Hair loss is a fairly common occurrence these days. A range of factors can cause it, and the reason for your condition determines the options you have for combating it.
There are now creams, shampoos, medications, and lifestyle practices directed at preventing or controlling hair loss. However, some hair loss conditions reduce your options to wigs alone. In that case, it’s so severe that oils, shampoos, and other hair care products have little to no effect.
Wigs are easy to make and are excellent solutions to cases like these. The best wigs are those made with human hair.
Can I Donate Hair to Someone Else?
Yes, you can donate hair to someone else, but not through hair transplants. If you’re thinking about donating some hair follicles to someone, perhaps a close relative, then that’s impossible. The recipient’s body will undoubtedly reject the grafted hairs; they’ll be perceived as foreign and unacceptable.
Here, you’ll be donating hair to organizations and facilities that accept it. Usually, the hair goes to patients who have leukemia, cancer, and other conditions that require chemotherapy or radiation therapy. However, you can be helpful differently, and this method requires at least 8 to 12 inches of your hair.
These treatments are inevitable for these medical conditions, but they can result in severe hair loss. In extreme cases, it can be permanent.
As long as you have healthy hair, you can make someone with severe hair loss smile today! Even if the hair loss is only temporary, it can damage self-esteem when a person has to lose their hair involuntarily. However, there are wigs that the person can rely on, made from our donations.
What are the Requirements for Donating Hair?
When you’re looking to donate hair, you can cut it yourself or go to a salon for help. However, there are some requirements you need to meet for your donation to be acceptable. Some of them include:
Length
Unfortunately, you can’t donate short tresses. If you’re currently sporting short hair, you’ll have to wait until your hair grows to eight inches at least before you can consider donating it. Most organizations accept nothing less than twelve inches. Hence, ensure you make inquiries before snipping.
Texture and Density
You can donate any hair texture, as long as they’re your natural tresses. So, hair donation organizations accept coarse, medium, and fine hair.
For a donation to be worthy of being wigged, it must be full enough. When you’re preparing to cut your hair, you can part it into four. Parting into six is much better, too, as this method ensures you have enough density to donate.
Put the parts into tight ponytails and snip right above the rubber bands. You can leave as much as an inch to ensure the strands stay secure and firm during transportation. Afterward, place the ponytails in packaging paper and ship them to your designated hair donation organization.
Treatments
Colored hair is the trend these days. This can be a bright color or even a more natural one. However, as long as it’s not your natural color, it won’t be acceptable by a hair donation organization. The same applies to highlights and perms.
If the treatment you’ve given your hair is temporary, then you can wash it out before cutting and shipping.
Shipping Condition
Before cutting your hair, it’s best to wash it first. This is because the hair needs to be clean before shipping. You can’t wash it after cutting because of mold.
The bundles will be wet and will undoubtedly start growing mold before they arrive at the foundation. In addition, packaging and shipping damp hair can be very challenging.
Where Can I Donate Hair?
More people look into donating hair each passing day. Again, it’s an opportunity to make others smile and restore emotional balance. You’re providing a super quality wig for them, and at no cost too.
Alopecia areata is a disease of the immune system. It can result in permanent hair loss, as the immune system keeps rejecting the follicles, and eventually, the body becomes unable to keep up with hair production.
There are many reasons a person can lose their hair, which also explains why many organizations exist to supply excellent quality solutions. Some of them include:
Wigs for Kids
Yearly, about 17,000 children aged 0 to 19 are diagnosed with cancer, as statistics have shown. At this young age, self-esteem is easily shaken, making it difficult for a child undergoing chemotherapy to cope in school, maintain a social life, and do significant activities with other kids.
As such, Wigs for Kids has taken the responsibility of providing human hair wigs for children worldwide, and it’s been that way for more than 30 years. So, if you’re looking to donate your locks, this is an excellent place to start.
Locks of Love
Locks of Love is another organization that champions creating wigs for children who need them. The idea behind it is to create a solution to hair loss, one that boosts kids’ confidence in disadvantaged situations.
This organization has been in existence since 1997 and has detailed requirements for hair donors.
When you donate your hair to Hair We Share, you can expect the locks to be made into fashionable wigs and given to people who need them but are financially held back.
Children With Hair Loss
Children can be pretty mean to each other sometimes, as they don’t understand their actions’ effects in the long run. As such, a child losing their hair from chemotherapy may be teased by other children who likely won’t understand the circumstances. Again, the fragility of a child’s esteem may explain why so many organizations donate wigs to kids.
So, when you donate to Children with hair loss, you’re saving a kid from a lifetime of trauma and esteem issues.
Bottom Line
Donating your hair is a noble thing to do, regardless of your reason. What matters is that those who feel disadvantaged because they suffer from hair loss can regain their esteem and confidence when they wear the wigs that have been fashioned from your healthy locks.