow my hair out for two reasons:

1. I'm lazy and long hair is way easier than short(ish) hair

2. To donate

I chopped 8 inches off again last week and I'm all set to send those locks away!

 Here's a few of my favorite places to donate:

Children With Hair Loss: Non-profit organization that provides human hair replacements at no cost to children and young adults facing medically-related hair loss. CWHL was created when the founder's niece lost her hair after undergoing chemo as a child. CWHL accepts 8 inches of hair or longer and also accepts color treated and gray hair as donations. Learn how you can donate your hair here. 

Pantene Beautiful Lengths: We've never donated to Pantene, but I do love that they focus on providing wigs exclusively to women going through cancer treatments. Hair must be 8 inches, untreated and no more than 5% gray. Read their policies here. 

Wigs for Kids: Similar to CWHL, Wigs for Kids provides wigs exclusively to children.  However, they require a minimum of 12 inches of hair for donations. (So the actual Rapunzel's of the world!) You can read more about their requirements and process here. 

Matter of Trust: Y'all. This organization is SO STINKING COOL! They take ANY amount of donated hair and create matts and broom booms to help clean up after oil spills and other hazardous waste disasters! This is the organization Radley chose to donate his hair to a few years ago! Y'all - they take ANY LENGTH of hair. Scraps, animal fur...even used lint and use this to CLEAN OUR ENVIRONMENT. I seriously love this so much. You can read about their Clean Wave program here. 

** Their process is a little more involved than simply mailing hair to a physical address. They try to live their mission at all levels, which means using as little storage space and resources as possible. They have you register through a donor match program to arrange drop off/pick up when the need for your donation matches. You can read about it here. 

My number one recommendation if you are considering donating your hair is to do your own research and choose a place that you feel good about. This is personal, you are giving a literal piece of yourself away and that is AWESOME! It's also important that you are happy where that donation is going! Here's a great article I found that can clear up some confusion on the rumors people hear about some organizations that accept hair donations.  

Hope this helps anyone thinking about donating your hair!