Yesterday Annie received a beautiful card from Locks of Love for the donation of her hair.  We could not get it to scan even close to how beautiful the glossy card is, so here is a mediocre scan of the card.

Here is Annie practicing her piano lesson.   I love watching her practice with her long golden brown hair. 

Here is Annie with that long hair.  I measured it the other day and the longest pieces are over 27 inches. 

Over the past year, our tender-headed Annie has enjoyed her long hair except when I brush it out several times a day.  Over the past few months it has become increasingly difficult to keep large knots from forming with even the least bit of activity … such as swinging, biking, climbing the treehouse, and even just sleeping.  The top 10 inches are a different texture than the bottom 17 inches which also meant that braids work well for the top but not the bottom.  Annie and I thought that maybe cutting off 5 inches or so on the bottom would give her some relief from so much brushing.

That was until Annie found out about Locks of Love. 

Locks of Love is a not-for-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children, ages 6 to 18, who have medical hair loss.   Most of these children suffer from an auto-immune condition called alopecia areata where the hair follicles shut down.  There is no known cause or cure.  Most of these children are completely bald.   Almost 5 million Americans have this condition.

Locks of Love is committed to providing high quality hair pieces to children who have lost their hair.  The hair prostheses are custom made from donated ponytails.  Each prosthesis requires 8 donated ponytails of at least 10 inches of untreated, unbleached hair and each prosthesis retails between $3,500 and $6,000.  Locks of Love provides them free of charge or on a sliding scale.  These prostheses are different from synthetic hairpieces because they form a vacuum seal, and do not require the use of tape or glue.  Only the wearer of the prosthesis may remove it by breaking the vacuum seal at the temples.  Children can also swim and shower with their hair in place and other children can not tug the hair off.   Because children’s heads are growing, they may apply for a new prosthesis every 18 months.

80% of donated hair comes from children and just about all of these children are girls since at least 10 inches of hair is required.

When Annie reviewed the photographs of little girls who were bald headed, she requested that her be cut significantly so that some little girl somewhere in the world could feel a part of beautiful girlhood and have pretty hair.  After receiving permission from Daddy, off we went to my hair dresser.  I was teary eyed as I washed and brushed Annie’s hair before leaving for the hair shop, but I kept thinking of the photographs of the little girls without hair and that helped quite a bit.  I also knew that it would be wrong to stifle a generous spirit in my daughter so we needed to go through with this.     

I brushed her hair one last time.   Annie is 50 inches tall and her hair takes up 25 inches and then turns 2 more inches to cover the top of her head.

Off to Patsy’s.  Patsy has been doing my hair for 15 years, but I am one of her newer customers.  She has been licensed for 40 years and she is just incredible when it comes to hair and she has given her gift to the public in many ways that most hairdressers would never even consider.   She herself has earned the expression “locks of love” with all that she has done for people.  You can tell that she is one of my favorite people in my small world.   Here she prepares the ponytail.

Here come those scissors!

Now for some style.  She also showed us how to restore Annie’s bang line to the proper place.

All done.   I wonder who the other seven girls are who are sending ponytails to give locks to a girl who has none.

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